Category: Life Lessons

Life Lessons from Game of Thrones (contains #GoT6x03 spoiler!)

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Jon Snow Tribute

Monday night is media night in our house. Depending on the time of year it could be The Walking Dead that keeps home or Game of Thrones.

Two very different sagas that have one device in common: characters you care about in life threatening situations.

Tonight’s episode, number 3 in season 6, was full of life lessons, so if you haven’t seen it, stop reading, and go have a 1:1 with some of the most perilous circumstances in the 7 kingdoms.

If you have, let me know what your favorite moment was.

Mine was when the crowd favorite, leader of the Night’s Watch got a pep talk from Davos. He had a bad day, betrayed by his friends, so he wasn’t in the mood for the get up and go that was being asked of him.

“But I failed,” the Lord Commander said. Sounding, if we’re being a honest, a bit like a tired five year old. After all, don’t we have all limits?

“Yes. Now go do it again,” says Ser Davos Seaworth, who truth to be told, is at the end of a string of a few bad months, maybe even years.

Good advice from the trenches.

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An Expert Interview on the Meaning of Life

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Northern Lights, Greenland

Full disclosure. There’s no expert. There’s only a crystal clear moment during a pre-K music class I want to share with you. Because sometime during the forty minutes I sat on a plastic chair in a semi circle, flanked by my husband and other parents, the meaning of life was revealed to me. There I was, smiling at the precociousness of our eldest and his classmates in their very sweet seated circle, even as my mind whirred on to the packed day ahead of reading to children at multiple schools.

I don’t know if it’s the lack of sleep. Or perhaps my hormones are on the fritz. But I do know that when our five year old sat on the mat alongside his classmates and sang “You are my Sunshine,” a tunnel opened up before me.

It was like the beam of light that some people describe during near death experiences. The tractor beam that is calling you to something beyond. Think of that 90s classic, the film Ghost. This wasn’t a physical beam of light, it was more like a tug at the seat of my heart and mind.

Emotionally, I could sense the end of my life, 60 or so years down the road. This a tiny voice whispered inside me. Pay attention. This is what it is all about. Love. I held my breath as the children sang verses of the familiar song I had never heard before. It’s all so simple.

“Why did that affect you so much?” My husband asked later.

I didn’t have a solid answer. I spend a lot of time around very sweet, hilarious children – ours and those of our friends. Yet there was something about that morning, that moment, that drilled into my very core.

When we are tired, our defenses are down. No accident that this is when these types of messages can get in. I was fanning myself, avoiding eye contact with the other moms and of course, stoic dads to my left, as tears welled.

Letting someone else know that they are loved. That, on a Sunday morning during elementary school music class, is what my heart said was the meaning of life.

Have you had a similar experience? What messages have you taken away?

 

Make Ignoring it Your Superpower

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Ignore by rippchenmitkraut66

Remember the time you were sitting beside your brother (sister/cousin/neighbor)? The asphalt stretched before you in unfulfilled promise. S/he chewed potato chips, waking you up from a nap.

“Stop!” You said, at increasing volume. Words were exchanged. You reached for the bag, balled it up, and tossed it into the front seat (or out the window, depending on what type of kid you were).

“Ignore him!” Your mother snapped, trying to swipe at both you, unable to reach from the driver’s side as you shrunk to either side of the car.

Excellent advice, mom.

As an adult, I’m locked in a repeated pattern of proximity annoyance. Like Mario, trying to save the princess, Bowser pops up, obstructing my way. I marshal my energy and am often the loser.

Then I learned a new approach to dealing with these persistent nuisances.

“See what you can ignore,” Gretchen Rubin and her sister Elizabeth Craft counseled in the latest episode of their Happier podcast. Upright toilet seats, ajar cupboard doors: decide what’s worth your attention and let the rest go unattended.

Genius, actually. Basically a new kind of mindfulness, where you choose what to focus on, rather than letting your emotions sway you. Respond, instead of react.

I’m trying the ignore it strategy with the biggest Bowser trying to wreck my life. And it’s working.

Yes, in the moment, the feelings are overwhelming. Tears are not far away. Instead of dwelling on them, however, I move on to something that does need my attention: picking up children, writing a piece, eating. I move on and so does the emotion.

Until the next time. With a Jedi like intensity, I steel myself not to be ruffled by Bowser.

Hopefully soon, though unlikely to be as soon as I’d like, I can move on to the next level.

What can you ignore to claim your Jedi mind trick? Who do you know in desperate need of this gem of a strategy?