The Balanced Life, Huntsville Alabama

In honor of Halloween this month....

My daughter is at the age where she LOVES Halloween...so much so that she was insisting on going to the Halloween Super Store (or HSS for short) in town last week (Yes, a full month early) to shop for her costume. Any later, and we run the very significant risk of them running out of all of the good costumes. So, off we go. If you haven't ever been to one of these super creepy, and a little disturbing, Halloween Mega Marts you should go one time in your life. I don't love 'em myself and Halloween's never been my favorite holiday (I'm much more of a turkey/Santa kind of girl) but it is an experience. And like any experience, I believe there's always a lesson or two to be learned. Here's what I got from this most recent adventure:

1. Just because there are lots of options, it doesn't mean they are all good choices. In the HSS, there is an overwhelming number of things to pick from. Scary, gory, funny, cute...you name it, they've got it. Fortunately for the mother of a 7 year old, most of the kids stuff is grouped at the front of the store so we didn't have to venture too far back and we were pretty quickly able to find a satisfactory costume. In life, we're often faced with a variety of options, some of which may just not be the right one for us. Being able to weigh the pros and cons of a decision is an important skill. Taking the time to think through what makes the most sense at the present moment then accepting our ability to decide helps to ensure, as much as possible, that the decision we're making is the best one.

2. Also because there are lots of options, finalizing a decision can be hard. Sometimes we can be paralyzed by the fear of making the wrong decision. This is never more apparent where there are about 50 options to pick from at the HSS. In this example, my daughter, who can be indecisive at times ("But I like this one...and this one...oh, and this one's cool!") she was able to narrow it down relatively quickly, and decide on the coolest costume, "ever". In life, we can be overwhelmed with the options. And sometimes it might seem easier to stay on the fence and not make a decision, rather than risking making the wrong one. The problem, as I often tell clients, is the only thing that we get from sitting on the fence for long is chaffed. We don't make any progress. It's safe, but boring, and worse yet, causes us to stagnate as human beings. When people look at their lives and are struggling with their purpose, a lot of times it's caused by too much fence-sitting.

3. Taking healthy risks is ok. At the front of the HSS, is a huge display of motion-activated animatronics. They are designed to scare some poor, unsuspecting trick or treater as they come up to ask for candy. I decided to give each one a try while my daughter urged me on, from a safe distance, behind a display. Even being prepared for the scare, I still jumped a couple of times, which gave both of us a giggle. I'm not sure we gained anything from this experience, but it was fun. When we step outside our comfort zone in life and take some healthy risks we give ourselves the opportunity to have new experience and growth opportunities.

4. Sometimes you just have to ask. This is the fine art of trick or treating...asking for candy. A kid might just get some candy if they simply hold out their plastic pumpkin bucket when they go up on a porch, but not at my house at least. The requisite "trick or treat!" must be spoken. It's the request that produces results. When working with someone struggling to make a change that would really just require asking a question of someone else, we will think about "what's the worst that could happen" and often it's the person would say "no". The problem is that if we don't ask, we never have the opportunity for the answer to be "yes".

3. In the midst of scary, unpleasant stuff, there is often something beautiful. The HSS is a creepy place. It has lots of stuff in it that I really don't like (including a baby that takes it's face off to reveal a skeleton inside. Yuck.) However, when you narrow your focus to look for a costume that will be suitable for a child, you realize it's there too. Amid the zombies, machetes, ghosts and goblins, there is my daughter's costume. This is true of many of the situations we find ourselves in. One question that has helped me through some difficult times is "what can I learn from this situation?". There's always a chance to learn and grow, even in the darkest times. And if I can keep growing and learning, nothing in my life is a wasted experience.