The Art of Being Still

Have you ever been in a restaurant, movie theater, or church service and heard a mom whisper to her children, “Be still and stop moving around!” Not only have I said it to my own children when they were little, but I have witnessed it countless times with moms and dads in numerous situations. It is quite normal for parents to want to teach their children the appropriate behavior in certain social settings. However, being still is one of the more challenging lessons our children will learn.
It seems like such a simple lesson. How hard is it to sit still? Have you tried it lately?

I don't know about you but it seems to me we are going about addressing safety in the wrong way. If you look at the way the brain works, you understand that behavior is the last process in functioning. For instance, thinking comes first, then feelings, and actions are the result of both. I checked over a thousand websites on child safety and almost all focus on behavior.

Several years ago a plane crash landed in Canada and a 15 year old girl was one of the heroes. When asked how she was able to help so many people off the plane she had an interesting and insightful response. She said that when she knew the plane was going to crash, she thought about her options. She could either panic or think it through and help people get off the plane. She decided she was be focused on surviving instead of panicking and being scared. She made a choice because she thought first.

There is a McDonald’s commercial which shows two parents racing to get to their house, competing to be the first to give their son his Happy Meal.  The dad hands it to the boy, thinking he will be the hero. The commercial ends with the boy saying, “Thanks, mom!” and the dad looking like he lost again.

While the commercial provides good humor, it also provokes some important questions:
Do you ever feel that way? Does it seem that no matter how much you do, you are invisible?

I don’t know about you, but I find that the older I get, the more I have to work at staying current. I recently attended a social media conference entitled Blissdom. It was designed to educate, inform, and create relationships among females who are blogging and using Twitter and Facebook on a daily basis.