My Daughter Was Scared, Then She Did Something Truly Brave.

A bedtime ritual that transformed shadows into stories!

Running from scary Dreams Image by Magicthreadworks.com

Yesterday, my 6-year-old daughter mentioned that every time she tries to sleep she gets “bad dreams”. I asked to share what her dreams were about so that I could help her. What she told me was quite descriptive and scary.

In her dream, she saw a monster in the garden who was coming after her. She was trying to run away from it, but found that all the ways out were closed and she was trapped. She was very scared and was almost crying while telling me this.

My daughter has quite an active imagination. She is able to build stories which we often struggle to decipher as truth or fiction. I can’t even dare to imagine how vivid these scenes in her head would be. I had to tell her something to take her fears away.

So I told her that she is super special and has got superpowers. “All these monsters are nothing but someone who is really hurt and sad. When you touch them, you have superpower to really heal them and make them happy. So rather than running why don’t you try to heal them by touching them with your superpowers?”

On this she replied, “I am trying to touch them but it is making them multiply into more and more monsters. Now there are so many of them.”

I was worried for a minute but I had to pacify her so I said, “ Oh that’s great, each time a monster springs up their power gets divided. So you are making them less powerful.”

Eventually she bought into the idea and said, “Oh look! The final one actually turned into a fairy.” I finally took a sigh of relief and smiled. After that she had found her mojo back and started changing those monsters into her cute LaBuBus.

The fact is we are all just telling ourselves some stories in our head. The fun part is because they are our own stories we can give them any ending that we like. So why do we need to keep stuck in a negative loop. Rather we can show ourselves a way out and truly believe in it.

I am currently reading a book called Pschyo Cybernatics, which talks about how our self image actually defines what we can or cannot achieve. If self image is just a story that we tell ourselves then why limit it. Let’s believe that we are someone who can achieve the impossible and our mind is anyways wired in a way to make our beliefs happen.

I have some peculiar reflections about my kid. If you like this post do read:

What is my kid’s mother tongue?