Life Lessons from Lightning McQueen
My tiny humans love all three of the Disney/Pixar Cars movies (hint hint Disney, we would love a fourth movie, because mama is tirrrred of seeing the same three movies). We are usually watching them in rotation every Friday night for pizza family movie night, and I am pretty confident I know most of the names of 95% of all the cars in every movie aside from the main characters, Jeff Corvette, here’s looking at you. We were watching the Cars 3 a few weeks ago and a moment I have watched over and over struck a different chord and I have sat with it and feel that it is the best way to start this journey here.
You see, Lightning McQueen (spoiler alert) crashes, goes through a period of, dare I say, grief that his career may be over, and then decides that he is in fact not done with racing. He heads to his new training center with all the bells and whistles including a simulator. Feeling impatient, frustrated with the process (purely my observations), he skips ahead and tries out the racing simulator. Welp, (spoiler alert) he crashes and destroys the simulator. And throughout it, the simulator repeats “you have hit a wall”, and Lightning ends up repeating “I have crashed, I have crashed”. I won’t ruin the rest of the movie for you, you can watch it on your next wild Friday night.
I could not shake the feeling that this was my experience, played out in a red car that likes to race. Some bad things happened, I faced set backs, got discouraged, and then impatient as things did not go according to MY plan (gasp, how dare they!) I have found myself repeating “I have hit a wall, I have hit a wall” to myself in the midst of processing the year that has been, the disappointments I have faced, and seek out how to balance my life as a mama- trying to raise two tiny humans to be as kind and good hearted as possible, all the while learning and growing in my craft as a therapist, artist, and business owner.
The take away is this: Lightning was impatient and he did not operate out of the need for collaboration or support. I could be reaching, but to me, it makes sense. In the same way, comparison, daily life stressors, impatience, and high expectations, mixed with a world that seems delivers chaos to our doorstep everyday can greatly impact how we show up for ourselves, our families, and our work, it certainly does for me.
The good news?
We are not alone. You see, Lightning had people that stuck with him, that cheered him on, even when he was being a big turd sometimes. My husband can probably tell you, there are days when I am definitely not my best self. When I am stuck, I try to explore creative ways to teach my kiddos, learn about myself, and show up as a therapist. Am I always good at choosing this response? No, thank goodness for grace. My heart for this space is to show up, share ideas and resources, and cheer others on as we navigate this wild world as parents, family, friends, therapists, teachers, whoever YOU may be, even on the days that are hard. Until the next edition, peace.
