Can't Doesn't Live Here...

Last week, my 8 year old daughter stood on a stage and sang a song for an audience filled with her church family.  She’s got a lovely voice, can carry a tune and music comes naturally to her.  She did a great job and was met with a standing ovation.  I couldn’t have been more proud of her.

Let’s be honest, I’m her mom.  I’m required by law to say that she did a great job.  The standing ovation came from people who have known her and loved her since the day she was born, so they’re not terribly unbiased, either.  I recognize that there were tempo issues and that she didn’t hit all the notes just right.  I’m not ready to ship her off to Hollywood or to become her Mom-ager. 

Still, I beam with pride.  Not because she’s the best.  Simply because she DID it.  She continues to do it.  She gets on stage – at church, at her dad’s shows, at blues society meetings, and at theater programs – and she just faces the audience and shows them her heart without fear.  It has never occurred to her that not everyone does that.  Not only do they not have the opportunity, they flat out don’t have the nerve.  She truly has no understanding that the very idea of what she does is terrifying to so many people.  I have no intention of telling her.

So often in our lives we’ve been told “You can’t do that!”  Even if we don’t know we’re listening, we absorb the Can’t.  Can’t oozes its way in and settles in our cells, just resting there quietly until we are most vulnerable against a Can’t Attack.

We don’t just hear Can’t from outside.  The loudest and meanest Can’ts come from within.  It’s common and normal to tell yourself that you Can’t Do, Can’t Afford, Can’t Reach, Can’t Bear, Can’t Succeed – not because you know it to be fact, but because somewhere along the line you were told that you Can’t.

What if no one ever told you “You Can’t”?  The idea that you Can’t would never enter your mind.  My uncle survived (and thrived) after a terrible accident because, as he said “No one told ME I was gonna die”.  Can’t never entered his mind.  My mother bent rules to get things done because even if someone told her she couldn’t, she thumbed her nose at Can’t.  My daughter walks on stage, looks her audience in the eyes, and takes control because she has no reason to think she Can’t.  Her dad does it every day.  Sometimes her mom gets on stage and talks to people.  Why should she think there’s a reason SHE can’t?

I’ve always been aware of the Can’ts.  More than once, I’ve driven a long way to a place only to find that I didn’t have the courage to go inside.  Anxiety is fueled by the Can’ts.  Fear of Failure is Can’ts accomplice.  Try is Can'ts arch enemy.  Seeing that, I have pulled it together enough to ignore Can’t and forge ahead.  It’s never easy, but some of my greatest victories have come after kicking Can’t to the curb.

While I do my best to set the example that things will not just magically happen just because she wants them to, I also tell her that she CAN work to make anything happen.  She’s not fearless.  But she believes in herself.  And while she’s kicking Can’ts ass, her little sister is watching, absorbing, believing that she CAN, too.  Maybe one day, they’ll get a Grammy, an Oscar or the Nobel Peace Prize.  Or maybe they’ll live a modestly happy life doing something out of the spotlight.  They know they can and I have no doubt about it.

So, aside from all of the usual delight a mom should feel when a child makes a roomful of people smile, I continue to be overwhelmed with pride over the vision and strength that these two little beings have as they hold up their heads and tell the world “Can’t doesn’t LIVE here!”