The power of trusting in something

About a week ago, we made a poor parenting decision and let our son have a look at the Michael Jackson "Thriller" video. He's 9, a mature and collected dude, and planning to go as a zombie for Halloween, so it just seemed to make sense. A couple minutes in, we realized our mistake. The King of Pop gets taken over by an evil invisible force, crouches down, and lurches forward suddenly with glowing yellow eyes and giant teeth. Game over. My son fled the room and freaked out.

In that moment, my instincts told me to appeal to his logical side. "Listen. This is just a video. Like special effects in a movie! If we could back the camera up, you'd see a crew of people attending to Michael's makeup and lighting, and it wouldn't be scary at all. Trust me!" Well, no soap. He was convinced that he'd never be able to sleep again without having terrible nightmares.

My husband and I continued with a number of logical presentations that seemed to have no effect, and possibly made things worse. I realized that this was not a time for logic. I ran to my son's room, and found his gem collection (he loves those gem mine places that have pre-loaded buckets of stones that you can sift through). I grabbed a clear quartz, brought it back and presented it to him. "Did you know that gemstones can keep away bad dreams? You need to hold it in your hand, or you can keep it under your pillow. Either way, it has the power to keep away nightmares, so you can have only good dreams." My son looked at me warily. "Really?" "Just try it", I told him.

I am no fan of lying to my kids. Or anyone, really. But some credence should be given to the power of a talisman--a signal of meaning that we take to heart, that has a positive effect on our life. We are surrounded by such objects. Lucky mugs, special pens. Maybe they aren't even objects. At some point, does an educational degree, or a particular friendship, or a choice of coffee become a totem? Something that we return to, think about, tell others about, because we feel its having a daily effect on our lives?

If we look closely, with a logical eye, the usefulness of these things might fall away. You could argue that it's dangerous to give them too much sway over our lives. For my son, the crystal worked like a charm (no pun intended). But will he be sleeping with a crystal under his pillow for his whole life? I hope not. But maybe that's the point. Maybe you figure out along the way that while these items can give you security, power or stability, the true source of all of those things is you.