Monsters

My son is now old enough to indulge in an imagination and, thanks to his friends at day care, has found out about monsters to populate it. He knows that monsters are things that can get you and that you can run away from them. For him, though, monsters are all in fun. After all, there are even good monsters living on Sesame Street. He hasn’t started to have bad dreams involving monsters yet. (At least, I don’t think he has.) But as grown- ups, we know how real they can be.

Monsters don’t live under the bed or in the basement. Some of the fictional ones may live on Sesame Street, but some of the real ones may also live right down your street. There are the (thankfully infrequent) truly psychotic individuals we as a society have come to call "monsters" because they repeatedly kill or maim others in a spectacular and brutal fashion, but there are other more common monsters out there, too. Rapists, pedophiles and spouse abusers are just three examples of the monsters that could very well live right next door.

Is there anything we can do to protect ourselves from these real world monsters? My son’s solution to bad monsters is simply to run away shouting, "Monsters coming!" And we, too, can run away by ignoring the signs that point to something being wrong, hoping that some hero will come along to conquer the evil. Alternatively, we can find the courage to speak up and to speak out against these monsters that ultimately prey on us all. In reality, these monsters can easily be vanquished because like the monsters my son may see in a darkened room, they cannot live in the light.

There are other monsters, though, that aren’t so easy to conquer. Monsters can, and usually do, live right inside our own heads. We probably create more of our own monsters than would ever exist in reality. However, these are not the monsters of my son’s imagination, the ones that are somewhat fun and can be ignored when convenient. These are the real monsters of the mind.

These monsters come in all shapes and sizes and ferocity levels. Self-doubt, a bad self- image, and lack of commitment are all examples of them. They are with us all the time, can’t be ignored, aren’t fun and can be hell to get rid of. However, our monsters of the mind generally are all descended from a common ancestor: fear. Fear of failure, fear of not fitting in, fear of exposure - all can form the basis of yet another personal monster that terrorizes our life.

And what can we do about these monsters? We can’t run away from them or ignore them because they go everywhere with us; they ARE us. Sometimes it seems as if they take on a life of their own. But like the human monsters that we can conquer, we can courageously stand up to our own internal monsters, too. We can face our fears and confront them for what they are: constructs of the dark places in our mind. Like all other evil monsters, they, cannot thrive in the light, either. It’s just that in this case, it is the light of confidence and acceptance and reason. We all can be heroes of mythic proportions; we can slay monsters daily.