The Morning Monster

You should know that I can feel you reading this... can feel your gaze and attention reach out and resonate across time and space, feel it create a little glow in me. So when I prepare these words, I do so with love, knowing that at some point in my distant past or future, or for you, right here, now ~ we're connected.

In that spirit, let me tell you about the Morning Monster.

I have a young daughter, a toddler, and sometimes when she wakes up in the morning, she's a terror. Screaming:

𝓖ℴ 𝒶𝔀𝒶𝔂!

playing us off against one another, refusing to be compliant, stamping her feet, slamming doors. Inconsolable.

We call this the Morning Monster.

It's an aggressive, wearying start to the day. The reality is it's been a long time since dinner, and she's just hangry. And so there is one simple way to defeat the Morning Monster, and that is to feed her breakfast. Even a mouthful will deradicalise her, turn her back into my beautiful sweet girl.

But the monster doesn't desire that. In fact, the one thing the Morning Monster will not let you do is feed her, because for the Morning Monster, breakfast is an existential threat. The Morning Monster has forgotten who she is, no longer recognises herself, no longer wishes to be that weak child. That first bite of porridge or Weet-Bix, and the Morning Monster would cease to exist.

And so the game becomes clear: get around the monster's wiles, and give her what she needs, however you can, especially the thing she least desires.

I think that's pretty much what healing is.

Sometimes, the thing you absolutely cannot bear to do is the thing that you must.

It's true for me. Is that true for you?

Maybe you just don't see it yet. Or perhaps choose not to, like I did for so long, because it is too terrifying to know that what you despise to do might be the thing that saves you.

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