I’d like to tell you a story about a little girl.
When my daughter was about two years old, we were at Target when she needed to use the restroom. She didn’t know which was the girl’s and which was the boy’s. So I looked at her and said the obvious thing, the women’s restroom is the one with the person wearing the superhero cape. And she has never known it any other way.
I know that all women are superheroes because I happen to have been raised by one. Now I’d like to present evidence that my mother was a superhero, and further that you are a superhero as well.
Let’s start with the definition of a superhero:
My mother was not in any comic books, but she definitely has extraordinary and magical powers and I would argue that you do too.
Let’s take a look at some the powers of the most popular superheroes.
Spiderman’s skills include web-slinging, wall-crawling, and spider sense.
It shouldn’t come as any surprise that my mother was not slinging webs or crawling walls (well, she probably WAS crawling the walls at times, but not literally.) And spider sense? The ability to sense that something is wrong before anyone else can tell? I’m pretty sure that most moms have that!
Superman has flight, super strength, and super speed, such as the ability to chase down a train.
When my mom was 70 years old, she took a train to visit me in another state. As soon as she got off of the train, she realized that she had forgotten her purse. So she did what any 70 year old would do, she proceeded to chase down the train! That Amtrak came to a screeching halt, she walked on, casually picked up her purse, and received a round of applause from the passengers.
Take that, Superman!
While there is a little bit of Spiderman and Superman in each of us, Batman is the superhero that I really want to focus on.
Why?
Because Batman doesn’t actually have any super powers. He relies on genius, physical prowess, intimidation and indomitable will to rise to superhero status.
And this is something that you can do as well. I know you can.
Take a look around you. Superheroes are everywhere…and many of them are wearing yoga pants.
It’s possible that you have great genius or physical prowess or intimidation by the mile, but the one thing that I know you have, is an indomitable will.
I know, because I saw you at the checkout, calming a crying baby while opening up your rewards app, and never forgetting to say thank you to the lovely cashier.
I know because I saw you do a killer presentation to the entire marketing team after being up all night with your baby with a 103 degree fever.
I know because you told me that last night you were doing your taxes while cooking dinner, doing laundry, and checking in on homework. Then you put the kids to bed, ordered birthday gifts online, paid bills, and squeezed in a workout.
I know you are a superhero, because you are unstoppable.
You don’t even realize that you have powers that not everyone has.
You may have the ability to listen compassionately where others walk away.
You may have the ability to get four hours of work done in just one.
You may have the gift of healing others bodies or minds.
You may have the gift of patience.
I don’t know what your gift is, but I do know that you have one. And you are amazing.
And when we take your gifts, my gifts, and everyone else’s and we all work together, we can make huge change in our families, our communities, our country, and our planet.
And we can do it all….in our yoga pants.
The perfect t-shirt to celebrate your inner superhero. Consider it a modern-day cape.
Available in 8 sizes and 8 colors, because every superhero is unique.
Photo by Randy Rooibaatjie on Unsplash