Do you have any scars?

I have a small scar on my right knee from when I was eight years of age.  I was biking home after spending a summer day at the local pool with my brother.  I hopped up onto the step of the water fountain in the trail to catch a cool drink before heading home.  When I jumped off the step, I gouged my knee on the corner of the brick structure that contained the fountain.  The cut was deep – deep enough for stitches – but being on my knee, it didn’t bleed much so I biked home and had dinner with the family before my dad took me to the hospital to get it sewn up.

(Those were the days when parents felt comfortable letting kids out of their sight and water was easily accessible without having to put coins in a dispensing machine, but we’ll save that for another Aha!)

While the scar is tiny now it does remind me of good times on summer vacation spending entire sunny days at Burgoyne Woods pool.  Watching the doctor stitch up my knee is part of the movie that plays out with this memory; the scar represents adventure.

Do you re-live the experience every time you tell the story about your scar?  What about your invisible scars?

“A lot of us grow up and we grow out of the literal interpretation that we get when we’re children, but we bear the scars all our life. Whether they’re scars of beauty or scars of ugliness, it’s pretty much in the eye of the beholder.”  ~  Stephen King

Aha! ~ Be ennobled by your scars

Scars are symbolic.  They’re proof that you’ve endured an irreplaceable experience and come out the other side of that experience, changed.  Observe them, acknowledge them, and most of all honour them with a smile and a story.

It’s how you tell the story that will make you a victim or a beacon.

“It’s a shallow life that doesn’t give a person a few scars.”  ~ Garrison Keillor

Tomorrow – February 14th and Valentine’s Day in Canada – we’ll go LIVE at noon eastern, dressed in red, and ready to talk about today’s empowering battle scars. Join us here