Clearing up that "purplish-black cloud of ink"...

One of my boys is a chameleon. He's diplomatic and spends most of his time skimming across the surface of life. As long as nobody is angry with him he's usually doing just fine.

My other son is intense, opinionated and colorful. He's probably more self-assured than his brother, but he drinks deeply from the cup of life and that's not always easy for him.

Lately he's felt bullied in school; several classmates have been provoking him. He's tried ignoring them, but at a certain point their taunts become too much, he blows up and they laugh and call him a ticking time bomb.

Because this has been going on daily, the effect has snowballed. He's become increasingly agitated; his patience is thin and his fuse is short, which makes it even more rewarding for his classmates. They just wind him up and watch him go.

I am a firm believer in the therapeutic power of meditation and have tried to help lay a foundation for him. He's meditated sporadically in the past and has enjoyed it, but has never needed it as he does now. I've never seen him this out of balance.

Last Thursday his "monkey mind" was causing chaos: shrieking, throwing feces. I downloaded the second CD from the Indigo Dreams series for him and said: "Let's do an experiment. You meditate with these tracks every day for a week and see if you feel better."

We're 4 days in and he's regained his equilibrium-- he's back to his normal, happy self. Today someone tried to push his buttons at school and he was able to shrug it off and realized that the provocation was groundless.

Thank God for the Angry Octopus! And thank you, Lori Lite, for making these tools available to remind kids that even when they can't change their circumstances, they often have control over how they react to them...