Self-Talk is Applied Linguistics

For many years now, I have been greeted every morning by Brook Noel, in her Good Morning newsletter.  Brook is a best-selling author who provides solutions and support to help women live their best lives.  The Good Morning emails are an anchor for me.  I read them for years before I ever bought a product or took a class (now I am a Make Today Matter lifetime member).


The concept is simple:  quote, reflection, affirmation.  I unsubscribed for awhile a couple of years ago when I had a particularly bad attitude and wanted to cling to my depression, but I came back.  Many of the emails are repeats, and I've started to have my favorites.  Sometimes it's the quote that packs a wallop, other times Brook's reflection strikes a chord, and still other times the quote and the reflection are okay but the affirmation is just what I needed to here.  This is the one that came this morning, and it's one that always makes me sit up a little taller and open my eyes a little wider.  And this time, I saw a dialectic in it very much like what I am practicing in dialectical behavior therapy.

Optimist, pessimist or poptimist? 

(Brook Noel's article from April of 2008)

When I was in high school, I called myself Emily the Eternal Optimist.  I don't recall why I gave myself that name, except that I always tried to be optimistic.  The thing was, I wasn't really great at actually allowing my feelings, the "negative" ones, and then moving to optimism.  In eighth grade health we had a unit about stress, and we took a test of our life stress.  It has been many decades but I believe it was much like this one, only age-appropriate, ranking stressors based on how recently they had occurred.  I remember going up to the teacher and asking if I had to include my parent's divorce, "because I have no stress about that" or my dad's fight with cancer (he wasn't out of the woods yet!) because I was "dealing with it really well."  She said, yes, if it happened I needed to check it off.  I guess the Perfectionist wanted to have the lowest score in the class, so I could win the prize for Least Stressed.  The other kids thought I was weird because my whole family and I practiced Transcendental Meditation, so I needed to prove that I transcended stress entirely.

Fast forward a decade or two, and Emily the Eternal Optimist ends up with postpartum depression and anxiety, morphing into regular ol' clinical depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and an eating disorder-- which are all labels for excellent book learning, impaired emotional intelligence (in my case).  But hey! getting with the program now.  I was much like the friend that Brook Noel describes, jabbing myself repeatedly, hurting myself with my internal dialogue, over and over, like water torture.  I still am, I guess, but I am learning a new language.

Self-talk is a special language.  I don't know if I'm an optimist, a pessimist, or a 'poptomist,' but I am a linguist.  I appreciate the opportunity to use language to explore parts of me that aren't made up with words.  That's part of why I'm out here in the blogosphere, being vulnerable with friends and complete strangers; I need to practice the language of emotions and positive self-talk.  And to teach it.  I taught French and Spanish for many years, words fascinate me, and I approach everything as if it were a language (even math).  So I can't really learn this new language unless I have a way to share it with others who might need to learn it, too.

Thanks for the practice session.  You are way better than flashcards.

Every obstacle is a vehicle

Maybe it’s cliché to say

• We can turn closed doors into windows of opportunity
• When a door closes, another one opens up.
• Focus on problems, you get more problems.
• It’s a process but it doesn’t have to be a problem.

I don't mind clichés.  I love quotes and borrowed words and my own little phrases.  I can hardly think without words and I need words to turn my thoughts.

Today I was excited to have the right amount of me-time between work and dinner out with friends.  The right amount is not enough time to go home but just enough to plant myself somewhere and write a blog post, maybe answer some emails.  This morning my daughter asked me why I was bringing the laptop to work with me.  I gave her a wise mom answer, “Because I am.”

Spring has finally arrived in Minnesota (high of 51-- it's all relative) and I am thirsty for it.  My face drinks in sunshine.  I thought I could plant myself on a bench in front of the library, get my fresh air, connect to the library’s wi-fi, and tippy-type away, briefly getting the best of both worlds—natural and technological.  Feeling connected and connected.

Nope.  My computer cannot seem to find the wi-fi today.  I took the laptop inside, but still no luck.  I have had a tendency to get myself worked up over things not matching my plans or expectations, even though I consider myself a problem-solver.  I am a concrete random, according to the Gregorc mindstyles, so I tend to create problems if none present themselves.  Part of dealing with depression is difficulty making decisions, so I often get tangled up in that.

However, I have been practicing radical acceptance and non-judgment and all kinds of skills and self-care, and had a few successes under my belt already today, so I was able to make a quick decision.  The library would close in 20 minutes.  I could drive to some other wi-fi, closer to my dinner destination, or I could grow where I was planted.  I chose to sit right down and type in a word-processing document (not straight into Blogger?! Gasp!) and just get started.  The technological connection will come later.

And, when the library closes (in two minutes now), I will not go chasing after another wi-fi connection.  I will take a walk and get my outside time, then go to dinner.  Still getting the best of both worlds.  I made a decision and went with it.  After years of second- and third-guessing myself, I am pausing to appreciate the beauty of this.

You made it to the bottom of this blog post.  Do you think this was a simple, elegant and effective solution?  Do you wonder what the big deal is?  Is it obvious to you that the snag was never really an obstacle?  Do you question the value of writing about something I should have been able to shrug it off in the first place?  I’m curious, and proud to say that I don’t need judgment or advice.  I need my own approach.  I need to be willing to name obstacles “obstacles” so I can do the next thing.  Knowing what an obstacle is, I can go over it, under it, around it, through it, or put wheels on it and make it a "vehicle." 

What's this all about? Part II: GIVE

If "crave" represents scarcity, then the "give" part of my blog represents abundance.  

I get a kick out of playing with words and phrases.  The day I came up with this phrase, I was in my cubicle at work (does anyone have a cubicle at home?), frustrated with cravings, but had been in therapy enough years to know I needed to do allow my feelings and do something with them.  It just wasn't my first choice.  A snack would have been my first choice-- or Ed's first choice (ED = eating disorder)-- but I took a break and pulled out a piece of paper and doodled and wrote words.  

I wrote "crave" over and over.  I wrote everything that rhymed with "crave."  I wrote everything that started with "cr."  I drew a casket ("grave" rhymes with "crave).  I googled "crave."  Every phrase I saw was about satisfying a craving (here I was trying NOT to give in to the urge) or reducing cravings (believe me, just the word "reduce" triggered my scarcity mentality).  Then a rhyme stood out from my list:

GAVE

CRAVE

While my scarcity mentality had me trying to get, not give, and I knew all about giving in to cravings, I realized that there was something different there.  Something I needed to flip around to flip my mindset.  So I brought in the what-ifs:

What if I GAVE what I CRAVE?

What if?

Instead of the drained feeling I get when I've given and given and have nothing else to give, I felt the teeniest bit of spaciousness.  Room for abundance.  A hint of a new well to draw on.  What if?

Well, first I would have to know what I crave.  The idea of going around handing my co-workers candy bars because I wanted them was laughable.  Not that I don't like to share or bring in the occasional office treat, but I pictured myself physically giving what I craved, and I looked silly.  Clearly, that is not what I craved.  I needed to figure out what it is, and then figure out how to give it.  And to whom to give it.  

I was awfully good at giving to others (whether or not they appreciated was I was giving)-- or I thought I was.  Of course, I ended up taking any time my well ran dry, generally making a mess of any giving I had done.  But at least it was something I had practice at, despite not being good at giving to myself.  At first, I practiced mostly on my husband.  When he was driving me up a tree, I paused to figure out what I was craving from my interaction with him, then I identified what his variation of that might be, and I looked for a little way of giving that to him.  When I felt judged by him, and pointing out that he was being judgmental didn't help, I identified my craving for acceptance, then turned it around and figured out a way to accept him.  

After that, I got a little obsessed and tested my phrase all over, practicing on everyone, and learning to give to myself.  I'm not an expert at giving what I crave, and it has not solved my problems, and it doesn't replace the Golden Rule, or the Serenity Prayer, or any other tasty morsel of love and wisdom, but I have one more tool in my toolbox for turning my mind from scarcity to abundance.  If I crave, then deep down there is enough to give. 

What's this all about? Part I: CRAVE

When I first started this blog, I had coined a phrase for myself.  It helped me reframe situations, and I named my blog for it.  I meant to build up some sense of my journey and connection, and then tell you about how I came up with the phrase.  My epiphany.  Give what you crave.  My twist on the Golden Rule.

It was a nice idea... but it was nearly two years ago.  I'm not sure I remember the story.  Either it wasn't such a stroke of genius that it left me with a lightning-bolt scar on my memory, or I have SO MANY fantastic ideas that it is a mere flicker in a city of lights.  Maybe we'll find out someday, but for now, I am taking my phrase apart to reveal what it's about (and maybe what I'm about, and maybe even what you're about).

Craving comes from a scarcity mentality.  I have been craving (food, attention, touch, intimacy, security) for most of my life.  I do have a modicum of self-control, but I didn't trust (a) myself with my desires, or (b) the universe to provide for me.  One way that I played that out was by developing a binge-eating disorder.  Associating cravings with bingeing is not a big leap, but I used food for so many years to keep my real feelings (and non-food cravings) in check, it took a long time to be able to recognize the subtleties of cravings.  I'm still in treatment, and it's still a process.

When I was craving food, or escape, or desperately trying to understand what was wrong with someone else that they weren't giving me what I craved emotionally, I started to ask myself what I was really craving.  There are all sorts of ways to get at true emotions, and for me, equating them with cravings made them something I could relate to.  Craving?  I know all about craving.

In middle school, I would crave a particular food-- a chocolate malt, or a banana split-- and the feeling of needing to have it would overwhelm me.  I would whine and carry on.  Sometimes I got what I wanted, sometimes I didn't.  Not only that, the Perfectionist was at work.  She knew exactly what constituted the perfect banana split, and if a sauce ended up on the wrong scoop of ice cream or there was only half a cherry instead of three whole cherries, with stems, one on each scoop, the Perfectionist was disappointed.  It's easy to see, now, that I was setting myself up for failure, but I didn't know.  I didn't even know the word "perfectionist" until my eighth grade English teacher took me out in the hall to let me cry away from my peers.  I had gotten a zero on my poem about cucumbers.  I was overwhelmed, and when he used the word "perfectionist," I knew it was right on-- and it also felt like the right thing to be.  What else could I be?

These are episodes in my life story where my cravings culminate in binges.

BINGE

Because I'm Not Good Enough

Finding out what I really crave, and reminding myself that I am good enough to get it, or that I deserve it even if I don't get it, has been the crux of, well, years of therapy.  Every craving came from a sense of lack.  The switch flipped for me when I found that if I could identify what I was craving, even if I felt that I had nothing to give, I could give the littlest bit of it.  If I could give it, that meant it existed, and it (I) was enough.  Cue the music ("Constant Craving," of course).

Come back for Part II, the "give" part of Give What You Crave.

Why I'm going from 0 to 60 as a blogger

Perhaps my "why" is that I'm an April fool.   I am joining the Ultimate Blog Challenge and plan to post EVERY DAY this month.  My last post was last August and my blog seems never to have gotten off the ground. Of course, then I went and started another one.  So the idea of adding a daily blog post to my already busy life when I've never had any consistency with it would appear to be setting myself up for failure.  This after my last post was my definition of SUCCESS.



I have a lot of whys between August and April.  Some answer the question, why commit to this? others answer why now? and still others answer why blog in the first place?  I'm going to let them all live together in this post.

• I appreciate the value of making commitments
• One commitment I made was to "dialectical abstinence" as part of a DBT therapy group
• I used my unique love of acronyms to reduce my anxiety around planning (this allowed my to make better commitments to myself)
• I developed habits of prioritizing 3 actions a day and letting the rest go
• I value community and actively seek it
• DBT therapy group
• Real Love in Marriage self-help/support group
• Make Today Matter lifetime member
• Wendy Joy Hart's Procrastination Cure Club
• Intentional interactions with friends and family
• I am really appreciating the idea of practicing habits
• Training myself to move forward even if I don't have it all figured out yet
• Since January first, I've added habits & sharpened skills
• Decision-making
• Prioritizing
• Setting an intention, following through
• Positive self-talk
• I have brought some other long-standing habits out of hibernation
• Practicing TM
• Writing in a gratitude journal
• Sometimes I need a gimmick to get something done
• I took an online course about writing a home-based business plan
• I severed some attachment to needing approval
• I got some approval and support when I made it clear I needed it
• I reduced hours at my job, not to blog instead of work, but to focus on eating disorder recovery and get systems in place for my family to better navigate our busy lives
• A side effect of the reduction and refocus is that I can choose more things that are for ME, such as telling my tale bloggily
• I get to have a hobby that is not just escape, but true renewal (yeah, I still escape... Scramble With Friends, anyone?)
• It says "Give your blog a boost!" and Hello! My blog needs a boost!
• I liked Michelle Schaeffer's emphasis on results being motivating.  I bought into the idea that maybe if I blog every day for a month I will see results instead of dawdling forever.
• I wanted an excuse to be on my computer
• I love a challenge
• I am impulsive 

There you go!  From zero to sixty on April first.  Let's see what speed I can maintain and what that means for speeds in other areas of my life.

Emily's definition of SUCCESS

SUCCESS

Sing Unabashedly, Creating a Conscious, Effective Story of Self

Sing 

Unabashedly, 

Creating a 

Conscious, 

Effective 

Story of 

Self

This "backronym" illustrates my idea of what fully inhabiting my Self would look like.  "Sing" does not have to be literal; I do like to sing, but "singing my song" is expressing my authentic self.  Success could have many definitions, but all of them amount to telling one's own story.  "Creating" indicates my active involvement in that story (not a victim of what happens to me).  The story needs to be conscious (aware, intentional, appreciative) and effective (if I don't like what my story is doing for me, I need to tell myself a different story).  S.U.C.C.E.S.S.

I originally submitted this definition to Abundance Tapestry.  She had asked for a definition of success, and my favorite game to play these days is to make up affirmations from names and words.  I've decided I love this one so much, I will repeat it to myself for the rest of the week.  I am telling myself what I need to hear.  You might notice how well this definition goes with my vision.  I have a theme song, too, but you'll have to hang tight until I'm ready to sing it for you.

Molting

When a spider molts its exoskeleton, it is vulnerable.  It has to pull its fresh legs very slowly out of its old, hard shells of legs.  If it pulls a leg up too fast, it could tear the leg, leaving it behind in the old exoskeleton.

I know this cool stuff from reading with a six-year-old when I was babysitting earlier this summer.

I started this blog over a year ago when I my spidey senses told me I had outgrown my old exoskeleton.  I had a new, soft one underneath, but I had to ever-so-slowly extract myself from it.  I have had to slowly pull my big ol' sausage thighs out of those painted-on jeans.  So slowly.  Sometime I needed to stop and rest and just hope no predator came by to find me.

So I haven't written since February, because my exoskeleton needed to harden first.  I sure have been working and growing in all that time, though.  It took starting a new blog to come back and post in this one.

I crack me up.  I never guessed that my journey through authentic life life would make me into an arachnid.

Oh what a tangled web we weave,

When first we practise to deceive!

Sir Walter Scott, Marmion, Canto vi. Stanza 17.

Scottish author & novelist (1771 - 1832)

Oh what a tangled web I weave,

When I must of my skeleton take leave!

Me, Em