Queen of Everything 1: Words Matter

Words matter.

What we tell ourselves and how we phrase things, matters.

And it doesn’t have to even mean turning negatives into positives. It could mean turning a positive into a more positive, something more empowering, and more within your control.

For instance, for years I have divided up my goal setting into areas of my life. Home, family, work, finances, exercise, etc. There is nothing wrong with that. All of those words are positive words. They describe exactly what area I am working on. Some of those words are actually quite warming. Home and family for instance, evokes images of peace and love and happy little families around the piano singing.

Yeah, I know that’s not really real. My fantasy. Shut up.

But these positive little words are all external words. And I realized that using external words to describe what I personally had to do, separated me from the tasks. It was out there rather than in here. (I am pointing at my heart). It had nothing to do with me personally, just things that I had to do. And so it was easier to shirk a lot of those tasks because it wasn’t me.

Which in a lot of ways is healthy. None of us want to become our work, or especially our housework. I am not dirty dishes. They may sit on the counter staring at me, and condemning me, and screaming at me to do something about them, but I am not them.

But what if I changed the wording? What if instead of naming the areas of my life, I named the parts of me that are responsible for those areas of my life? What if I gave myself titles?

It started with me thinking “what if instead of having to do exercise, I instead thought of myself as an athlete?” Well, that was better. Thinking of myself as an athlete gave me power over the exercise rather than the exercise being something I didn’t want to do. Except, it didn’t feel true to me. I have never been an athlete. It’s not something I particularly aspire to. I have never liked exercise. It brought back all those times in gym class when the teacher said “let’s watch Anna and see what not to do.” All those times playing volleyball and getting yelled at for missing the ball. Or those jogs we had to go on where I would take short cuts and come back at the end of the group apparently breathless because jogging hurts and who wants to go to English class all sweaty and smelly, when the cute boy in English class could possibly talk to me. Gym class was exercise all right. An exercise in punishment.

Calling myself an athlete felt like I was lying to myself. And oh sure, in the theory of positive thinking you’re supposed to tell yourself you’re something you’re not enough times so that you believe it and eventually become it, but it’s pretty hard to do that when the word makes you choke on your full sugar cola.

But what if I changed the name to warrior? Now that I could relate to. What if I thought of myself as a warrior every time I exercised, or ate healthy, or went to the dentist? I mean, those are hard things. Those are battles to be won. Every time I exercise it’s a battle to win. And every time I choose the boring apple over the tasty cookie it’s a battle to be won. And going to the dentist is like facing the heavily equipped army. You know you’re going to hurt but you gotta do it anyway because not doing it could lead to a worse situation.

And if it works in that area, what if I named myself in other areas of my life? After all, I already carry different names and titles. I’m Anna, or Anna Maria. I bear the title of Mom, Mother, or Madre (that’s my son’s name for me because he’s a little weird). I’m known to my grandchildren as Granna (that was my name for me because my daughter refused to have me called “Granny Annie” which I thought was fun and whimsical and I had this whole bit about a grandmother with a talking parrot who’s a secret spy).

I’m a sister, an aunt, a writer, an answering service, a cousin, a mother-in-law, a crafter, a knitter, an actor, a director, a blogger (which is another word for “someone who imagines that people actually care what they think”). I already have all these different names that describe either who I am to someone else, or who I am to some task. So what if I create more names for myself and create the characters that are responsible for the tasks in my life? Especially those things I don’t want to do but have to, like exercise and wash dishes.

Somehow that felt more empowering. Because now it wasn’t something out there, it was something in here. (I am pointing to my heart). It takes some of those things and ennobles them somehow. They are no longer just mundane tasks (although many of them are – I mean how much can you romanticize laundry), but they are also important things that must be done for the benefit of the whole (as in me).

So for the next few posts, I am going to describe each of these nine (what nine! Yes, nine) characters that I have created, and what each of their job descriptions are. Some of these may overlap each other. But they are all supportive of each other.

If this works for you, then go ahead and use them as well. Feel free to change the names and the tasks that serve you better. Some of the names are gender specific to me, but that doesn’t mean you have to use it. You may find that the job descriptions I’ve given to one of my characters works better for a different character for you. You may choose to add characters or eliminate characters or just laugh at me and call me insane.

Whatever works for you.

I am just sharing my bit of crazy. I have to do something to make cleaning the toilet and eating broccoli empowering. Note: Do not clean the toilet and eat broccoli at the same time. That’s just gross.