Twice, my mother told me that she could fly.

When I was a child, she said that she when she was little she could close her eyes, leave her body and fly up over their little town, over the main street, above the trees.

Her countenance formed a gentle, sparkling joy. An expression so rare, it nearly passed before I recognized it. She spread her arms in a miniature version of the ‘airplane’ motion, gracefully swaying with the memory of flight.

I excitedly asked if she does it often. I’d read about astral projection so I had questions. “No”, she said. “My mother told me it was of the devil and that I was never to do it again. God would punish me if I did. So I stopped.”

Imagine, early 1950’s. Little brown girl in a black and white world. No shoes- finds joy in a special ability, then warned that the one thing. The ONE thing she loves besides her puppy Dobro is something evil.

Near the end of her life, she told me again about this flying. She said that she did it sometimes when boredom or pain became too much. The joy in her expression this time changed to frustration. 

I imagined that she was angry with herself for hearing the voice of her mother telling her she would be damned for doing so. At least, I thought, she got to fly again.

I’m always surprised at how much small changes make a difference. For example, my company recently got bought by another company, and their CRM software is a MESS. Multiple – like hundreds – of errors every day. Peripherals that don’t work half the time. Having to sign in to each website that you use, multiple times per day. Technical support that can’t think through a problem. I overuse this phrase, but it was MADDENING. In my 20-some years of working in corporate America, I’ve not used a more screwed up system. You get it. Anyway. My anxiety, which is already not fun to deal with, got turned up to eleven. Tics, knotted muscles, spasms, inability to concentrate, even reduced capacity for emotional regulation, etc. I started doing this tic where I twist my wrists so often I’m literally giving myself arthritis. It was a fun time. 

Cut to about three weeks ago, they updated the system and all of these issues were fixed. I hesitate to even write that, lest I jinx it. Now, even when we are busy and under pressure, I’m much calmer. In a lab, you can’t half-ass things because you’re swamped. If you do that, someone might get the wrong diagnosis, or worse, the wrong treatment. But by fixing this one tool, they lowered my aggravation considerably. Not having stress riding me all the time allowed me to focus on the actual job: patient care and correct sample processing. Calmer at home, calmer at work, it’s been so nice. That’s not to say that my anxiety is completely gone, but you get the idea. 

When we notice that we have an issue that needs our attention, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Take chores for instance. Saying “I’m going to clean the house” makes me want to hide under the blankets. But saying “I’m going to gather the trash downstairs”, is more manageable, and can spur me on to actually cleaning the house. I broke up the task, allowing me to get it done. 

The same applies to personal growth. Let’s say that you’ve noticed a lot of negative self-talk. Once you noticed it, you couldn’t UN-notice it. Then when it happens, you get angry and frustrated with yourself. “Why do I keep doing this? I know it’s not good for me. I’m so stupid.” Which is kind of funny depending on how you look at it. Let’s break it up into smaller tasks. You figure that when you talk shit about yourself it’s about, say, studying. Then you tell yourself you’re worthless because your place is a mess. Or the universal “I need to move more”. I’d guess that we all do this.

Let’s break those into smaller steps. If you address them one at a time, that’s much easier. You’re putting less pressure on yourself. It’s easy to say “talk to yourself the way you speak to someone you love”, but daunting when you don’t know how to do that. 

Pick one. Let’s say you chose the workout/move piece. Rather than “I need to work out, I’m so fat”, which I’m also guilty of saying to myself, perhaps we could say “I’m going to walk for five minutes today”. If we do that, we might walk for five minutes, but we also might walk for 30 minutes. We broke it down into one specific task that is much easier to handle. 

I’m curious what other examples people have. What form(s) does your negative self-talk take? Which aspect is the most harmful? And how will you re-frame it?

Think about what small change you can make that might make a big difference, either in thought or action. And notice the difference it makes- for you and others around you.