Oh yeah? well . . .

When you’re a kid, you believe what you’re told. What you’re told, what you see, what you hear or overhear. Everything is just input, because you’re not born with any context in which to place your experiences. But that input includes emotional and value system content as well as simple information  ~ which is why children will often exhibit the same likes and dislikes as their parents, the same preferences and prejudices. (Explaining why the old “do as I say, not as I do” admonition never works for long.)

From a very early age, we start assembling the stories of our lives with these bits and pieces of so-called reality. We don’t really even question our perceptions of reality and truth until we reach that magical age (which is different for everyone) during which we suddenly begin testing the boundaries and doing “stupid” stuff that drives our parents mad, just to see what will happen.

But the “truths” we test during this time are often surface truths (Will mom really ground me for life if I ditch school after lunch?) while the core beliefs that are at the center of our reality ~ our perceptions of who we are and whether or not we’re worthy or good or attractive or intelligent ~ are hardly ever tested in this way. Particularly if they are  “bad things” beliefs.

For whatever reason, believing what you absorbed when you were an experience sponge doesn’t stop when you grow up. If anything, the belief gets stronger, because we take over the retelling of the story ~ and we’re better at it than anyone outside our heads. We know where the weak spots are, where to set the drip feed, and how to program a continuous loop ~ we can almost literally set it and forget it. In fact, it works better that way.

Your subconscious mind never works better than when your conscious mind isn’t paying attention.

The flip side of that, and how you can turn it to your advantage, lies in knowing that we believe what we are told over and over again ~ especially if we’re the ones who are doing the telling. Knowing gives us the option of changing the story we tell ourselves, thereby changing our lives. And all it takes is a small change.

For instance, when I was a kid, I used to tell my little sister, Cherie, that she was adopted. (Who knows why?) At first she would get upset and go howling off to our mama to be reassured, while I practiced my innocent face. I don’t remember how mama reacted, and I don’t know if she thought it up herself or if someone suggested it to her, but I do remember when Cherie took the teeth out of my teasing. One day, her response to my taunt changed.

“Yeah? If I’m adopted that means they chose me,” she’d said, her mouth savoring the words. “They’re stuck with you!”

And as easily as that, she turned the story around, reversed its polarity, so to speak, from negative to positive, and, by changing the outcome of that story, changed her reality. That particular taunt had no more power over her, because she chose to rewrite that particular line.  It’s an anecdote that she still recounts, to our mutual amusement, to this day.

We were very young at the time ~ maybe 8 and 5 ~ and it was a very vocal, very external exchange; perhaps that’s why it was so easy for her to turn the tables on that particular story. I made it up and told it to her. There wasn’t even a crumb of potential truth for it to feed on, and it wasn’t a story she ever internalized (at least not until after she’d turned it to her advantage).

Unfortunately, you can’t say that about most of the stories we tell ourselves as adults. Well before we’re grown, we’ve gotten really good at the set it and forget it programming, whether what’s on the air is good for us or not.

Until next time ~

Rebecca

next time: That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it . . .

 

the bad things are easier to believe

In Maine, where they are (for lack of a better term) place-proud, I went to graduate school with a young woman who was constantly remarking that her family had lived in the Brunswick/Freeport area for 13 generations ~ as if she’d lived them all herself.

There’s something about Mainers that makes longevity in Maine not only a point of pride but of identity, and perhaps even self worth. I’m not sure where the cut off is, but if you’ve only moved to Maine, or if you’re only a 1st or 2nd generation (or, one assumes, somewhat less than a 13th generation) resident, then you’re “from away,” maybe even a “flatlander.” After all, just because kittens are born in an oven doesn’t make them biscuits, right? (Another Maine-ism; I’ve collected several over the years ~ they tickle me, regional expressions ~ like Texans, upon hearing an unlikely but amusing tale, remarking: “he’s pissin’ on my boot, but I like it!”)

Question is: where do people pick these things up ~ and why? The young woman I mentioned clearly had an emotional investment in being a “true” Mainer ~ someone of influence and trustworthiness in her life had indoctrinated her in the belief that at least part of her value and identity were predicated on her 13-generations-here ancestry.

But what if she had been adopted? would that negate her 13-generations cred? would that make her a different person or any less valuable? would it have changed the story those influential people told her about herself?

Because that’s where the stories we tell ourselves originate ~ with our parents and family and others whose good opinions we value ~ or whose censure we fear. It doesn’t matter if, later, we come to realize that these people really don’t walk on water or shoot fire out of their eyes ~ it was what we believed when it mattered, and what we internalized along with the stories. Parents are especially influential, whether they mean to be or not ~

In the movie Pretty Woman (which is just a contemporary retelling of the Cinderella story, by the way ~ see what I mean about stories?), there is a scene during which Edward (is that a handsome prince’s name or what?) and Vivian are talking about how she ended up there, and she says: “The first guy I’ve ever loved was a total nothing. The second was worse. My mom called me a bum magnet. If there was a bum in a fifty mile radius, I was completely attracted to him.”

Edward tells her that she has a number of special gifts, that she could be so much more ~ and Vivian’s reply is a truism: “The bad things are easier to believe.”

Why is that? What is it in us that won’t believe a miracle we see with our own eyes, that won’t take stock of all the good and wonderful things we create and accomplish, but will believe ~ and even dismantle ourselves with ~ every “bad thing” we are told about ourselves?

We weren’t born dissing ourselves, surely. So when and how did that change? and how can we change it back?

Until next time ~

Rebecca

next time: oh yeah? well . . .

PSAs ~ not brought to you by . . . .

Stories we tell ourselves continued ~

In addition to the stories we tell ourselves and others about major events in our lives, we have those 5 -15 second PSAs I mentioned in the last post. Unlike the PSAs (Public Service Announcements) you see on TV, your personal PSAs are not brought to you by the Ad Council, and they do you no service. Quite the opposite in fact: these are more like Poor Self-image Affirmation PSAs, and most of us have these ad spots airing in our heads like a bad commercial at least once a day.

In some ways, these PSAs are more detrimental to your story ~ your life ~ than the major motion picture event stories we tell. Case in point:

So, I was talking with some of my girls the other day (like you do), and the conversation came around to sex (like it does), and eventually, I opined that sex is something you want to take your time getting to, because it just makes things more complicated and confusing in young relationships, particularly those that aren’t (or aren’t yet) long term.

We talked about how sex should, at least sometimes, be a joining of two people soul to soul, mind to mind, and heart to heart, as well as body to body ~ how it should fulfill the old definition of two becoming one, so intertwined, each with the other, that it becomes unclear where one leaves off and one’s lover begins.

So much of the time, sex isn’t like that. So many times, for the woman, particularly, sex is a yielding, a giving in, a lesser of two evils. And if a woman, or a girl, is giving in to sexual demands, you can bet she’s giving in on several other fronts, too, though she may call it compromise or, more bluntly: what the hell? who cares?

And that’s one of those PSA’s we were talking about yesterday ~ not brought to you by the ad council.

In the case of this particular WTH sentiment, and I think the same probably applies to boys and men, the PSA is a shortened version of “go ahead and let him (her) do (say, think) whatever. Nothing I do (say, think) matters anyway, and no body cares, so I won’t either.” The underlying belief being that if you can convince yourself that you don’t care, it won’t hurt so much and/or you won’t be so scared.

This isn’t weakness; it’s self-defense.

But these are lines in a learned story ~ you’re telling it to yourself, but it’s not really your story. Most of these kinds of PSAs aren’t created in your head, even if you think you came up with them yourself. Something someone else said or did at some point, and often repeatedly, created those lines of your story; you simply internalized them and began reaffirming them as truth.

In a way, they are sometimes like the original PSAs because some of them, at least temporarily, serve a purpose. If you’re in a situation that you can’t or don’t know how to get out of, you will assemble what protections you can ~ and mental protections are harder to take away. Unfortunately, they’re also harder to get rid of once you no longer need them.

Instead, they morph into others of their kind: negative and insidious and just plain mean.

(Addendum: My friend Sherry remarked to me today that I ought to sign my blog posts, since it isn’t always clear who the author is when something like this turns up on fb or twitter or something ~ duh, ‘becca, as some of the fam might say  ~ so this is me, signing off . . . )

Until next time (and yes, there will most certainly be a next time) ~

Rebecca

Next time: “the bad things are easier to believe.”