Lies we tell ourselves

I felt that I should post the following on facebook, violating the "too long" rule, I'm sure :).  Here it is for my own "sacred record" of my brain and life:

""If you are lying to yourself anyway, may as tell yourself a good lie." -Leslie Householder.

This is powerful stuff.  Let me tell you.  For YEARS I have told myself, especially subconciously, "I am a mean mom.  I don't have any patience.  I am fat. (I know... I'm a woman.  I say that, too.) I crave chocolate and sweets when I am tired.  Food makes me happy.  I hate it that I yell when I am mad." etc. etc. etc.  Everytime I did something to prove myself right, it just reinforced it.

Well, I decided to write a mission statement a few months back that was, just like me, idealistic.  "A lie," I would tell myself, "but an ideal to shoot for!"  I wrote things like, "I mother with soft and gentle speech.  I work everyday to make my relationship with my friend and companion, Quinn Biesinger, an eternally joyous one.  I always make time for family. I find joy and rejoice in the golden moments, the drops of awesome, the tiny miracles that make up my life!"  Here's a good one, "I look myself in the eye and I love myself." lol

Guess what?  It started working!  Even if I found myself still proving myself wrong, I found that sometimes I was proving myself right!  And I started doing it more and more!  Sometimes I would yell at the kids again, and think, "Yeah, WHATEVER I mother with soft and gentle speech!" Sometimes, I would look in the mirror with anger or frustration and grit, "I look myself in the eye and love myself!"... but more and more I would see myself doing these things!!

So I thought, "Well, if it works for that...let's experiment!"  So I did.  I started telling myself things like, "I am slender and fit.  My body is healthy and it craves things that are good for it and that keep it that way.  I take time to exercise and love the feeling it gives me."  And guess what?!  This is more often starting to be the truth than my "old truth" of, "food makes me happy" or "I just don't have time for exercise" or "I just can't help myself and I am going to eat more because it makes me happy!"  Powerful stuff!

This morning, as I was repeating and reading the different "good lies" I want myself to believe :), it hit me.  All those years, I am sure there were times when I was proving my old lies wrong!  I WAS being a good mom, mothering gently, having patience,...although, maybe not loving myself :(.  I just didn't believe it and so it didn't stick!  I didn't have any statements in my self-conscious that were being proved RIGHT by my good actions!

Now, if I want to believe something, hope to believe it, or even think, "I'll never believe it," I write it down, stick it on a post-it on my mirror, and read it, look at it, think about it, and feel gratitude that I can truly be that someday.  Sure.  I still yell, get grumpy and miss a lot of those drops of awesome and tiny miracles that make up my life, and eat five brownies fresh from the oven (last night) still oozing with yumminess until my stomach hurts...but I am changing, getting slimmer, feeling more joy, and mothering more gently.

Like I said, powerful stuff."