Upside Downside

I'm working on some things right now. One of which involves speaking only positively about myself. For the past three days I have – don't laugh – repeated 'I approve of myself' approximately 500 times. It's from Chapter One of Lousie Hay's book – loving the self is the key to blissful health, happiness, creativity and prosperity. Makes sense to me. So, I'm trying it.

This little exercise has had some interesting effects, even though I've only been doing it for three days. The first effect is I feel better. Wow, hey? Earth shattering. When you say nice things to yourself and about yourself...you feel better about yourself! Another thing I've observed is the word 'Love' has edged into my lil' affirmation without me even trying. 'I approve of myself' has become 'I love and approve of myself.' Yessssss.

An unexpected side effect of this exercise is that negativity has started popping out of the landscape. When negativity and criticism are the norm, you don't even notice them. But when you start observing your own behaviour, that shit is everywhere! It's like when I wanted to buy a Subaru Outback...all I saw were Subaru Outbacks. Only this time it's Snarkbacks.

I went for a walk in a park and passed a mob of school kids whose assignment appeared to be 'Build a Boat and then Go Float It.' I was struck by the effortless creativity and play of these micro-humans. First off, they refused to walk on the right side of the pathway. Why should they? Why should they even walk on the path at all when there was all that grass and stuff? Some of the boats were effing incredible. Massive cardboard galleons with cannons and sails. And the kicker was this girl who had an electric hand fan. Her personal growth affirmation was, "I am a robot. I am a robot. I am a robot."

So you can see how the 20-something rockabilly princess with the Bettie Page haircut and the shortest shorts of all time would have caught my eye. And ear. She was having a conversation with her friend about the plane going down and her being seated in the emergency exit row. Hypothetically, of course. She couldn't process the fact that we need emergency exits in the first place and that planes could possibly even go down. How the hell could she ever get into a plane again knowing that there are EMERGENCY FREAKING EXITS in the world?!

Lovely sunny day. A gorge of green. A river ran through it. And...we're going down like a DC-10.

Then I met Angry Arby's Lady. I was a bit early to meet a friend at Starbucks and lingered in my car with my door slightly open for air flow. As I rummaged around in my bag, I didn't hear the car pull up beside me. But I certainly heard the lady who got out of it. Here is what she, very loudly, had to say: "F*ckin' close your door so people can f*ckin' get out of their cars. Some people blow my mind." And then she went in to get her '4 for $6' Deep-fried Happiness To Go.

You know when you start a sentence with the word F*ckin' things are only going downhill from there.

DC-10 and Angry Miss Arby taught me some valuable lessons. Which I'll pass along to you, gentle readers. These people made me grateful for who I am...grateful I'm doing this personal work and grateful for my mantra, even though it feels silly and I was embarrassed to tell you about it.

They also taught me that we get to choose how we interpret the world. Everything in the world is open to interpretation and you can believe that emergency exits are a shocking admission that the plane could go down, or you can see that there is something (or someone) taking care of us at all times. You can believe the world is out to block your way, or you can navigate around car doors that are ajar and other apparent road blocks. We get to choose how we see ourselves and the world we live in. How are you seeing things?