Filling up the Tank of Positive Self-Talk
On a beautiful winter day - one where the sun crept out from behind the solemn grey clouds, warming our bodies while changing the rainsoaked ground to a glossy shade of mud - on that day, our daughter turned three.
It was a Saturday. We spent the day as a family of three together, or to be fair, a family of three plus a dog and two cats and five chickens and an undisclosed number of motorcycles. We played. We adventured. And we celebrated. Like I said, it was beautiful.
Throughout the day, I watched her. And I thought of my hopes and dreams for her over her lifetime. Hopes I can't yet imagine and then hopes that seem so clear to me right now.
Stay steadfast in your love for everything around you.
Be hopeful for the future and thankful for your past.
Love yourself as much as I love you.
Don't let anyone break you down, ever.
I know, these are grand and ambiguous goals for me to have for her. But as we run and jump and play, I see the wonder in her eyes and I feel the genuineness of her belly-laughs. I want her to be this way forever. Full of life and wonder and so very curious and open to learning. She chases giant bubbles in the field behind our little house, catching some and missing others. She trips and she falls. She looks to me for a reaction, for affirmation. She smiles, gets back up, and keeps on playing, unphased. Her mud-soaked leggings and glistening rain boots carrying her through this brief flash of childhood.
I find myself wishing for the power to protect her for eternity, to anticipate what might knock her down and stop those moments before they show up.
But that power doesn't exist. As parents, we do the very best we can to give our little ones all of the love and all of the protection we can. And at the end of the day, our best power is in the tools we give. And the best tools are those of ensuring her Self-Talk-Tank is overflowing with positivity. It's chalk full of only everything good.
See the positive. See the hard work. Communicate it. Recognize it. Communicate it again.
Because I think we, as parents, can own that for a while. That's something we can do. When she fails, we praise the trying. When she succeeds, we praise the hard work it took to find the success. When she falls, we celebrate getting back up. When she thinks she can't, we encourage her that she can.
See the positive. See the hard work. Communicate it. Recognize it. Communicate it again.
And at a small but mighty three-years-old, we have to know how much she's watching. She's observing. She's forming ideas about the way things work; the expectations she'll have in her lifelong relationships start here. The behavior she sees in her parents and her aunts and uncles and grandparents - those actions become her truths. And it's about the small things too, as much as it is the big things.
Does she see her dad steal a kiss in the kitchen, while I'm making dinner? Does she see him hold my hand while we snuggle in for a movie at night? Does she hear of the I love yous and the You made my day extra special sounds from her day? Are those notes of affection and kindness things she'll come to expect? I hope so. But I hope so because they are there. And they are good. Because she also watches me catch a second glance at my body in the mirror, or touch the wrinkles on my forehead with a disapproving breath. I vow to pay attention to these moments where my own Self-Talk Tank feels empty, and force them to be full again. Because she's watching all of it.
It's my job. It's my job to love me, and love her dad and love our world because she's learning what all of that means. My hopes and dreams for her depend on this time with her.
I want her tank to be full of the good stuff. Of the love and the magic and the power of being not just a smart and fierce three-year-old girl, but of also the responses and the reactions she must pull out in the moments life throws her curve balls. In those moments where she might be led to believe she's not enough, or question her worth, I want her to easily pull from that tank and remember just how wonderful she is. At three, or at thirty.
My advice, for what it's worth: Keep your Self-Talk Tank full too. Not just for you, but for the people in your world.
XOXO
Meagan