Be Nice! Saying it so much...

A sharp tongue can cut your own throat. ~Author Unknown

Words matter so much and just like the previous article of May 17th blog, I do believe how we speak to ourselves can have profound, lasting effects on our psyche & how we function joyfully.

While it is incumbent for us to pay less attention to the language others use to us if it is not upbuilding, encouraging or truth filled, we need to pay attention, close attention to how we speak to ourselves & that includes how we think about ourselves. While we cannot go around beating folks up or editing every word they say to us, we can be proactive about our usage of words we direct toward ourselves & about ourselves.

It seems to be some of the time far easier to be proactive when others use what my mom use to call "nice-nasty" when I was a child, sugar coated words aimed to cut to the quick, while allowing the speaker to abdicate responsibility or feign ignorance at what their intentions were. We feel when those words are hurled though we may not at at first take know what is happening. Nice nasty words are quite effective and allows people to behave as snipers, wrecking damage & harm and fleeing incognito.

Somehow, eventually realize when its been done by others as it makes us uncomfortable & may find ourselves drawing away from the sniper We do not have to listen & it is easier in some cases to manage how much time we want to spend with ones who want to reduce us or themselves. But what if you're the one doing it to yourself?

What I am attempting to address here is more about people who may set goals that are so unrealistic that they are doomed to fail because they really do not want to succeed. Again, if you reference back to the article of May 17th, and read what the columnist say about the types of words we use in setting weight loss goals.I do believe that sometimes people get more out of martyrdom or in the power of victimization in a host of ways.

Make no mistake I am not saying they set out to do this, but as someone told me about the hormonal rush. I do not see it as a hard & fast rule, nor am I looking to beat up on anyone. I think people being beaten up occurs far too much as it in with people struggling with their weight either by themselves or by others. And it is so defeating an unworkable, so looking for a new paradigm is needed. Looking back in retrospect, I could see some of the times long ago, when I use "nice" words that were in essence self defeating. Wasn't intentional, but nonetheless it was there.

Women are particularly prone to this as we are so conditioned (don't matter the culture or land) to be "nice". I find that word in itself not a bad word, but I think used out of context when really the right one would be passive or fearful. I've been guilty of it too many times in the past and had to come to a painful reality it was what in part fueled & sustain my weight gain & maintenance.

It made me realize though how far I've come just recently when I made a simple request to someone that a no would have suffice,. Instead she agreed to do it and then came back with a "nice-nasty" remark talking to me in a very patronizing way with that sing-songy voice women use when talking to a 4 year old.

I picked up on that and addressed it full on and she justified and did acknowledge she was annoyed of my making the request not knowing I did not have access to the request. Her justification came with "well that is my background upbringing of being nice when I did not want to do it". As I told her I did understand the word no and knew what it meant & it would have been ok. She apologized though it would have been far easier to have not been so "nice" from the beginning.

What was really a small clump of dirt became more of a molehill. But for me it serves as an epiphany. sadly I lost a little respect for her while I wondered how many other times she was being "nice" insincerely, to me. My epiphany was how many times had I done that myself? Being "nice" when it should have been an emphatic , resounding NO! But I did it anyway got angry, swallowed the anger again & again until physically speaking I did not recognize myself any longer. For me that lack of recognition came about 3 years ago...

But though to some it may seem contradictory I am not mad at her. She did me a favor. Nor for that fact, mad at myself any longer. I had in the process before being more aware lost some of my self respect in bits & pieces,the anger, sadness & longing which I believe fueled my weight gain. It was "the pecking to death" as Dr. Maya Angelou states, the small pieces of me in the passivity & fear masquerading in the the words we use in a collective ,"niceness" .

One of the advantages (very few where I geographically am) is that I have spent a lot of time alone in my own private retreat is having that primal scream while sanding down so to speak the stripping away work previously done & now polishing to a high luster my "inny's". Before I could take care of the "outies", I had to do a lot of work. Slow, tedious, sometimes painful, other times humorous, other times with great surprise to get to where I am today. And while he work continues it is no longer as painful, tedious or as hard as it had been. I am I hope the last dance, the last hurrah, the last leg.

(Ok now someone stop me with the metaphors)... And the things I thought I would dread knowing about was not as bad as I initially thought it would be. Yeah it hurts, but far more manageable then I would have said in the beginning of all of this. And here have been some folks who were moved out of third row center to the balcony, some to the mezzanine, others into the lobby and quite a few more out of the theater. However it was harder in some ways to watch my own wording to myself!

I can easily tell you I was not one for using harsh, over the top words directed toward myself. But the "niceness" kept getting in the way of my progress. I was not (then) seeing what was passing as "nice" was really a very passive/fearful way of dealing with some issues (and people) that need to be taken to task & for me it was not wanting what I thought was the ultimate pain. So I was "nice" because I understood. I understood all too well & in some of this I shoulder what was not mine to shoulder.

Another favorite quote for me by Dr. Angelou is "Quite complaining. Whining lets a bully know that a victim is in the room". She is right. I didn't like it, but she was right. I wanted people to be "nice" but they were "nice-nasty". It was easier ,way to easy, to not stand up & even if my biggest fear came true I would be ok.

And guess what? I am ok! In fact far more then ok...

It is still not as hard but not easy allowing myself definitive justifiable anger flying around in the dust of the sanding as old habits die hard but who said it would be hard or easy? I told a friend (one of the few remaining ones) that I feel depleted, internally empty, but not in a woe is me way. More like I am spent from emptying out all the stuff that's weighed me down.

Now I am cleaning out the dust from the sanding and onto polishing to a high gloss finish.

How cool is that?

All right reservedJHM 5-18-09©