Affirmament

Another dream.

This time it ran like a full-length movie. I vaguely remember even having a small role in it; like an extra in my own production. It didn't wake me up and it didn't disturb me any so I must not have an issue with playing a supporting role in my own mind. It seems that my subconscious mind is being gentle with me, helping me work my way into this "new" mode gradually.

That's how I function in most of the other aspects of my life. It takes me time to motivate myself to action, even those actions that would benefit me dramatically. Note that I do use the word, time, loosely. It takes me AGES.

Even when I believed that guitar playing was my passion I could never motivate myself to actually put the time into improving my skills. I wasn't content with where I was, in fact I was rather upset about it, but whenever it felt like work I almost refused to do it.

I know now that there was a reason, not an excuse, for my reticence when it came to actually putting the work into it. Guitar had become one of those all-consuming Asperger style obsessions, rather than a passion. I didn't love it. I loved the thought of it. It went from dream to nightmare. Once I realized that I had based my entire identity on what amounts to a lie I had to endure some of the classic stages of grief.

I've been doing a lot of grieving lately, for various reasons, but all of the different lines seem to be converging into a single point of acceptance. I'm putting everything in its proper place now. It's becoming easier to motivate myself. Again, another word I use loosely: easier.

I actually want the effects enough to do what it takes to initiate their causes.

I've begun to exercise.
I've stopped drinking carbonated beverages.

OK, granted, it's not much, but I know that even a baby step is a step in the right direction.

I have a long way to go. I'm heavy. Far too heavy for my heart and my frame and I feel it. I know that crash diets and overexertion are not going to help me in the long run. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, and it doesn't fit any more.

I mentioned a few weeks back that I haven't been speaking my own love language. I'm changing that. I need affirmation, and I need to hear it in my own voice.

I'm reminded of how I speak to my son. He looks at me expecting praise every time he feels a sense of accomplishment. No matter how minor or seemingly trivial I always tell him how proud I am of him and how much I love him. How can I apply the golden rule in his case unless I allow myself to pat myself on the back for those little victories?

I've been impatient with myself. Yes, I've needed a swift kick in the backside on occasion to get myself moving, but I've been looking at myself with the same disdain I used to see on my father's face.

He didn't know me. He had no idea what my intentions were. He expected nothing less than failure from me.

I got out of school after the French equivalent of the 10th grade, but because I was still living at home at the time I would hang out with my friends at the school campus most of my days. I even got a job at the local snack shop on wheels there so I could get paid to be there. I had ever intention of following the path that had been laid out for me from before my birth by my denomination. I was going to get my GED, my ACT, and go to one of our church's colleges.

But, and it is a big but, lack of communication at home and a mutual distrust between my parents and me drove a permanent wedge between us. I became my parents' greatest embarrassment without ever having been given a chance to catch up to my own potential long enough to figure out what it might have entailed.

My father, disgusted with my lingering presence in his rented home, caught me on my way out of the house to spend time with my friends at the school and said, "You're finally doing what you've always wanted to do in school: nothing."

At that point I didn't think it really would have mattered to mention to him that by the time I had opted to drop out I had already attended seven schools in three states and in three different countries; that I had been made to repeat the third grade because I was "too young;" that halfway through that second one I had become so bored that the teachers suggested I be put in the fourth grade for the rest of the year, which I did, acing those classes as well; that by the time I made it to the sixth grade I was already operating at the collegiate level in Italian so my instructors put me into a high school French class; that three years, three schools, and three countries later I was pulled back to do the eighth grade again when I transferred to the French system, even though my grades were more than acceptable, because the French system was so much more advanced than the American one, and was handed the exact same textbook I had used as a rank beginner; that because my French was so much better than the other kids' in my class, my teachers, claiming that they could not give me the attention I needed at my level, had opted to move me out of the introductory French section and into the actual core French curriculum; that because of that transition, for which I was grossly unprepared, I ended up failing the year and having to do the eighth grade for the third time; that by the time I finally made it to the tenth grade I had already spent my twelve years in school and was not about to spend another second beating my head against the proverbial scholastic wall.

There was nothing left to say to him. He didn't care that I still wanted to go to college. He didn't care that I still wanted to make him proud of me. He was too disappointed in and embarrassed of me to speak to me like a man.

I realize now that I have been treating myself the exact same way. Until now I haven't cared enough about myself to get to know who and what I really am, and what, if anything, my passion might be. I've been looking down my nose at myself, judging myself to be a failure without even knowing what I had the potential to accomplish.

Now that I've chosen to become acquainted with myself I feel that I can finally learn to communicate with myself; understand my own intentions; give myself the benefit of the doubt; maybe even trust that I might have my own interests and success in mind.

I know what my passion is, and I know what it isn't.

I can tell myself, like I do to my son, that I'm proud of those little accomplishments, and that I know that I will be a great success at whatever endeavor I choose to pursue. I can motivate myself by gentle affirmation rather than harsh criticism. It's making me want to follow my own suggestions.

It's making me realize how privileged I am to be a father. I would never talk to him the way my father talked to me, so what kind of double standard would I have to maintain to talk to myself that way? To raise my son under that classic adage, "Do as I say, not as I do," I would have to sacrifice the one thing I value more than anything else in this world: integrity.

So baby steps it is, and for every single step I choose to affirm and encourage myself, exactly the same way I affirm and encourage my own son.

Good job, Eric! Keep up the good work!

P.S. Stewart Smalley is a US Senator!!! Maybe there's something to this daily affirmation stuff.