Whatever You Do, Don't Drop the Watermelon

We should treat our minds as innocent and ingenuous children
whose guardian we are,
be careful what objects and what subjects we thrust on their attention.
Henry David Thoreau

Here is a favorite family story. When my brother was a wee lad of nine or ten years old he decided to dress up as "Stupid Man". He made his own costume, a torn sweat shirt with the name "Stupid Man",  and as I remember it, he had his pants on backwards and his shoes on the wrong feet.  Even at this young age he had a good grasp of the absurd. We were having a party that day and my mother instructed Bob in his full costume, to "go down in the basement and get the watermelon." Cheerful as usual, brother Bob bounced down the basement stairs and after a couple of minutes, Mom yell after him, "whatever you do, don't drop the watermelon." As she was yelling that order he was on his way up. He looked up and 'splat', dropped the watermelon. Watermelon cascaded down the basement steps, a horrific mess, and we, his siblings, roared with laughter.

Bob was chagrined in his "Stupid Man" costume, uncertain as what to do next. But we knew just what to do. We chorused "whatever you do don't drop the watermelon" until he was laughing too. I'm not sure my mother found it quite as amusing as we did [she was the one who had to clean up], but she grew to love the story too. To this day I can't look at a watermelon without wanting to utter that phrase.

One of the peculiarities of our brains is that they hear words and commands and ignore negative instruction. The best example I can think of [besides, "whatever you do..."] is one relevant to anyone who as ever tried to diet. If you are constantly mentally listing what you can't have: "I can't eat sugar, I can't have a donut, I can't have chocolate, etc. after awhile that's all you can think of. "Sugar, donut, chocolate, now" says the brain, until, gee whiz ,you have a craving for these treats defeating the diet. Another food example that exemplifies the brain/ body connection is try saying this to yourself: "I kiss and then suck the juicy lemon."  Makes you pucker, no?

Coaches in the sports world figured this out eons ago and started coaching people with positive instructions, which works better and goes down easier. This is especially true of training dogs who respond more effectively to 'good boy' and  to ignoring their more obnoxious traits [an effective trick is turning your back on them when they jump up]. Now for humans, one example I found useful I read in a biking magazine: when approaching a hill that seems daunting say to yourself, "this hill is flatter than it appears." Trust me this does not work all of the time, but 80% is better than 0%. Most successful athletes engage in positive, encouraging self talk while playing their sport. This is backed up by an old and interesting study. In the study the experimenters created three basketball teams. One team was instructed to practice, every day, shooting free throws. Another team was instructed not to practice the free throws at all and the third team was instructed to visualize themselves making the free throws every day but not to practice. Of course the team that practiced had the best score, but a surprisingly close score was the team that just visualized. The "Music Man" was right! He  merely instructed his music students to think about the music, they didn't even own the instruments. Although he was supposedly a charlatan it turned out he was an encouraging good coach [and an all around love able fellow who could sing and dance which has not much to do with our story but I do love that musical]. When the kids played it did sound wretched yet far better than if they had just blindly picked up a tuba. Your thoughts do influence your actions. Then, if add your words and positive self talk to that equation and you are on your way to a successful action.

The reverse, unfortunately, is also true. When my darling husband was coaching Little League one of his player's Dad was an truly obnoxious man who would always yell gross comments from the side lines: "watch what you're doing, you stupid kid, chase that ball, now you're going to drop it." And by God, the kid did drop the ball, after looking anxiously at his Dad. My husband had to finally throw this hyperventilating Dad off the field and talk with him afterwords. "Tom, if you can't control yourself, you can't come to the games." My brother had an old costume designed specifically for this man.

Everybody loves a lover
I'm a lover that's why
Everybody love me.

An old song sung by Doris Day in the 50's

He who distributes the milk of human kindness cannot help
but spill a little on himself.
James Barrie

Bringing love into this equation completes the circle for successful action. Self love is important, as important as self respect. If we are truly good and kind to ourselves it is a breeze to be so to others. The rewards are ten fold, and as Daniel Webster says "what a man does for others, not what they do for him, gives him immortality." Not a bad return on your money. One of the easiest ways to be kind and good to yourself is to be your own cheerleader, coach, with positive messages to be delivered on a regular basis. Simple affirmations are useless unless uttered endlessly, until they are finally believed and ingested. Most of the people that I have seen in counseling have heard about affirmations but tend to pooh-pooh them as 'new agey'. Silly, because if as I explained, our thoughts influence our actions and our feelings, this is a quick way to change the grind of internal negativity. The trouble is changing a thought is a steep uphill battle when you've been calling yourself bad names for years. Ah, this is when we can steal from the bike magazine, "this hill is flatter than it looks." Said more than a thousand times a day, you can become encouraging rather than discouraging to yourself.

Reversing the curse

When I said a thousand times a day, I wasn't kidding. You figure that the internal dialogue with yourself has been going on for many years, probably since childhood and it is going to take a powerful commitment to reverse the cursing that you have been doing to yourself. Sign up today. Figure out what you have been saying to yourself that you would never say to a beloved child, then turn it around and repeat 10,000 times. Might take awhile. My [step] Grandfather used to say, "it's nice to be nice" and "it would be different if I didn't care," and we heard that over 10 K times I am sure. Not bad messages to have implanted. So, catch yourself. If you are internally muttering things like "you stupid, foolish girl/boy" turn that into "you dear, love able woman/man". And even if it makes you laugh, it will be a cheerful laugh, not derisive or critical one. Have fun with coming up with much better sentences that you can mutter.

And you know what? It is nice to be nice. Put those good encouraging thoughts in that brain of yours and start today reversing the cursing. Today, now. Go!


magicfeather copyright 2011 Susan R. Grout all rights reserved.