They're Listening

"Ugh, I suck. I'm the worst. I'm not good at anything."
I've gotten on my daughter 100 times for talking to herself like that.
"Would you say that to your friends? Then don't say it to yourself."
I just could not wrap my head around where my confident daughter was learning to talk to herself like that.

And then I heard it.

On my last hunting trip, I was lucky enough to have a friend record the hunt.
At one point, things weren't going the way I had planned.
I remember mumbling to myself how upset I was.
I remember jokingly saying I wasn't as good as we thought.
I remember calling my husband, still breathing heavy from the hike, and joking that I was too fat for this.
When we retrieved the elk, I remember being congratulated for the shot, but wondering if I could have done better. I was hard on myself for needing help with field dressing. I was physically ill that night because I was so worried I might not be strong enough to pack out. I cracked jokes all day at my own expense.

By the time we got home, I had put all the negativity out of my head and probably never would have thought about it again until I heard that video.
"God dang it. I suck. Damn it, Brandy".

I have no memory of saying those things to myself.

It was like that video forced me to look in a mirror, and I started noticing how I talked about myself. All my comments were veiled as jokes...but was I really joking?
I started thinking about how my husband said he was proud of me. I just laughed and said " I fell down so many times. I needed so much help. It was embarassing".
"Wilson, just say thank you," he said, "You did good".

What if he was onto something?
Maybe I never say thank you, because I don't feel worthy of the compliment.
What if what I had told myself was humility, was really just an excuse to degrade myself while I pretended to the world that I was a confident person.
How would my life change if I started giving myself credit instead of always looking at what I should do differently?
How would my kid's lives change?
How would my marriage change?

What about you?
How would your life change if you let yourself celebrate your success?
How would your family's life change if you were the example of self-love?

I know I want to find out.

Mamas, let's speak to ourselves the way we want our daughters to speak to themselves.

They're listening.