I Am (insert something positive here)……

I’ve been exploring affirmations.  I’ve always thought it seemed so silly to tell myself how great I am or how much I love myself, but once I stopped to think about how often I speak negatively to myself, I began to see how turning it around might turn ME around.

Think about how often you find yourself saying, “I’m so stupid/mean/lazy/unorganized/whatever negative thing comes to mind”.  That is considered normal self-talk for women.  It’s also considered normal to say it out loud, to other people.

On the other hand, how often do you praise yourself inwardly.  “I’m really good at my job/my marriage/parenting/spelling/cooking, etc.”  And God forbid we EVER actually say these things out loud to others.  “Well, isn’t she full of herself…who does she think she is, bragging like that.”

Funny how that works.  We are supposed to be developing a kinder, gentler, more PC nation and yet we (sometimes falsely) heap praise on others, while denigrating ourselves.  Ladies, I’m talking to you.  We’re supposed to be empowered by now.

It seems as if it’s required of women to constantly be too hard on ourselves.  Our looks, our brains, our abilities, our hormones; all of them are never good enough. Culturally, we’re branded as crazy and moody and cat-fighty and incompetent and silly.

This time of year, I’m always so annoyed at the Valentine’s Day commercials for teddy bears and pajamas.  The spots always feature a leering guy, happily purchasing something that would appeal to a 10 year-old girl (unless she was me at 10; I preferred a new baseball mitt) because he thinks it will ensure some hot sack time with her.  The message being “women are so simple and child-like.”

Would any of us consider buying the men in our lives a Tonka truck and Spiderman pajamas for a gift to show our love?  Men would feel disrespected and belittled by that.

There are a lot of crazy cultural messages flying around and unfortunately many of us gals embrace them, buy into them, foster them and add them to our self-talking points.

So, here we are.  Back to self-talk.  What do we tell ourselves about ourselves?  And by extension, what do we as a gender, radiate out to our culture?  Constantly reiterating what we’re supposedly not good at, becomes ingrained.  Men believe it, our daughters believe it, our leaders believe it, marketers believe it and it circles back to us and we believe it.

We are smart, competent, grown-up, reliable, innovative, creative, loving, nurturing and equal.  Let’s all start talking the self-talk and walking the walk.

Here’s one to get us started.  “I love who I am. I am grounded in my own power.  I am secure on all levels.”  And I don’t want a giant teddy bear for Valentine’s Day.