The Power of Self-Talk

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Women have a bad habit of putting ourselves down when talking to each other. Conversations are liberally sprinkled with phrases like, “My hair looks awful today,” or “I hate my clothes. I feel like I look fat in everything,” or even “I feel like a bad mom/friend/sister/spouse.” It too often feels like a competition among women over who can be the most “humble,” by putting themselves down the most.

My friend Christie has the best response when I, or others around her, start in with the negative talk. “Please don’t talk about my friend that way,” she’ll say. It’s a great wake-up call. I wouldn’t talk about other people the way I too often talk about myself.           

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It’s Not Worth It

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With age, comes wisdom. Particularly the wisdom to know that time is short and spending our precious minutes and hours on things that don’t fulfill us is, well, a waste of time.

I get it. Beds must be made and laundry must be folded. (Yes, it must. Do not argue with me on this.) Life isn’t all fun. But over the years I’ve gotten better at discerning what’s worth my attention and what isn’t.

For example, a couple of months ago my company changed wellness providers. Our new provider sent us step trackers. If we log a certain number of steps each day, we can earn up to $1000 toward our deductibles and medical costs. Not a bad deal, right?

But not for me.

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I'm Not Busy

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Whenever people ask me how I'm doing, I have a singular, standby answer: "Busy."

This, friends, is a bullshit response.

Let me explain. It's not that I'm not busy. With an active work and social life plus the (admittedly self-inflected) punishing workout schedule I adhere to, it seems there are rarely enough hours in the day. I am, in fact, busy. 

But so what? Who isn't busy? I can't think of one person in my circle of friends and acquaintances who would answer "How are you?" with "Pretty slow, really. Lots of down time to think, read and meditate on life. Yeah, not a lot going on." 

Right? 

So I'm booting "busy" off my list of acceptable responses...

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Dating Diaries: He's Single

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People, I have reached a new low. A friend texted me yesterday. Here's her message, in full:

"I have someone for you to go out with. He's single."

Really? This is the new standard by which I'll date? "He's single?" What happened to smart, funny, cute?" "He's single" is like saying, "Well, he's of the human species. I think. Wait--let me check his Linked In profile."

Awesome. Can't wait to meet. 

How are people describing me to potential dates? "She's a girl." That's it folks, bottom-line it for us single people.

Of course, I can't complain too much. My response? "Yeah, okay, whatever. Set me up."

Cheers,

Dena