Friday, November 7, 2008

Self Talk

Ever listen to what you think-say to yourself...yesterday was one of those challenging days as I decided to try to print off a rough draft of our 60 pages of poems....which are two to a page in landscape mode and printed on two sides. I couldn't get my printer at home to do it, so I had this conversation with myself..."there's got to be a solution to this, ask someone for help...who?...I'll ask Allen" (my husband). He tried but got frustrated so that was no solution... 

Then my self talk or thoughts were "call for Epson support." Well, that's an unfinished story as the young man there listened and tried a few things then said "hold the line while I try something else"...I was on my cell phone, so I sat there listening to silence while I tried a few things on my computer and even dug out the manual. That's real desperation, reading the manual-who does that? But I didn't find much there. Finally the kid comes back and says "send me your file and I'll see if I can print it out." Well, it's now eighteen hours later and no word from him yet... 

In the meantime, I tried to solve the problem by going over to our church's family history center where the booklets will be printed to see if that printer would cooperate. It's the same kind of printer that my neighbor uses and I had his printing instructions, but they didn't work. So the struggle continued with lots of negative self talk inside..."you're not going to be able to do this" vs. "don't give up, there's got to be a solution!" After many urgent silent prayers for help, I got the idea to "check the print settings at the church, then go over to my neighbor's printer and compare them." That somewhat solved the problem. So hopefully, it will all work out in the end. What a lot of talking, reasoning, praying and reassuring went on inside myself yesterday, I'm exhausted...

Do you talk to yourself? If so, what do you say?

2 comments:

  1. ha ha ha ha... you checked the manual? That's a little like reading crochet instructions in latin. I can't understand anything the manuals say. They're written by people who already know what to do and they ususally start out 14 steps ahead of me.

    You are going to get this done. I know your tenacity. And it's going to be nothing short of WONDERFUL!!

    What do I talk to myself about? Well, other than those ridiculous days when I try to convince myself that the man who has stood by me, laughed at my silliness, tolerated too many gardening magazines in the corner and grilled cheese sandwiches or scrambled eggs being served for dinner way too often... doesn't really love me. Wha?? If he didn't love me he'd have been living on a mountain top with his trusty hound, and driving a honkin HUGE truck by now. (I have no idea why I do this from time to time... but, I tell myself all women do it. Do you suppose there are other women who do?)

    Anyway... other than those infrequent days..there is a song that I sing to myself and try to live by. It goes something like this, hummmmm..
    "I am the best friend to myself, and I take me out whenever I feel low.
    I treat myself exactly as a best friend would.
    I'm as nice to me as anyone I know."

    That song is another thing my mom taught me. She'd say things like..."You know yourself better than anyone. If you don't like you, why should anyone else?"
    We had this dumb cheer we did in the kitchen. "You're cute. (clap twice) You're sweet. (clap twice) You don't have stinky feet." (Jump and do the cheer leader roll..RAH!)
    She went to great lengths to try to give us all some self esteem.
    So that's the kind of self talk I usually do. I admit, I don't always believe it... but, I keep singing and clapping through the bad days.

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  2. I hate it when that happens...I talk to myself all the time. Usually it's something along the lines of, "No matter what it is..you can deal with it". That has been my mantra in dealing with my health issues...

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