As one goes through the little room to hang up jackets on the way to the weight room at the Y, there is a little sign in gentle script "You Are Worthy. You Are Beautiful. You Are Enough." Really? All of us? Are you sure? How do you know this - you've never even met me! Does anyone look at that and suddenly think "Oh yes! I AM beautiful! Thank you for reminding me, I so much needed to hear that!" I wrote about the uselessness of generic encouragement a few posts ago, but I think this is even a little worse than that.
Clearly, they mean well. They want to improve your self-esteem today or something. It is the sort of thing that the people who put up these little signs say when they are leading your exercise class. (My wife is getting into online walking and balance classes, so I have these cheery, chirpy voices in the background a fair bit these day. They're fine. Nice ladies.) Guys in gyms have a different litany of encouragement, with more football coach/drill officer to it. "YOU CAN DO THIS SAMUEL! PUSH IT!" Those are both better, I think, because they are tied to something you are doing this specific moment. The words themselves are not that important, it is the timing of the delivery.
But you don't get that credit when it's on the wall above the light switch. Upon further review, these are statements of what they think you should believe about yourself. They are quite convinced that this mindless positive chat would be helpful to you if you kept saying it to yourself, so they are prompting that. It is a mild version of that theology of positive confession, of not letting bad thoughts even enter your mind. Turn them away at the door! Don't invite the vampire over the threshold!
As such, it's a sermonette. And not a very good one.
Perhaps I am overthinking this.
9 comments:
I think I'll start an Etsy store to sell a sign reading, "You have value, but there are still many ways to improve yourself. Maybe work on some of those."
I'll also sell a poster retelling the "Footprints on the Sand" story, except I'd change the ending. When the person asks Jesus why there were sometimes only one set of footprints, Jesus responds, "Well, those were the hard times in your life, and you were complaining a lot. It was annoying, so I left until you stopped whining and decided to do something proactive."
I'm sure my Etsy store will be a hit.
"Guys in gyms have a different litany of encouragement, with more football coach/drill officer to it. "YOU CAN DO THIS SAMUEL! PUSH IT!" Those are... better, I think, because they are tied to something you are doing this specific moment."
My favorite example of this came in a Strongman competition I did a few years ago. There was an event called the "Sword Hold," wherein a 25-pound weight was slid down the blade of a sword, which competitors were to hold up at chin-height in both hands for as long as possible. Longest hold wins.
The obvious way to excel at this event is to enter a meditative state in which the immediate pain is no longer a focus of attention. (The effectiveness of this is explored by Richard Strozzi-Heckler in his book about training Green Berets in those techniques.) This was well-understood by the audience, most of whom were former or current competitors themselves.
So when the event began, immediately they all started screaming: "GO SOMEWHERE ELSE!! PUT YOUR MIND SOMEWHERE ELSE!!" Imagine how effective having dozens of large men screaming this at you in the present moment is at helping you enter that meditative state.
Yes. The "don't think about a hippo" reaction immediately brings to mind a parade of ways I'm not OK, not enough, and don't quite resemble a Greek statue (maybe Silenus?)
I think I'd do better not thinking about myself.
@ Grim - I have heard people lead meditative prayer in much the same way. "Anything that you have in your mind that is not Jesus, let it go. Fill your mind with nothing but God and with things of the spirit. Let it go. Drop those things from your mind and hold nothing but the presence of God in your attention..." After a few minutes of this your mind is filled with thoughts of wanting to pop that prayer leader right in the snoot.
And in some cases, it'd be like an ICU with posters saying "You're perfectly well."
"I think I'd do better not thinking about myself."
My thought exactly. However, I keep it to myself as it seems to offend some people and I don't want any trouble.
Would future tense be better?
"Today's effort is tomorrow's result"?
@ Christopher B - I'm not sure! Some of them are likely still "Feel the Burn" people, and the people writing these certainly apply that strictness to themselves and their exercise (because they find it chemically enjoyable anyway and thus make it into a virtue), but I think some really are moving to this as a real philosophy of life about vaguely praising people and saying Encouraging Stuff leading to them increasingly entering their world of Positive Yoga Wellness. As James points out whenever I forget, what we pretend to be has the frightening possibility of becoming our real selves.
I'm just quoting Uncle Screwtape: "All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be. This is elementary."
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