I’m laughing, but there’s a super useful corollary, which my husband calls “the Red Balloon.” He was a defense lawyer and had a fair number of drug addicts come through, and there is a thing where if you’re like, on your first offense, they’ll do a thing where you can go to treatment and if you complete it they’ll take the conviction off your record.
And he would tell his clients, “Look, everyone’s going to tell you not to do drugs. They’re going to say it over and over again. And it’s like, if people tell you not to think of a white elephant, you’re going to think of a white elephant. But the trick to not thinking about a white elephant is to think of a red balloon. So you need to find your red balloon. For some people it’s yoga. For others it’s woodworking. For some people it’s scrapbooking or gardening or any of a long list of things to do. They focus on that, it’s a lot easier to succeed in ignoring the white elephant.”
So yeah, “watch yourself” is one thing… but the better idea is to watch something else. (Even if it’s fanfic about werewolves fucking.)
It’s a form of productive dissociation, and is super, super helpful.
It’s easy for me to get bogged down in how much pain I’m in… but some of the most painful periods of my life have also been the most productive, writing-wise, because writing is one of my red balloons.
There is a phrase I use A LOT in my parenting and my son gets very sick of it, but it’s true:
The thing you practise is the thing you get good at.
You may not intentionally be practicing “being grumpy” but if you don’t put effort into practicing “not being grumpy” then I’m afraid that’s what you’re doing. It’s hard! It’s really hard! Sometimes, for some things, it’s pretty much impossible and that sucks!
But being carefully aware that you are going to get good at the things you do most of is a good way to be more careful of what those things are. If that makes sense.
I went to a school where bicycling was a huge part of the outdoor education curriculum (it was an odd private school, but it very literally saved my fucked up bullied life, but that’s another story). I was a clumsy anxious mess of a child, and basically a rolling disaster when you managed to pitchfork me onto a bike, let alone a bike on a mountain-biking trail. I was terrified of crashing. And I. Kept. Crashing.
The teachers were used to kids like me, though.
And their advice that helped me stop crashing was two words.
Look positive.
Basically, what you look at, when you’re biking, is where you’ll go. Look at the rock you’re scared of, and you’re going to make a beeline for the rock. Look at the little gap between the rocks, and you’ll go through the little gap and be okay.
It’s been a long time since school, and you cannot get me on a bike these days without significant threats, but I’m still using that advice. Works for driving and for life too…
