When I was attending commercial art classes at MATC, one day, my art instructor made the observation that I probably felt depressed, because I was always walking, looking down at my feet. I was both annoyed and relieved that someone noticed. He told me to stand up straight and look at people. The depression was so real that no one talking could alter the heavy feelings. A small brightness filled me, however, because someone took the time to see me and tell me what they saw.
I’m somewhat awed by how therapy has typically come from people who were not my therapist. All the years working with my personal trainer, Kevin, he was someone in my life that greatly made a strong difference. He wasn’t purposefully trying to be a life coach, however, I heard life messages in his weight training, fitness instruction, or simple conversation. If anyone else would have said to me, “it is what it is,” I may have wanted to vomit with disgust. Hearing that phrase seemed to have both a very subtle nasty interpretation or a positive one. From Kevin, I could hear the positive meaning and feel calmed. Suddenly my laminating or ruminating would become nullified. Acceptance for reality and not wishing for something else.
Many years later, weight training with Kevin, he would repeatedly say to me the body alignment/posture instruction for the exercise being performed. For numerous exercises, the phrase “head up, chest out” was the reminder. Even if I was in the correct alignment, Kevin still would give the instruction as reinforcement. Definitely, the difficult part was the “chest out,” because I felt self-conscious about doing something, even slightly, tied to sexuality. I was quietly, in my own mind, being challenged to improve my own body image along side having good posture.
Outside the gym… applying weight training in real life… there was this one day walking to work, sagging head and droopy feet. I suddenly heard the voice of Kevin. I did my best to force myself to comply: head up chest out. Begrudgingly, I had to admit that a change of posture could change mood.
Doing weight training on my own… without the direct instruction received during a check-in day with Kevin… I needed to develop motivational techniques to keep going, not give up on my fitness goal. I got into the habit, as I counted out the reps… talking to myself… I learned to talk to myself: “all you have to do right now is count to ten.” This was about, not thinking about whether I could do the second or third set… “right now, all you have to do is count to ten.” Those were the moments I loved weight training the best. When I could feel that I was doing it right, my muscles spoke to me of their push and pull, how fighting to squeeze out the last couple of reps was fulfilling. Focus on the present, pinpoint your thoughts on the next action that is most difficult. Only that, nothing more.
In the pool my mind would wander so much, that I never could keep track of my lap count. I was incredibly frustrated about my unfocused mind. I had to start a mantra for each lap, “working on one,” for the entire length of the pool up and back. Then “working on two.” After awhile, “workin on it” became the personal shorthand for acknowledging something difficult without spiraling into self-judgment. Not “I’m fine” and not a full explanation, just workin on it. The phrase encouraged focusing on the present, and be reassured that I was where I needed to be, doing what I needed to do. It even worked when nothing had been accomplished for a particular task on the job. When someone asked about the status of that task, telling the lie, “working on it” was the perfect answer to actually jump start out of procrastination into getting the thing done in record time.
One more place at the gym has a phrase. The resistance pool has jets to create a current. This pool is called the resistance or current pool for a reason—that I believe—means one is supposed to walk into the current. Fighting the current is meant to be the muscle, endurance building while being gentle on knees. I get extremely irritated when other members use the current pool as a lazy river holding onto noodles or just free floating. “People this is the resistance pool; that means you walk against the current!” My anger allows me to assume a fixed mental stance that I don’t move or go around them; they must go around me. The dialog in my head is one or many thoughts: “This is my place, this is my space, I belong here, I will not yield, I’m coming through, I’m not going around you—you go around me. Push against the current.” When I’m tired and my walking time is far from complete, I might switch to “working on it.” I’m working on this next 10 minutes.
All of these – the counting, the lap mantra, the resistance pool stance – started in my body before they became thoughts. Physical first, mental second. That’s my pattern. Tim says my resistance pool self talk is exactly what I need to name in order to be confident in other parts of my life… The advice he gave…
“Confidence is attractive. But you can act confident without being confident—and that still works. Faking it till you make it is a very real strategy.
“In the resistance pool, you choose: walk against the current or with it. This is the resistance pool—that means you walk against the current. When I’m in there I have this attitude: I’m coming through. This is my space. I’m not going around you—you go around me. That is a very confident stance.
“This is the best example of what we want to do in other places in life. You own this space. Not anyone else’s. If you find yourself in any other situation without that thing—what would it be like to act like the person who owns the room? Who doesn’t give a fuck?
“Confident people still have tons of doubt. They just don’t show it. That’s the persona. Get the fuck out of my way—I’m doing this right, so you move.
“You have the agency to choose this. Actually doing it is far more tricky. But part of it is just telling yourself you’re going to. Hype yourself up. I’m the one controlling the room.
“Maybe there’s an activating phrase here. Whatever you call confident you—your get-out-of-my-way stance. Name it. When you have a name for it, you can quickly access it without redefining everything. You have to name your own thing—no one likes anybody else’s ideas. Have you seen Inception? The premise of that movie is that no one likes anybody else’s ideas—they only like their own. There’s a lot of truth to that. So you need to name the thing for yourself. Name the stance. What does confident Lena look like? What does that person do? How do you adopt it? That name becomes your quick reference.”
All of that is what Tim said.
Perhaps I have too many now, confidence namings. But, I have yet one more example of a confident self command. A metaphor of mine. There’s a phrase I use when I’m really, really hypomanic, when things are really bad. I have high energy and nearly no fear, lots of ideas surging through my head. I had an indicator of how bad. A phrase would slip out: “Driving fast and taking chances.” Suicide ideation was high.
In contrast, a couple times recently, in my new Escape, I remembered the phrase, but it meant something different. Especially the day after cleaning the storage locker, there was calm with silence and peace. A day of accomplishment. Driving a fast vehicle without the criticism, road rage, and backseat driving was a different kind of calm; exuberant joy, an absence of depression. The more I drove, the greater the self confidence.
I would say, “Driving fast and taking chances,” but not in an absolutely awful, reckless way. It was feeling good. So, yeah, you put the pedal down just a little bit more than normal, and the taking chances was more about not being timid to change lanes or to merge. So, again, it’s not reckless; it’s just being in control and going fast.
So today was not a “driving fast, taking chances” day, but I definitely do like the saying. Today was “driving towards a traffic light that just turned yellow.” You need to calculate fast: how far into the cycle, when will it turn red, do I stop or go? What you do—while no human is actually listening—is say it out loud to the universe: “I am going.” Then everyone, the cross traffic, the light itself, knows you called Dibs. It’s yellow. I don’t know exactly when it’s turning red, but I’m committed. I’m going. That’s the kind of day it was.
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Every new event or activity is a chance to reinvent self. No. Rather, just about invoking the confident persona through calling up the appropriate confidence naming.
So there’s head up chest out from Kevin at the gym, all you have to do right now is count to ten from burning muscles and impossible reps, workin on it from unfocused pool laps and procrastinated tasks, push against the current from owning the resistance pool, my space I’m not moving you go around from people who don’t understand what resistance means, driving fast and taking chances from the Escape when it’s joy instead of mania, and I’m going from yellow lights that demand calling Dibs on commitment—all of them commands to myself, all of them ways to access the confident stance, the person who doesn’t yield, the version of myself who owns the room.
Tim is asking for one activating phrase that calls up the entire confident stance, whatever form the moment needs. A verbal switch that unlocks the person who owns the room, who doesn’t yield, who goes when it’s time to go. The phrase could invoke any of these depending on what’s needed—not separate commands for separate situations, but one name for the whole persona.
Admittedly, I’ve recognized situations with people where there is a stark difference between confidence and cowering. The time the pharmacist was answering a question for me, and it was taking an extra long while for her to look up the information. What I wanted to do was to be all squirmy and shift my weight and look annoyed. I forced myself to stand perfectly still. Stiller than the stillness. Once she turned away from her computer and relayed the information to me, I listened patiently and did not interrupt. After she finished, I looked her in the eye and said, “Thank you for looking that up for me,” and then I slowly turned away and walked.
Compared to two examples where an older gentleman made an attempt to engage with me, and I would not look him in the eye. One guy, without prompting, started to talk to me in an elevator. I don’t think I even answered him back. Another guy, just yesterday morning, saw me from across the parking lot, and when I finally got close enough, he greeted me cheerfully with a good morning and a smile. My shoes were untied. I had just struggled to get my backpack strap over my head, and my keys were still in my hand. The things I was carrying were nearly dropping to the ground as I rushed toward a late appointment. I mumbled something to him in response, basically blew him off, and I think he was kind of cute. In the elevator, my mind was still tangled up from what I’d discussed at my appointment, or maybe from being at the lab. The second time, I was so embarrassed by how clumsy I was and how much of a mess I was that I just wanted to sulk away.
It’s easy to look someone in the eye and seem confident when you choose to take charge. When you’re caught off guard and someone tries to engage, self-consciousness takes over instead of any form of confidence naming able to happen. Sometimes life happens so quickly, there is not time to remember your words.
These may not be the perfect universal confidence naming I’m looking for. Or that Tim was trying to describe. These are just a few that have been working so far. The two that moved from gym workout to the outside world are “head up chest out” and “working on it.” The one that naturally was created out in the wild, “I’m going.”
Which one, if any, is the universal? Still looking and deciding. Then there is learning how to recognize when you’re in need of your words.
[Abridged version sent to Tim. He never read/hear all the full back stories for the phrases. Once again, the limitation of the daily system].
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