When I grew up, I brought with me words that did not feel good to me, like:
“She will never amount to anything! She won’t be able to do it! She is lazy”.
These words blocked me for some forty-five years. I pray that no child has to wait forty-five years to discover their brilliance! I knew if children had some positive words, it would open them up and allow for good and wonderful things to come, early in life. I had a wonderful Aunt Marie: she is in my heart now, for she now own wings. The words she spoke to me were always positive. Those words are the ones that carried me to become the person I am today. Having a positive person say one sentence to a child empowers them and is a gift for a lifetime. So I thought, what could thirty minutes of all positive words a day do for a child or even an adult? I believed it would give them strength and courage to handle challenges. Have available positive affirmations to use, to replace the negative words said to them at any time. Children are the most honest people I have encountered. They are born believing the best about themselves. On their birth, their arrival, they come into this world at a party filled with hopes and dreams. With balloons all around them, called “Happy Balloons”. As our children grow, someone may come along with words, and pop a Balloon with a sentence like:
“You can’t do that! Pop!
“You will break that!” Pop!
“You don’t know how!” Pop!
“You can’t do anything!” Pop!
Showing others how to bring positive into their lives, gives me a feeling of knowing they will have words to blow up their balloons when needed. If one gets popped, so what! They can blow up another one. Each full blown balloon lifts their spirit. It builds their self-esteem.
My parents were good souls. They thought as so many other families, that by pointing out my faults, I would try to change them. Not! Maybe if I had believed in myself more, I could have! Except we believe what our parents tell us as truth. My parents wee doing their best. Their best, using what both of their parents had taught them. Growing up, I hadn’t been shown how to use my own brain or heart: it had to be when that they believed. I had no tools or words to use that would encourage me or allow me to blow up my balloons. My balloons were all around me on the floor. They had no air, causing me low self-esteem. Now Aunt Marie was the one who gave me some tools, nice words, encouraging words. She had that gift of always finding something good to share with me of what she seen in me. She believed in me! At home, when I got bawled out by my parents, I would run to my bedroom with all the crying drama. I would lay there and repeat all their verbal belittling words over and over in my head and cry. This would pierce a hole in a balloon and it would slowly flatten to the ground. When I think back on it, I would always be the hardest on my own balloons. In time the balloons would just lie there. I would not be able to life my spirits at all. I didn’t have enough positive words to reach for. Around the seventh grade my balloons were so out of air. I became a magnet to boys with deflated balloons. Of course we didn’t know it then. I felt needed around them. When I found I could feel real good with a boy that became my greatest joy. I wanted that kind of attention, even if it came with their belittlement toward me in the long run. I allowed it, because it was my normal. Right away I became pregnant, I gave birth to my own little girl, and the cycle started again. I could only pass on what was shown to me. When she tried something I felt she should not be doing, I turned to the only words and actions I knew. “Bad baby”! Pop! Don’t do that! Pop! Don’t touch that! Pop!