The flex: handing them back
I hope your day is like finding money in the pocket of a coat you haven’t worn in years.
I was doing visualizations the other day, as part of a therapy exercise.
Wow, did I really just start an email with those words? Yes, I did, so hold onto your hats, here we go.
Look, I can get all “affirmations! visualization! forest bathing!” because I think all those things are hella beneficial. But I’m not exactly the woo-woo goddess you’d normally expect to see dropping these pearls of earthy insight. So don’t count me out as a new-age nut, but don’t expect me to teach you how to manifest your dreams, either.
I’m mostly a somewhat lazy optimist who’s open to the possibilities but keeps science in her back pocket.
OK, back to the visualizations. One was what I’d call “imagining the most positive, filling-your-needs conversation you’ll never have with that person who keeps hurting your feelings”.
It was great! I highly recommend it. I thought, “What if they said all the things I long to hear?” and just went with it. While this conversation may never (let’s be real, will never) take place IRL, it was heavenly to experience it nonetheless.
Then we moved on to what I think of as my “protection exercise”. In this one I imagined myself a Neo-like superhuman who could hold up a hand to stop bullets (verbal, in this case). But instead of letting them drop to the ground, I let them fill my hand, then handed them back to the speaker.
So, maybe this shouldn’t have been such a stark revelation? Possibly refusing to accept insinuations and outright vilification is a part of boundary-building I could have taken on board decades ago. But the idea of not only rejecting said maligning but actually saying “no thank you, I don’t need this, you may keep it” had never really crossed my mind.
This quickly turned, in my imagination, from a useful tool into a major flex, as the kids say. But while I’m congratulating myself on that display of internal power, I realize the next step is to somehow effectively hand those words back without actually engaging with the person, which might also involve my new friend, visualization.
Until, that is, I can learn to implant my words into another person’s brain.
Now that will be a flex.
Recommendation!
I admit I'm prone to jealousy, not to mention the existential angst that comes with watching someone one third my age perfectly execute something once considered impossible, all the while knowing I will never be that good at anything.
But - there is just something about witnessing excellence. Not to get all misty-eyed, but it does restore my heart to see another human doing something amazing.
As if this were not enough of a flex, he did it to the Succession theme song. 💪🏻
Thanks to Caitlin Kunkel; I saw this first in her excellent newsletter.