The Creating of Self
I am recalling as a little girl how my grandmother, (Nene) who was primary caregiver of me and my three siblings (mom was a single working mom), would react or respond to us children. When catching one of us saying or doing something “bad”, “naughty”, “mean”, “hurtful/hateful”, “ugly”or whatever she (Nene) deemed negative and inappropriate. She would force us to come up with seven (7) “good”, “nice”, “kind”, “loving”, “pretty” words or acts to say or do to replace the one we had used. Sometimes we were forced to sit in (timeout/kiddie jail) for hours trying to come up with those seven words or acts. Can you imagine a five year old, sitting for hours while watching her brother and sisters running around making silly faces enjoying their day? There I was , five years old, sitting alone trying to come up with seven replacement words or acts for the one, that by that time, I had long forgotten??!! It really put a serious dent in the adventurous and fun day of a well spoken and well behaved child!!
In any case, I’m not sure about my siblings but as for me, I learned to remember most of those seven appropriate and acceptable words and acts, (according to Nene), that I came up with, just in case I found myself in timeout/kiddie jail again. It would be a much shorter sentence or term!! It was like keeping a “Get Out of Jail Card” just in case!! Between the four of us I can’t tell you how many terms we all served during those learning years!! But what I can say is that, as children, those experiences and those timeouts/kiddie jail terms actually helped us to be the people we are today.
It was watching the video below that brought this memory back to my mind. We are forever creating who we are by what we do and say to ourselves and each other. I really don’t know what my grandmother’s motives were, at the time, for what I deemed to be, the cruelest or most extreme form of punishment (short of the occasional spankings). But as a parent myself. I’ve used it on and for my girls. I think back at me being a little girls looking at my brother and sisters make the silliest faces as we served our jail terms and also my daughters, sitting facing themselves in the mirror on the door. They made funny faces too!
I have to smile because my grandmother a therapist before her time, was using her own technique and method of replacing limiting beliefs in the four of us. I’m just guessing here, but I think that those inappropriate words and acts we were forced to replace, if left unchecked, would have likely resulted in four inappropriate speaking and misbehaving persons (at least according to my grandmother).
I enjoyed this video. Check it out if and when you have time. I really like Jim Carrey, don’t you?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-kaib_rXTQ&feature=youtu.be
Happy Creating and Manifesting, Conscious Ones!
The Conscious Creator 💝💞