The Power of Affirmations

In first grade, I started a new school.  I was so excited (and a little nervous) to start my new adventure.  I was enthusiastic to learn, to take the bus to school, to make new friends... it's such an exciting time in any six year old's life!

But things didn't turn out quite as I had planned.

The class was small and most of the kids already seemed to know each other.  This one particular girl (we'll call her Melinda) picked me as a target.  I was perplexed.  I tried being extra nice to her and making peace offerings, but she would just turn up her nose, sneer, and walk away.  Kids who I thought I had forged friendships with would sheepishly shy away from me when she glared at them.  I didn't understand. I never hated ANYone, so this behavior was completely foreign and confusing to me.

My affirmations started right then and there.  As Melinda's hatred infected the rest of the class like a cancer labeling me a social outcast, making friends became harder and harder.  And every day, I would repeat to myself two things:

What doesn't kill me only makes me stronger.
 

Someday, they will see me for the wonderful person I truly am.

I wish I could say it changed at the end of the year.  But it didn't.  In a small school, grades K-8, we stayed with pretty much the same kids all the way through.  And first impressions last. After a while, everyone forgot why they didn't talk to me.  I made some friends.  But it continued to be somewhat of a social taboo to interact with me, and only the bravest, most secure kids were willing to take that risk (sadly, a rarity in the world of 9-13 year old girls).  Luckily, outside of school, making friends was never much of an issue; I was shy but likable.  However, when you spend the majority of your day invisible, it definitely outweighs the limited time you spend with friends at church or camp or girl scouts.

I'd like to clarify that this is not a complaint.

Yes, it lead to a lot of tears, down days, and a lot to process emotionally, but I couldn't be more grateful.

Why, you ask?

Because how lucky am I, that all my friends passed the test of loyalty before we ever even spoke?

And thanks to Melinda, I never had to follow the crowd.  I am fiercely independent.  I march to the beat of my own drummer.  I have amazing empathy.  I have overwhelming gratitude for friendship. I am a pro at finding things to love about others.  My patients often comment that they feel no judgment from me, no matter what intimate details they share. And I have a soft spot in my heart for the underdogs of the world.  But most of all, I got the opportunity to access the inner strength I never knew I had.  I had no one to rely on but me.  And I made it through.  What didn't kill me DID make me stronger.

And you know what?  Eventually, she DID see me for the wonderful person I truly am (and was).  Our final year together (8th grade), we happened to get paired up in the same art group.  Over the year, she got to know the person that I was.  I wasn't even trying to impress her. I had given up trying to convince anyone of my worthiness years before. I just was who I was.  But at the end of the year, she pulled me aside and apologized.

She explained that she had been jealous.  She was jealous (of all things) of my long blond hair.  It makes me laugh just thinking about it. And she laughed as well as she acknowledged her silliness of being so concerned with such a petty, insignificant thing.  She said it was just like Barbie's (which made us laugh even more) and she wanted it and was angry she couldn't have hair like that.  This lead her to threaten anyone who spoke to me.  And eventually, most of the kids listened.  The few who didn't listen, she tortured in her own seething way.

But over the course of that last year together she finally got the chance to get to know the object of her contempt.  And she said that she realized how awesome I was and how unjustified her behavior had been.  She said she had never met someone so accepting of others, so easy-going.  She told me I was funny, and kind, and a really good friend, even when others didn't seem to deserve it.  She was amazed by my capacity for forgiveness, even after she confessed what she had done.  She even went as far as to tell everyone in the class that they needed to get to know me, because I was by far one of the coolest people she had ever known.

And if that's not an answered prayer (aka manifested affirmation), I don't know what is.

So I encourage you to say affirmations. Daily. Believe them. Imagine what they will feel like when they come to pass.

Because they will.  Even if it takes 8 years. ;.)