Can’t Won’t No and Not

When I was little my brother used to give me life lesson lectures all the time. Constantly. Mostly I just tuned out, but I understood everything he said. He had a tendency to repeat himself a lot also.

One thing he said that I will never forget is when making affirmative statements it is always a shot in the foot to say words such as can't, won't, and no. "I won't yell again", or "No more of that", or, "I am not this person", or "I can't do this again or I will get in trouble."

I later learned that it was indeed very helpful to not put any negative connotations with positive affirmation statements for bettering oneself.

During middle school there was an incident that changed the way people who knew me looked at me and the way I looked at myself. In class one day, a bully was arguing with my best friend. They kept arguing until the bully thought it would be funny to go over and push my friend to the ground. The second he laid a hand on my friend I took action and went into a blind rage. I threw several very large books, my binder, and my lunchbox at the kid. He deflected a couple of them and luckily wasn't hurt and neither was anyone else. I suppose I was just lucky that I had terrible aim. I was escorted out of the classroom and the entire time I never said a word, it was like I was looking from a distance in another body. I honestly didn't fully comprehend that I had made any of those movements, but it was clear that I had a rage problem. Word got around and I was the joke of the entire school and it also seemed like most people were quite scared of me too. I was ridiculed, belittled, and condescended to by counselors and teachers for the remainder of my time at the school.

Upon coming home that day, my dad sat me down at the dinner table and gave me a very important lecture. He told me that we had to fix this problem and fix it immediately. He told me to write a list of statements, positive affirmations, concerning my problem and he told me not to use words like can't, won't, no, and not just like my brother told me. He told me to read these statements out loud and believe them in that moment once before I go to school and once before I go to bed every night.

After three months of doing this routine, I found that I would not get angry in the same way. It was as if I had completely manipulated my mind into becoming another person. People were still mean to me all the time like always and bullies would still bully me, but it never had the same effect again. I would just walk away or ignore them. I would never let the bullies win again. Below I will include a couple of my positive affirmations from that list.

I will be a happy person today and have an excellent day.

I love school and I have lots of friends.

They do say after all, that if you tell a lie a thousand times, it becomes the truth.