![Can I Get a Handle on My Destructive Self-Talk? [Episode 3] jpg](https://www.jenniferrothschild.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/09_27_2018_Pod_3_SelfTalk.jpg)
I had carved out time in the middle of a busy week to travel 30 minutes downtown to apply for a passport.
After waiting in a long line, I turned in my application and photo only to hear a lethargic and impatient clerk ask, “Where’s your birth certificate? You can’t get a passport without a birth cert—”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll get it. I’ll come back.”
“We’re overcome with deep sadness to be at this point.”
That was my friend’s response to the hard place she and her husband had found themselves.
Her beloved mother had been in and out of institutions because of mental illness and now, they had to make a hard, soul-tearing decision about her guardianship.
For years, they rallied, they loved, they emptied their savings for the best treatment centers, and they fought, trusted, and never gave up hope. And, now they felt like they were giving up her mom to an uncertain future.
I stood on the deck overlooking Table Rock Lake as a pontoon boat motored by.
It revved and choked and whirred and roared and the lake started dancing! The waters lapped onto the shore and wave after wave swayed the dock so it rattled and squeaked.
As the water stirred, I listened and wondered how long it would last.
As I did, I thought how much I wished I could run down, sit on the edge of the dock, and feel the whirling waters tickle my ankles.
A few years ago, I sat—did I say “sat?”—I meant, I was stuck in front of a little girl and her daddy on an airplane. We’d been glued to the tarmac for 45 minutes when we were told for the fourth time that we were delayed again. Ugh.
I blew out a frustrated breath and fumed about everything that was wrong with this airline. I just knew that the past 45 minutes would turn into another 45 minutes and then into four hours and five hours and then … deep breath … I’d miss my connection, be stuck in Chicago and, well, that’s enough. You get the idea. I was not a happy woman.
What would happen if you just got still? Would the world as you know it fall apart? Would you?
Sometimes we stay busy to outrun our fear of failure or keep us distracted from thinking. Sometimes, when we are overwhelmed by sorrow or stress, we just long to fix something, clean something … you know, do something!
Do you ever choose a word for the year? I do! I pick one so I can take the whole year to learn it, live it, receive it, and understand it!
So, what was my word for this year?
Happy.
Not long after I picked that word, though, I broke my finger and my hero dad passed away. Those aren’t exactly ingredients for happiness, huh?
A broken finger was a painful annoyance, but losing my dad broke my heart. Even so, in the midst of it all, I am still learning what it means to be happy.
