Me: I’m going to tell people to subscribe to my newsletter so I have to write something!
Also me: immediate impostor syndrome the moment people subscribe to my newsletter
Hi hello! I’ve already used two exclamation marks in three sentences, which unintentionally does a great job of setting the tone for this newsletter. Gal has a lot of feelings!!! Welcome to all you folks who’ve already found your way here through my shameless endeavours of self-promotion.
I’m currently finishing my sixth year as a junior high/high school English teacher (with plans to leave the classroom this fall, but more on that in a different post). By this point, it has become my firm belief that the most important part of teaching (curriculum be damned) is to ensure my students leave our classroom with at least a slightly strengthened moral compass & sense of self-esteem.
We talk about this: none of us grow up in a vacuum. Our brains1 are essentially fancy petri dishes whose job is to absorb everything that ever happens to us and then try to help us act in response to these stimuli. Through no fault of your own, you are a product of your environment: your first thoughts in any given situation are unconscious and involuntary, designed to help you process the world in an efficient way.
Walk into your dark bedroom, and you don’t have to think about turning the light switch on; you’ve already done it and moved on to whatever you went in there to do. Efficient, check. Correct, check. Here’s the catch: efficient doesn’t always equal correct. A lot of our “first thoughts” reflect the implicit biases we develop as a result of our society’s structure, beginning as early as age 3. For example, I was conditioned to refer to feminine-presenting people with the pronouns “she/her,” and it wasn’t until my twenties that I learned this wasn’t always correct. Sometimes, my brain still fills in “she/her” when I look at someone feminine-presenting whose pronouns I don’t know. This is something I have worked, and am working, to unlearn.
So here’s what I talk about with the students, after using that example: it’s your second thought that counts.
Biologically, we have to have subconscious thoughts or we’d probably just devolve into blood-and-guts puddles on the floor.2 Here’s the beautiful thing about conscious thought: our capacity to check ourselves before we wreck ourselves is what makes us human. Our brains are so evolved that we can re-condition ourselves, can continually elevate our level of thinking from where it once lay. How great is that? Who doesn’t want to know better and do better?3
The answer, apparently, is me.
Unfortunately, my brain seems to have latched onto a troublesome “first thought” that says “your body is terrible and not worthy of love.” I can’t pinpoint one source for this, as by all accounts I had a very loving childhood and no adult influences who commented negatively on my body, so I’ll just chalk it up to “the general everything about our society.” No matter how many “second thoughts” I come up with, championed by body-positive influencers or my very supportive partner, I haven’t yet talked my brain into believing any of them.
In the rational bit of my pre-frontal cortex, I absolutely know that my body is just a body and I am as worthy and deserving of love as any other human. Trying to get the rest of my brain to agree with the rational bit, though, feels like when you go to plug something into an outlet you can’t see, and it feels like the plug is aligned with the holes, and you’re trying and trying and trying but it’s not going in.
In this analogy, I just need someone to hold my phone flashlight for me so I can see where the outlet holes are. To me, this is what therapy feels like: someone shines a light where you once couldn’t see, and for a while you probably need them to shine the light every time you fumble for the outlet. After a while, though, maybe they aren’t there when you’re groping behind the couch, but you realize you’ve learned where the outlet holes are anyway, and you plug it in all by yourself like a Big Kid.
I’m not there yet. I still need someone to hold that phone flashlight. And I can promise you this won’t be a self-help newsletter— I guess I just felt like baring my soul on the Internet on a Wednesday afternoon.
a prompt
Pick the thing you most often wish to change about yourself. Write an ode to that thing. “Ode to my stomach”…“Ode to my impatience”…“Ode to my chin acne”?
side note - brains??? literally hunks of meat with some electrical impulses that make us BREATHE and THINK and do everything else?!!! seems made up.
disclaimer: i’m not a scientist
a quote i’ve always loved that apparently was NOT said word-for-word by Maya Angelou (gasp) and the closest thing I could find in a rash of Googling was this Oprah clip where she says Maya Angelou gave her some close-personal-friend-advice (naturally) about being judged for where you are at, not where you were at
An ode to my thighs. Thank you for carrying my body every 👏🏻 damn 👏🏻 day👏🏻. Without you, I wouldn’t be able to run or hike to all the amazing views I’ve seen. Without you, I wouldn’t be second in the league for goals scored.
I like your outlet plug analogy. One time I actually did try to plug into the outlet in the dark and used my own fingers as guidance, completing the loop and successfully electrifying myself. Maybe that's what happens when we don't ask for help or have access to support..?
Thanks for sharing your vulnerabilities, your mastery with the pen, and your very cool hunk of meat and electrical impulses.