My son is almost two years old, and I tell him all the time what I think of him. I’ll say, “You’re cute!” or “You’re smart!” or “You’re funny!” because he is all of those things and more to me. It is striking to me how he then turns around and begins to repeat exactly what I’ve told him. “I’m cute,” he says, as he puts on his little bear sweater. “I’m smart,” he says as he opens a bottle for himself. “I’m funny,” he says, while I’m doubled over by his latest two-year-old’s version of a joke.
The remarkable thing is that I am watching his identity develop in front of my eyes. He takes everything I say about him and believes it. He struts around telling me how cute, funny, and smart he is, all the time watching out of the corner of his eye, making sure I agree. He tries on this identity, reinforces it by repeating it, and then looks for confirmation of it in the reality I reflect back to him.
I was thinking about the running dialogue I have with myself, that everyone has with themselves, and I would venture to say that it’s not much more sophisticated than Isaac’s. The applications may be more sophisticated (e.g., business, relationships, household management), but the messages are very simple. I either say things like, “I’m resourceful; I’m creative; People like me (ala Stuart Smalley); I’m good at what I do,” or I go the route of, “I’m stuck; I don’t have enough; I never succeed.” In either case, it is short, pointed commentary on who I think I am and how I navigate life. Three- or four-word sentences, repeated over and over, can shape the flavor of how I experience my work day, the task of handling a last-minute babysitting cancellation or my approach to a new relationship. What I run through my brain either lights me up or shuts me down.
The role of words and parents in forming this self-concept hit home for me when I was about sixteen. My mother had always told me I had brown eyes, like my father. When I looked in the mirror, I saw brown eyes looking back at me. I was envious of my mother’s dark hair and green eyes. I thought she was so beautiful, and I wished I could be like her. It never occurred to me as a child that my mother’s schizophrenia left her often out of touch with basic reality. As far as I knew, she was God. If she said I had brown eyes and purple skin, then that’s what I had!
And then, one day much like any other, I looked in the mirror and was startled by what I saw. I looked closer. I had green eyes! I saw that there was a thin band of brown around my pupils, but the rest was the greenish-blue I’d always wanted to have. I awakened then the power that words can have. I had heard that I had brown eyes from the most important person in my life. I’d repeated all my life that I had brown eyes. So when I looked in the mirror, that’s exactly what I saw. I had not miraculously created green eyes by wanting them—I had just opened my eyes to see what was right there all along!
As time has gone on, I’ve refined my use of language about myself, but I still sometimes catch myself saying things out loud that no longer ring true. At those times, I begin to question whether they are actual objective reality or just part of the story I’ve woven about my life and myself. I was talking to someone the other day about something I felt I needed, but I repeated two or three times, “I have limited resources.” Now, arguments can be made that we live in a finite world as well as that we live in a limitless world, and I won’t argue for either side here. But what I can say without doubt is that I heard the mantra-like quality of what I was saying and took pause at what I was reinforcing in my statement.
