I<\/span>have two habits that I never considered problems until recently. The first is the habit of apologizing for just about anything. If I drop something because someone bumps me in the arm, the first thing out of my mouth is, \u201cI\u2019m sorry.\u201d It\u2019s as if I race to see who can apologize first\u2014I\u2019m sorry.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, don\u2019t be sorry,\u201d I tell them. \u201cI\u2019m the one who should be sorry.\u201d This over-apologizing is something I\u2019ve been doing my whole life, and I\u2019ve come to view it as humiliating and ridiculous.<\/p>\n The second habit comes right before I state an opinion or decision: I offer an immediate disclaimer. It\u2019s some version of: You might think this is stupid (crazy, outrageous, etc.), or I hate to say this, but\u2026<\/p>\n When I utter these phrases, the person usually looks surprised and responds with \u201cNo, no, not at all,\u201d making me uncomfortable for exposing my insecurity.<\/p>\n On many occasions, I have spent hours ruminating about a conversation, the he saids, she saids, or the I said and they saids of a brief encounter. I even have the stamina to continue this agony for an entire day. At night, I will toss and turn, restless with repetitive thoughts about what I said or could\u2019ve said differently. I try to turn off the thoughts, but they seem to have no boundaries.<\/p>\n All of this began when I was a child. If I mentioned that my father drank too much, and I was afraid he would kill someone while drinking and driving, my mother would say, \u201cYou worry too much.\u201d<\/p>\n When I told my parents that the pills my swimming coach was handing out might not be salt pills as he claimed, I was told I was letting my imagination run wild.<\/p>\n \u201cKeep your thoughts to yourself,\u201d my father said. \u201cThe problems at the pool are too big for you.\u201d<\/p>\n So that\u2019s what I did. I kept my thoughts to myself. I learned to get into my parents\u2019 heads to determine how they might view my thoughts or actions.<\/p>\n Outwardly, my behavior became passive. I sat in the car with my father while he drove down the road, drinking a Bud Light, and I prayed that he wouldn\u2019t kill us or someone else. I took the salt pills and swallowed my fears.<\/p>\n Keeping my mouth shut seemed less painful than the risk of being dismissed or diminished. Or hearing that I was imagining something. But hiding my thoughts didn\u2019t feel good either. It was a defensive strategy that left me eating too much or biting my fingernails.<\/p>\n So, slowly, over time, I changed my presentation. As a teenager, I began to preface controversial statements or questions with an apology or disclaimer.<\/p>\n I said things like I\u2019m sorry, but I don\u2019t agree with that. Or Maybe I\u2019m too thin-skinned (sensitive, touchy, etc.),<\/em> and then I would state my opinion.<\/p>\n To my father, I would say something like, \u201cI know you\u2019re not going to like this, but I got scared yesterday when you drank while you were driving.\u201d But I really wanted to say, \u201cDad, you scared the hell out of me!\u201d or even better to say in real-time, \u201cDad, let me out of this damn car. I\u2019m not going to swimming practice if you drink.\u201d<\/p>\n The softer comments were a start, effective in dealing with difficult people in challenging situations, but until recently, I used them constantly. And it didn\u2019t stop the rumination. I continued to ruminate about the troublesome conversations, beating myself up for my lack of ability to really speak my mind.<\/p>\n Then, last month, during a remodeling project, a saleswoman arrived at the house to measure for Venetian blinds. A disclaimer followed everything she said.<\/p>\n \u201cOh, maybe it\u2019s just me,\u201d she said, \u201cbut . . .\u201d Then it was, \u201cI don\u2019t know what you\u2019re going to think about this, but . . .\u201d Sprinkled between her disclaimers, were at least three I\u2019m sorrys, which frayed my nerves.<\/p>\n Wasn\u2019t this the same habit I was trying to break?<\/em> Every sentence out of this woman\u2019s mouth sounded like a preemptive admission that she was some kind of imposition.<\/p>\n As I thought about how easily I resort to this behavior, I started noticing that so many of my female friends did the same thing. They soften their opinions to be less threatening, especially to men.<\/p>\n When I really thought about my childhood, I realized that telling someone You\u2019re too sensitive is a way of shutting that person down. It\u2019s an indirect way of invalidating or insulting, a kind of micro-aggression that women often hear after admitting they don\u2019t like being told they\u2019re headstrong, opinionated, bossy, or worse.<\/p>\n This woman made me see that my disclaimers were a way of doing the same thing to myself, a way of putting myself down before someone else could.<\/p>\n So, I\u2019ve figured out some subtle self-directives to break the pattern.<\/p>\n Now, when I catch myself using a disclaimer, I immediately stop and ask for a reset. I allow myself to notice the feeling behind the disclaimer. Am I feeling lonely? Unappreciated? Insecure?<\/p>\n I try to determine where the feeling started. Was it related to an old message from my parents suggesting that I was selfish? A coach telling me to \u201close the worried look?\u201d or was it a past relationship that I eventually came to see as abusive?<\/p>\n After I restate what I want to say, I tell myself to walk through the feelings without judgment. I don\u2019t let my mind wander to the other person\u2019s head. In the rare instance when I\u2019m told I\u2019m being too sensitive, I say things like, \u201cYes, I\u2019m sensitive. It\u2019s who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n The changes I\u2019ve made are the difference between feeling out of control and being in charge.<\/p>\n As a child, I had no control. It was painful to see bad things happen without my being able to intervene, but by putting up a wall to protect myself from an imagined reaction, I was constantly edgy, battling restless thoughts all day and night.<\/p>\n Now, I take charge of my emotions by having an internal conversation with myself. If I\u2019m in conflict with one of my kids and I find myself chewing on the details to a point where I\u2019m unfocused in my work, I take a moment to talk to myself. Kim, this is important, but let\u2019s set the family stuff aside to revisit once you finish what you\u2019re doing<\/em>. I redirect my thoughts to the project at hand. At night, if the ruminations start, I do the same thing. I tell myself, You have some great ideas, Kim, but you need to sleep. Why don\u2019t you put these ideas aside for now and revisit them in the morning?<\/em><\/p>\n Miraculously, these subtle self-directives are working for me.<\/p>\n Changing established habits isn\u2019t simple. It\u2019s hard work. However, I\u2019ve learned through experience that taking charge of my repetitive thoughts has a broad impact on my daily life. I get more done, I feel calmer, and, in general, my relationships have become stronger.<\/p>\n Getting over the habit of automatic apologies and disclaimers has helped me to identify those in my life who are the most challenging and also those who are the most encouraging.<\/p>\n That simple change has helped me to sleep a whole lot better.<\/p>\n How changing habits might help you sleep <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14606,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[181,182],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-winter-2024","category-winter-2024-features"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14486"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14835,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14486\/revisions\/14835"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Pause and reset<\/h3>\n
Walk through the underlying feelings<\/h3>\n
Hold a dialogue with myself<\/h3>\n
Kim Fairley<\/a> is an artist and memoirist who writes about wrestling with secrets, healing from grief, and competitive swimming during the early years of Title IX. Her three books include Swimming for My Life <\/em>and<\/a> Shooting Out the Lights: A Memoir,<\/em> which was a finalist in the International Book Awards Parenting & Family category and was named a Distinguished Favorite Memoir by the Independent Press Awards. After attending USC, Fairley earned an MFA in mixed media from the University of Michigan. She lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"