The new neighbors had previously lived in apartments, never laid a hand in a garden, and couldn’t figure out how to relate to the weed-infested gardens, the overgrown shrubs and trees that were uglifying their new home.
This old hand at gardening and landscaping proposed a facelift, a total restoration of the gardens all in the spirit of a Yankee barter.
What wasn’t intended as part of the collaboration was an accident that sent me to a nearby emergency clinic and also on a downward spiral of self-talk.
While putting the finishing touches on the project, I tripped and hit my head on a protruding rock.
Out gushed blood from the wound and out poured a litany of the most vile and horrendous self-put-downs, this from a guy who never cussed, from a guy who did his doctoral research on self-talk.
A moment of inattentiveness morphed into an invasive form of negative self-talk, like a rhizome of an invasive plant that yearns to spread its roots into new territory.
It soon became apparent on the tennis court when I would fume over mistakes and utter more self-negativity.
I became edgy, prone to criticizing myself for the slightest misstep or mistake. It became out of control when I snapped at my wife for something insignificant.
I found myself in unrecognizable territory, an emotional minefield far away from home.
I decided to go to the rockery where I serve as an AVIS warden and begin work on moving 10 yards of wood chips to the top and around the base.
This wasn’t the planned method for moving the chips; a Boy Scout troop was interested in doing this as a community service project that would have taken them about half a day.
I was filling tall lawn bags with chips, five at a time, then hoisting them up top when the technician treating a knotweed infestation at the rockery approached.
He explained that he hadn’t been able to do the work in the morning as scheduled, and I explained what was going on with the chips.
We wove conversation into our respective labors, much of it about the awesomeness of the rockery, the unique trees, perspectives on nature.
We then got to talking about some books that had impacted our lives; he mentioned “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruíz. He shared with me a simple phrase that hit me like lightning, a shot to my gut that literally caused me to arch backward.
“To say negative things about yourself is a mortal sin.”
In one fell swoop, the power of those words provided clarity on what I was doing to myself and to others.
I was essentially committing a mortal sin by treating myself with malice, by ushering darkness into my soul, dimming the light in my spirit. Punishing myself for not being what I believed I should be was becoming a self-imposed prison depriving myself of being all I can be.
I’m taking up a new sport, disc golf, and during a recent practice I had some good throws and some duffs.
Absent from my inner chatter were put-downs, criticisms, and anything that had a tinge of negativity.
I have a choice: to suffer from my mistakes or to learn from them.
“The word is the most powerful tool you have as a human. … You can measure the impeccability of your word by your level of self-love.” Don Miguel Ruíz
Dr. William Kolbe, an Andover resident, is a retired high school and college teacher and former Peace Corps volunteer in Tonga and El Salvador. He can be reached at bila.kolbe9@gmail.com.