This summer I’ve been working on a huge Confessions migration project. I’m moving the entire 165 posts (and counting) to a new site. The enormity of the task is causing me to feel frequently ramped-up. Why though? I don’t have a due date. No boss over my shoulder.

This is why—because of the message I’m sending myself:

Hurry up and finish that thing that’s keeping you from serving everyone else’s needs.

Really? This crap again?

I began noticing how, from the moment I wake up in the morning, this is what my self-talk sounds like:

You woke up too late, now you don’t have time to walk.
Why are you taking time to do this when you should be doing that?
If you did this last night, you’d have more time this morning.

And on, and on, and on.

Maybe this is another job for my Magic Closet…?

My walk-in closet is long and narrow and runs under the stairway to the second floor. In June I cleared out the back so I could meditate in there, and this is the summer mantra I came up with:

The voice of self is kind.

So now, when I hear the bad-girl talk I think, No ma’am. The voice of self is kind.

I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve sat in that closet talking to myself. And I’m not in there long people—it’s 5-10 minutes tops, but I can already feel a difference. The shift in my thinking reminds me just how powerful those messages are that I fill my head with every day. And, now I’m considering other mantras that I might want to try…

The house will stay clean all day.
The kids will be in school five days a week in the fall.
It’s all going to be ok.