Put-ups
Put-Ups
A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
Luke 6:45, NIV
Not a day goes by that I don’t struggle with negative self-talk. My thoughts run the gamut, critiquing everything from my parenting skills to my body to the social shyness that sometimes emerges. For example,
- I can’t wear this shirt; people can see my squishy mom arms. I need to work out.
- Ugh, I can’t believe I said that to him. I sounded like an idiot.
- I forgot to put her library book in her backpack again. I’m such a bad mom.
No matter the topic of internal dialogue, it is often easier to skew toward the negative than toward the positive. Being hard on ourselves seems to come more naturally to us than does reflecting on the things we like about ourselves. One day at work I was bemoaning something I didn’t like about myself, and a coworker told me she needed to hear me say some “put-ups.” What in the world is that? I thought. Is it some new kind of diaper?
Actually, put-ups are the antithesis of put-downs. So now in our house, when we hear someone say a negative statement about themselves, we have that person follow it up with three put-ups: I’m a really fast reader. I’m amazing at Boggle. I’m creative.
It’s a mental exercise that may sound silly but is actually quite useful in our quest to be kind to ourselves. Because we require three put-ups to offset every one put-down, the overall focus is on the positive parts of ourselves: the best things, the fun things, the silly things.
Scripture says that “the mouth speaks what the heart is full of,” so changing our internal dialogue is key to influencing our external dialogue: the ways in which we talk about ourselves and others.
— Today’s Act of Kindness —
Show yourself some kindness by thinking of three put-ups you can say about yourself.
From the book
