Signature Update
I can’t decide what I want to write about. I have several topics in the works but I just don’t feel like they are ready to be shared, nor do I feel like I have enough time to do them justice just yet. One thing that has been on my mind lately has been my “signature”. I know a weird thing to think about but none the less I have been. First of all why do I even need a signature? Well I suppose I don’t really need one and arguably if I did use one I could use a different one each time. Who knows maybe I will, but maybe not. I like the idea of have a signature, tag line, call to action. I like to put symbolism and meaning into everything, but as a result I also put a lot of pressure on myself for things to be perfect, Then I have a hard time letting things happen organically. I honestly don’t know how people make it look so easy to come up with the perfect names and ideas. I think I’m going to try to explain why it has been bothering me and hopefully we can come up with a better one.
CalM Momma
Have I ever told you how I came up the name CalM Momma? It’s meant to be a reflection on me and my life. In my stories of my life I often reference 4 different littles, but truthfully only 2 of them actually “belong” to me. I’ve decided that today is the day that I will actually give my littles identities rather than the littlest little or the biggest little. I have referenced my littles in stories throughout my blog promising to give them names to make them a little more human and easy to track, but the problem is my obsession with things being perfect. I don’t want to give them a name and then decide later on I have a better name for them. It would be so confusing. Either way, it’s happening now and I can’t change my mind. Or at least that is what I am telling myself. I also let them help me come up with their identities which was much more fun and silly than I expected, but we came up with some names and hopefully they won’t change. So in descending order we have Sister, Pixie, Ninja and Godzilla. The ones that “belong” to me create the CalM in CalM Momma. At the time I thought it was fun that their names created calm and that as a mother I was anything but calm. It is what I strive to be as a mother but have failed to execute so far. I also like calm because when I created it, it was for my crafts which are what I do to help myself feel calm. Creating things helps me feel calm and focused. It gives me a sense of purpose and productivity. So CalM has two equally important meanings to me. I’ve since decided that CalM Momma will be my conglomerate name. It’s the umbrella business name I will use when I take over the world. OK, maybe take over the world is a little extreme but I have dreams of things I would like to do and they don’t necessarily seem like they go together so they will all go under the CalM Momma name but have different names of their own, the parent company so to speak. Hahahaha, I am hilarious. With any luck this blog will get to see the rise of my empire and you will get to be my loyal subjects. ;)
Stay Positive
Now that we have discovered how hilarious and dorky I am, back to the signature debacle. It is obvious, to me, that I like to use symbolism and have double meaning. This blog’s name is Path of the Turtle and it’s about our journey to make positive impacts on the world around us. I feel like I have said this so many times that it probably makes people a little sick when they read it. When I wanted to come up with a signature I originally thought that stay positive would be perfect. It would remind us of our ultimate goal and inspire us on the individual topic of the blog. As I used it more and more I started to feel uneasy. It didn’t feel quite right. As I have explained in previous posts, our journey is to make positive changes in many areas of our lives. This could be in the community, the actual planet or even within us. Mental health is something that I consider in those categories. I don’t write about it often because I am in no way shape or form a professional and writing about my own mental health journey is still a bit difficult for me. Within the mental health arena it can be a little insulting and dangerous to suggest someone should always stay positive. There is actually a term for this, toxic positivity. Toxic positivity is essentially saying that no matter what happens or is happening you should always stay positive or look on the bright side. The reason this is a problem is because it can imply that negative or strong feelings should never happen. This can also lead to people pretending that there is nothing wrong when they are really struggling internally. Think about what survivors often say about suicide victims. They will often say things like they were so happy, I didn’t know they were struggling. This can be a negative side of pushing people to always stay positive. Toxic positivity can also lead to hurtful responses or even gaslighting. Gaslighting, according to the dictionary, is manipulating someone by psychological means into questioning their own memory, judgement, perception or even sanity. If someone loses their job, we can feel tempted to say things like, everything happens for a reason or look on the bright side. While our intentions are usually good when we say things like this it often invalidates the way someone is feeling, it can make them feel even worse because it can add guilt or anger to the feelings they are already experiencing. As I’m sure you can guess, I don’t want to make someone feel worse than they already do or like they can’t talk to me about how they are truly feeling.
Stay Hopeful
We know that we can’t assume people will feel positive all the time, or that we should tell them to be positive all the time. Is there anything else that we can do for them? I think that one of the most important things that we can do is be kind and listen, validate their feelings. Try to understand what they are going through and ask how you can help them. They may just need a shoulder to lean on or they may need more. I think that they next thing that we can do is try to help provide hope for the future. There was a study done, by Curt Richter, which looked at how long rats would take to drown. In the study he would put the rats in water and wait until they submerged before pulling them out of the water. On average the rats would last for about 15 minutes. He would then put the rats back in the water to see how long they would last. The second time around the rats would last on average 60 hours. While the study itself is unsettling it gives us insight into the power of hope. There are obviously many variables that can affect each situation but hopelessness is definitely the opposite of what we want to give people and situations.
Now that we have decided that stay positive isn’t the best thing that I should use to close out my entries, what should I do? I suspect my signature will be an ever changing and growing thing. What are your feelings on what I have presented? Am I overthinking this? Do you have a better idea?
So, until next time, remember, be kind, provide hope and, as always, much love.