Before you look away in disgust because of the title of this, you should think twice. This post is basically a therapy session, and the title is an analagy for what I am about to teach. It is not a judgement, far from it. Read on, you will see.
I go swimming every day. I know I swim too fast, too far (3km) and for too long, but I have a problem with exercise and we will talk about that another day. Or later on in this post.
A couple of months ago I was swimming away and a huge guy got in and started swimming. When I say huge I mean he really was huge. I've seen him a good few times since, he comes quite often. I've even seen him walking his dogs and chatted to him briefly outside of the leisure centre, so he must be from around here.
I used to be a snob. I'm not happy about it and I wish it wasn't true, but I used to be seriously judgemental, particularly at school. I shopped in Brown Thomas, and if I bought anything in Penneys or some other high street shop, I hid the bag so that nobody would know I bought something from there. I cared deeply about what people thought of me, without considering that people might be thinking 'she and her friends are fucking snobs'. Which I wouldn't blame them for, they probably were, and they were right. On no uniform days, me and my friends once sat in a corner commenting and giving marks out of ten for people's outfit choices as they walked past. I am NOT proud of that and I hate admitting it (afraid what people think of me, duh) but we honestly did that. There was one girl who the boys in our group christened "number ten" because she was fucking gorgeous, as a result of that game.
What a turnaround, given how I am now. I am one of the most accepting and non judgemental people you can find. At least, I try to be. Sometimes I'm not but I really try very hard to see the good in people, and in situations. It doesn't always work, inside my head, but I have a little method which I have trained myself to do. It's a fairly simple concept, but it has really helped me be a better person, to have better thoughts, better comments, and a better outlook on life. All it is, is when you have a negative thought, anything at all remotely negative about a person or a situation or an opinion about something or someone that is negative or distasteful, you immediately and consciously replace it with a positive one.
Here's where the fat guy in the pool comes in. He's an example. When I first saw him, my first thought was a negative one, I thought something probably along the lines of 'holy shit he's fat how can he walk around nearly naked looking like that, ugh that's gross........' and so on. It was not nice and I felt bad for thinking it. But the next thing that came in to my head was 'hang on, this guy is swimming. He's exercising which means he is trying to do something about his weight. Well fair fucking play to him'. See? I consciously and deliberately replaced the bad thought with a good one. I've been doing this, practicing this for a few years now. It's not as easy as it sounds and once you start doing it, you really notice how many damn times a day negative thoughts flit through your head. Most of mine still are. Even things like the weather (this is a favourite of mine)... when it starts raining and you're out with no hat or hood. You think 'Fucking fuckety fuck I hate this bloody country' but replace it with, 'hey look, God is watering His flowers'. I'm not even religious but that's honestly what I think when it rains. Nearly every time... After the fuckety fuck part. Replace negative with positive.
My best friend is having a bit of a tough time at the moment and she's reading a lot of self - help books and stuff, and when we go for walks together or coffee or just hang out, we talk about this kinda stuff, and I try to help her by sharing my therapeutic knowledge from the amount of stuff I have learned over the years. I've learned a LOT of stuff, life skills, problem solving skills, life lessons, how to be an adult, how to enjoy life and how to process it without causing x y and z emotions and feelings. How to get the most out of the cards you've been dealt. You know. But I have this big huge toolbox of therapy. And in all fairness, I do use it. (Just not on myself haha) No I'm joking, I'm joking. I've learned some really good ways of dealing with life and the feelings and emotions it envokes at times. I believe everyone should have this toolbox. So many people need it. But on the plus side, I do use some of the things nearly every day. I'm lucky, because a lot of people I know have a great big toolbox full of therapy and they have no idea how to put it in to practice. They just have the toolbox. No idea what the spanner is for. Etc.
Anyway, this best friend has been helping me, and I (I hope) have been helping her. She calls me her guru. But I explained the thing about replacing negative thoughts with positive ones, about catching yourself thinking bad things, and replacing them with good things or things that make it seem a bit more hopeful. I'm not just talking about the weather, I'm really talking much, much deeper. "I can't go on" could be replaced with "Let's get through the next hour and then see what I feel like". You might feel a whole lot better in an hour. Maybe you won't, but what alternative is there. You have to keep going. And you know what? The darkest hour has only sixty minutes. So.
But the whole thing started as a bit of a joke, I was just trying to explain the good/bad thought replacement method. But it's become a thing now, when we talk. The Fat Guy in the Pool. It all comes back to that, the fat guy in the pool. I think I'll make it the title of my motivation and self help convention. You know, like George Clooney and the What's In Your Backpack talk in that movie a couple of years ago, called Up in the Air. Anyway that's beside the point. What I am trying to say is that no matter where you go and no matter how negative things are, there is always a positive side. You have to look for it sometimes, but it's always there. Somewhere.
I made a further discovery about the fat guy the other day. I was walking Milo, and he was there, in the park, with his dog. It was a lovely sunny evening and Milo went up to his dog to say hi, so I asked him did he go swimming today. His first reaction was one of surprise, he was like, what? And I said, oh, I see you at the pool sometimes, do you go quite often, and he was like, oh right, yeah, sorry, I don't wear my glasses when I'm swimming so I didn't know who you were. And then we had a chat about swimming, eye sight, and dogs, and went on our way. The point I am trying to make is one about judgement. When I saw him at the pool, my first thought was about his weight and was really negative and horrible, which I am ashamed of. Ok, yes, I replaced it with a nicer one, but the negativity was still there originally. If I had met him in the park before I knew that he was a fellow swimmer, I may never have had that negative thought. But! That's not my point. What I am (inadvertently) trying to say is that first judgement should never be your final one, and you should never judge based on looks and appearance because it turned out that the fat guy was really nice, even if he didn't even smile at me while swimming together a few times. Why? Turns out there was a reason: he can't see without his glasses. So really, there's always a reason and there's always an explanation and often, it resolves itself in a nice way. So there's another message in this story: looks really can be decieving, and you should never judge until you investigate something further.
So all in all, this guy, this random guy who happens to be fat has taught me a lot, and has inadvertently helped me and he will never know it. I could never tell him, because I couldn't call him fat to his face (obviously not). So me and my friend and anyone who chooses to read this will learn a valuable life lesson and he didn't even do anything, all he did was go for a swim. Little miracles happen everywhere, every minute of every day. You just have to be willing to shelve the negativity and let in a little light. It's always there.
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