Book Sample

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“You aren’t a bad person. You are a person who has done bad things. But you’re not a bad person.” - Randi Hokett, artist, friend, and accidental spiritual advisor

You aren’t a messy person. You aren’t a drama queen. You aren’t a loser. You aren’t an alcoholic. You aren’t a lawyer. You aren’t broke. You aren’t any one thing.*

You can do things, and you can repeatedly do things. But that doesn’t make you those things, it just means that you repeatedly do those things.

Let’s unpack “I am a messy person.”

What does that even mean? It means that you sometimes leave stuff around and you don’t clean it up. Full stop.

Language is powerful stuff, so when we call ourselves “a messy person,” it becomes a part of our identity. It reinforces our behaviors (specifically leaving stuff around and not cleaning it up), which makes them harder to change without changing our self-professed identity (which is waaaaay harder).

Identity statements like these quickly become explanations, which become excuses, which become life sentences. “I know the house is a mess. I’m just a messy person.”

(Lest you think that because I am using this example, I must keep my desk and home very tidy; that could not be further from the truth. My home and desk are piled with half-done projects, papers to review, etc. I’m using this example because I called myself “a messy person” for a long time.)

In the BBC TV Program Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective Agency, Todd Brotzman (played by Elijah Wood) repeatedly calls himself “a loser” and “an asshole” because of unforgivable things he has done, including but not limited to stealing money from his parents so he didn’t have to work.

Dirk: To be totally candid, I’m a bit sick of your bullshit, Todd.

Todd: What?

Dirk: I just wish you’d stop saying you’re an asshole. I don’t think you are, so it comes off a bit cheap.

Todd: Have you not been listening to me?

Dirk: It’s very easy to act like a jerk, and then say, “Welp! I’m a jerk and that’s that.” But it’s not like being a werewolf, is it? It’s just you making excuses for your excuses.

We all have stories we tell ourselves about our identity, and it is severely damaging to continuously tell ourselves stories about our “faulty behaviors” in ways that tie into our identity. It can lead to poor self-esteem, depression, and worst of all, continuation of those behaviors that we find bad.

* Ok, you are a unicorn, but a unicorn is a lot of different things.

After this passage, we delve into a worksheet that identifies the generalizations we make about ourselves and helps us reframe these statements into more true statements that are more about our actions and less about our identity.

And then we party.