Sticks and Stones

A saying or rhyme to help us learn about social interaction, expectation or rule, even a past event– most of us grew up with them.

You know this saying of course, “sticks and stones can break my bones, but……”

You’ve said it.  Your family has said it. Your friends have said it. Your kids have even said it, I imagine.

As we were at the river the other day, my kids added to their favorite nature collections.  Our eldest M loves to collect rocks, and our boy A loves sticks.  Looking over their newly found treasures I found myself thinking of this saying and wondering what they thought about it.  Since our kids came to us at ages 8 and 6, I can’t always be sure they are familiar with common nursery rhymes, sayings, idioms, and the like.  I have found some of our most revealing conversations come from a curious question about something that seems like an “everybody knows that” sort of detail.

No exception here.

A is a very literal thinker.  Idioms, slang, sayings go right past him.  So pretty much he heard broken bones and went right to weapons.  I don’t even think he registered the part about names.  So then we spent the next 20 minutes playing with his “weapon sticks”.  Needless to say, he wasn’t familiar with this saying.  M said it sounded familiar and thought maybe it had something to do with physically hurting someone and hurting them with your words.  She commented that how we hurt each other with the way we think about things sometimes hurts more than with something you can touch.

Wow, this girl!

Our conversation then took us to our collections, at a deeper level.  We each spent time thinking about thoughts or “thinking ways” we have collected that hurt others or ourselves.

A’s Collection

Being a literal thinker, I figured this would be a little beyond A but he surprised me.  He remembered a time when he was so upset that he destroyed his room and many of his possessions.  When we debriefed later about that explosion A said that he was scared.  When I asked him what scared him, he said, “me”.  At his young age, A has already identified that what he is capable of in anger can be scary.  And now, as he remembered that experience, he said he collects “un fairs”.  I asked about these “un fairs”, and he said when he thinks something is un fair, he gets so angry that he scares himself, “and that is when I use my weapons.”

I asked if he thought it was ever okay to be angry about the “un fairs” and he said sure, “but not when I might be wrong and hurt someone.”

M’s Collection

“Something is wrong with me.”  M was very quick to identify that this is a thought that is almost always in her head, and just as quick to admit that this thinking makes her life harder and she ends up pushing other people away by being mean and hateful.

As we talked and looked at her collection of stones, it was as though for every stone she touched she had an example of a time or situation where this thought took over.  Missing a basket.  Spilling a drink.  Being in foster care.  Liking baby toys.  Not being able to read a clock.  Being in therapy.  So on and so on.  Yes, this has become a collection, a pattern, a way of interpreting the world which can indeed hinder/hurt her life.  “But at least I know that about myself, right?”  Yes, a good place to start.

Hubby’s Collection

The classic, “men don’t cry” is what he recognized as his inhibiting thinking ways.  This thought process has led him to hide, lie, deceive and even pick on people.  He says he often feels like he only experiences two emotions – anger or happiness because “I never really learned the language of emotion”.  Being an actor he learned to fake emotion well, but in real life he notices this greatly hinders relationships.

My Collection

Boiling it down, my troublesome thinking ways are about being “unworthy”.

Back when I was in junior high, that lovely awkward stage of life, I had a person (actually a very pretty girl) come up to me out of nowhere and tell me that I was the ugliest person in the world.  This was a stranger and these words ought not to have carried much weight – but they did.  I can think of countless times when I did not even try for something because really, what was the point.  Ugly, unworthy, useless.  I pushed countless people away in rude and mean ways because why would they ever want to be with me?

The way we see ourselves can very much be the way we see the world.

We Bakers have recognized our thought collections and the ways in which they hinder our “content walk”, our happiness, our fulfillment.

So now what?

Something I love that my kids do with their collections is they create something new with them.  Whether it is painting faces on some of the rocks or building a bridge with the collected sticks, they make them into something useful, fun, creative, helpful.

And that is what we seek to do with our thinking ways.

What are your “sticks and stones”?