I hit a low point yesterday. I had spontaneously met two friends earlier in the week and talked to them like a functioning person. Other friends invited me and the kids on a bike ride to the park, and I functioned then too. Then I got home and defaulted to a non-functioning potato state. This contributed to making me feel terrible, even more terrible than I felt before I met the friends that I liked. I had a row with one of my children, then a row with another one, and felt even worse still.

I set myself goals like all good people should but didn’t keep them. I sit at tables and don’t write. I hold a pen and a notebook and start an outline, only to find myself doodling in the margin or suddenly cleaning all the crevices on my kitchen appliances. I can read just fine: read about writing, read about thinking, read about doing, reading is my good friend.

I wanted to write my outlines and my blog schedule. I wanted to start outlining all the million writing ideas in my head but when I sat down to try I just couldn’t. I walked and listened to podcasts and felt enthusiastic only to find myself earnestly cleaning the bathrooms, or organising my junk drawer, or urgently loading up recipes on my Pinterest boards. And other times I just sat.

I had the most organised notecard collection in the world (probably) but hadn’t written a creative word. If I tried really hard, and everything in the universe aligned I might find myself jotting down more ideas and writing thoughts, but all that did was create more notes and notecards and fill up more pages in my notebooks.

I didn’t want to be like this. I didn’t want to not achieve anything. I didn’t want to feel like I felt. My potato like state was starting to affect how parented, how I ran my home… I decided I had to do something.

So I decided I would talk to myself as if present-me was someone else and I was my former, better-functioning self. So regular me is talking to potato me and giving potato me advice. If I can’t give my own self advice, or if my own suggestions are useless to someone stuck in a potato-like state, what business do I have even trying to write about life for anyone else to read? The first thing I realised when I started my absurd imaginary conversation with myself, is that I am far kinder to my friends than I am to myself. When I talked to myself as I would to a friend, I didn’t include any of the negative things I usually think when I consider my own shortcomings.

Surprisingly, as I talked, potato me listened.

In the middle of me giving myself a talking to, my bike-riding friend arrived. She apologised for interrupting me but potato me didn’t mind one bit. (Potato me loves interuptions and chances to sit down.) I told my friend where I was at and she encouraged me to keep going in the process. I told her I had thought potato me was in the past and I was sorry to find her still alive and vegging out. She encouraged me that if I’d overcome potato me previously I could do it again.

Friend gone, I wrote a list of the things I felt were barriers to living well and doing useful things. Then I tore up the list and threw it away; everything seemed so ridiculous when it was written down. I made a cup of tea. I wished I didn’t have ridiculous reasons that stopped me from being the me I wanted to be. However, wishing I didn’t have those barriers didn’t make them go away. Me and my cup of tea decided we would write the list again but just keep it our secret. And we decided to do it sitting up at the table even though potato-me suggesting curling up in bed and writing it there.

Most of the things I wrote were emotional or feelings-related. None of my barriers were due to lack of equipment or time or other actual blockage, in fact there were few logical reasons at all. What would I tell someone if they came to me with that kind of list? What would I say to my daughter if she came to me with a list like that?

I went back to my old notes to find how I overcame my potato-dom last time. I dusted off the toolbox. I took courage from my friend’s comment that if I had overcome before I could do it again. I started over.

If my thoughts were consumed with negativity and self-doubt and fear and feelings of disapproval, and I could argue that those thoughts weren’t true, then I needed to replace the lies with the truth. So, I created and printed WhoIAm cards to put up around my bathroom mirror for potato me to read. (I should say ‘re-created’ because, disappointingly to myself, I have been here before.) To my pleasant surprise, I discovered even the act of creating of the cards diminished potato me considerably.

To make up for the fact that I may or may not have spent rather too long searching for the ‘perfect’ font, I chose to cut out the cards quickly without measuring first, telling myself that their irregular sides would add to the rustic charm and be a visual testament to the fact that perfection isn’t required of me or anyone else. (That perfectionism barrier is a whole other blog post.) Neither me nor potato me was truly convinvced, but at least they got put up.

WhoIAm cards installed, I read them again. I read to potato me, and kept reading even when I felt like they weren’t working. I will replace the lies in my mind with the truth. I can be transformed by the renewing of my mind (see Paul’s letter in Romans 12:2)

And each time I took my own advice I felt a little better.

This blog post is evidence of it. Look at me—I published my first thing for months. Yay, me.

Pray

Father God, we remember you made us in your own image and we remind ourselves that you love us. You have no desire to see us struggle with issues of self-esteem or feel in any way less-than. You didn’t create us to stay in bed and feel worthless. Remind us how valuable we are to you. Bring friends into our lives who can encourage us. Give us the strength to get up and believe the truth of how you see us. We are your daughters, we are loved, we have a purpose in this world, and we have all we need through Christ to do what you call us to do. As we stand tall and remember who we are, may we be an encouragement to others.

Amen.