I’m not sure who gets to decide which words are acceptable and which words are ‘bad’ words. My tenth-grade English teacher told us it was a little old man with a green banker’s visor, sitting behind stacks and stacks of dictionaries who got to decide a word’s fate.
My father cursed and my mother didn’t. Well, she did occasionally. I mean, rarely. Boy, when she did, it was powerful! As we got older, it became funny when she cursed. Then she would get really mad! Maybe my mother was a bad*ss?
I landed in tricky territory this week. Just like last week’s post about integrity, this week it all started with a word. There are many copies in my house of the books we have talked about previously. I happened to have Jen Sincero’s book on my Kindle. I pulled it up for a review and couldn’t stop laughing at the title.
I was all set to present Jen Sincero’s 2013 bestseller, “You Are A Bad*ss: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life”. After writing about the deep work involved with the books of Elizabeth Gilbert and Martha Beck for the past few weeks, I knew Sincero’s lighthearted approach to the same subjects would hit the spot this week. Give us a chance to lighten up as we head into September.
Ready. Set. Go. Holdup. I really don’t want to be writing a whole post about being a bad*ss. Mostly, I didn’t want to keep typing that silly symbolic spelling. That’s when I started thinking about the word ‘bad*ss’
A rule follower for the most part, I was raised to be a good girl. I didn’t want to be a bad*ss. That meant someone who was tough. Trouble. An intimidating person. Not me. I liked being funny and making people laugh, but I sure didn’t like getting in trouble. Like the time I was 14 and my dad arrived early to pick me up from my job. I was having a cigarette while I waited. Yes, there’s a story there. Suffice it to say, I got caught!
Those were the noun definitions. (Come on – you know I looked it up!) They made the word sound vulgar and uncompromising. Then I moved on to the adjective definitions.
Shiny and bright! Here we go. Used as an adjective, bad*ss can mean someone who is impressive, tough, and skillful. One synonym I found was ‘sparkplug’, meaning someone who adds energy and dynamics wherever they are. That’s what I want! Let’s say sparkplug instead! If we are talking about how to be an admirable person and awe-inspiring human, I’ll be a sparkplug!
On to the concepts. Sincero says the same things that the gurus have been saying, the things we’ve been talking about here for a while. She just says them in a plain way, with extra cursing so you’ll pay attention (I guess). There was no new message in her book for me, and that’s okay.
The thing about these concepts and their ability to help you, is you have to keep them in the forefront of your mind. Just like we feed our bodies, we have to feed our minds. Especially if we’re going to be a sparkplug. I’m always more of my own sparky self when I’ve been getting enough sleep, meditating, exercising, and eating nutritious foods. That inner light just seems to shine brighter when I do these things. Reviewing the most effective concepts for self-care in different presentations is a great way to keep the practices alive.
Once I had settled on ‘sparkplug’, I dove back into the chapters and it felt like a warm hug. Well, maybe a friendly slap on the back. It is Jen Sincero, after all.
The author tells us to lighten up. Turn off the outside voices and listen to you. Who do you want to be? What do you want to do? Before the doubters and the downers and the haters get to you, start wherever you are at the moment and start loving yourself. Then it’s like you’re at a party. Rejoice in your party of one, sparkplug!
The next thing that happens is you start noticing the other party people and being nice. You find it easy to overlook and forgive. You are doing you and they are doing them. Sincero calls this tapping into the motherlode. I see it happen to me when I’m out running errands and the traffic doesn’t bother me. I have encouraging or empathetic words to share with store clerks and other customers. I always pretend everyone has that empathy bucket on their head just waiting for a compliment. It makes me happy to put one in. I may get one, I may not. But the feeling I’m looking for comes just from being the sparkplug! You realize you rule your brain, and not the other way around. It’s so freeing. And the foundation of it all is you loving yourself.
Into each life some rain must fall, so don’t freak out when your storm hits. There is a totally new and different way to handle this. Nah! Just kidding! It’s the same thing! Just keep loving yourself and keep loving yourself and all the other stuff will work out, sparkplug! It may not be the work-out you wanted, but it will turn out some kind of way. And you will continue to love yourself.
Things will start to look easier. You begin to see your procrastination and perfectionist strategies for what they are, and you will laugh! No more overwhelm or drama. Just loving yourself and it all starts to shrink.
This book breaks the concept of BE/DO/HAVE into extremely easy parts. Dreams, visions, and manifestations have their part, for sure, But you have to put the actions behind the decisions. The author warns you may need to open your mind and embrace some new ways of looking at things. You can’t do the same things the same way and expect different results. There may be some changing involved.
If you are loving yourself, the changes will work. They will be joyful and energizing. Heck, you’re a sparkplug! Know that you are worthy. Understand you are good enough. Sincero encourages us to think of the things that have come to pass just within our lifetime and how amazing these once unbelievable inventions are and how they affect our lives. That could be you!
Her final section really blows me away. This book has been presenting concepts that I already knew and practiced until I got to this. Sincero writes:
“We need smart people with huge hearts and creative minds to manifest all the wealth, resources, and support they need to make their difference in the world.
We need people to feel happy and fulfilled and loved so they don’t take their shit out on themselves and other people and the planet and our animal friends.
We need to be surrounded by people who radiate self-love and abundance so we don’t program future generations with gnarly beliefs like money is bad and I can’t live the way I want to live.
We need kickass people to be out of struggle and living large and on purpose so they can be an inspiration to others who want to rise up, too.”
Wow! That’s it. That is why we should all want to be a sparkplug. A bad*ss. If all this is all about community and helping each other out, then this is a win-win. Everybody’s at the party!
If you love yourself and know you are worthy, and you show up to the party and you are not worried what others are thinking about you, you then start noticing them and that whole community thing kicks in. The rejoicing starts and there is no room for your whiny ol’ fears. You know how to deal with them because you have a strong foundation.
This is your badassery, your sparkplug self, at work. It doesn’t matter what the old man in the little green visor thinks about you, your actions, or your words. You might be good, bad, or something in between. All that matters is you loving you and showing up so we can all be a bad*ss.
Yeah, I said it, Bad*ss. I can say that because I’m a sparkplug!