You're Such a Loser, Sweetie

In the course of reading Pete Gall’s book “Learning My Name,” in Chapter 2 he challenges me to figure out the name I call myself when I do something stupid.

There were lots of names. I spent a heap of energy trying to narrow them down to the core zinger that would capture them all. If you put that much effort into thinking about your negative names, you feel pretty darn lousy. It just brings all those feelings of failure right to the surface whether you are in the midst of doing something stupid or not.

I decided to break the thought pattern and focus on the next challenge in the book, to think of the name God calls me, because as Pete said (and I believe) The Big Guy’s not up there calling me that zinger.

It was challenging, thinking this way. My initial feeling was discomfort, like it was too prideful (which is actually reverse pride, but I digress on what I’ve learned in therapy). His example in the book for himself is “sweetheart.” I took some time to contemplate mine and “sweetie” kept coming back to me. The more I chewed on it, the better I felt it fit.

I used it this week. I was having a particularly rough day. Instead of thinking, “What is your problem? Snap out of it, Loser!”, I focused on God asking me, “What’s wrong, Sweetie?” I remember a feeling of sweet relief. It’s all in the name, isn’t it.