Context: While at a coffee shop, my friend told me a phrase that she and her mother use when they’re overthinking things. They learned it from a family friend who told them a story about her grandmother.

Text:

“Like, stop shitting yourself? Like, even as a kid, I just…my mind runs rampant. I have a huge imagination, which is great in a lot of ways, ’cause it means that I can work creatively, but also, like, it tends to run rampant in anxiety ways too. And so, my mom told me this story of, and she’s a psychologist, but my mom told me this sotry of one of her friends or clients. Um, she was talking with her grandmother and she was like, ‘God I should have done this differently. Like, I should have done blah, blah, blah. I should have done this.’ And her grandmother just slammed the tale, and she said, ‘You need to stop shitting yourself!’

And so I think that has always kind of…stuck with me. Like these, should statements as…cognitive distortions. So we just kind of say to each other, ‘You need to stop shitting yourself.’

Analysis:

I thought this story was hilarious to imagine a blunt statement coming from an elder. Overall, I feel like we naturally think of proverbial phrases as ancient or passed down through generations. However, to hear one as crass yet encouraging was a funny refresh. As we’ve discussed in class, it’s still interesting to me that, even in a modern context, this is advice from an elder. The pattern of us relying on others who have lived life a little longer is continuous, no matter the era.