I picked my daughter up from school the other day. She jolted in the car frazzled and upset. I know better than to ask what is wrong but refrained until she was ready to talk. A friend at school had told her she was “rude as usual.” I let her vent and steam until she was ready to listen. I then turned my mama bear hat on backward and morphed into life coach-mode. I began to remind her that we can not control other people’s thoughts or actions, but only our own. When she said, “ you were rude as usual, how did that make you feel,” I asked? She snapped back with. “it made me sad.”
Right around this age is when children realize that they do not get along with everyone and that certain behaviors or mannerisms of their peers sometimes don’t align with their own. They may get irritated, annoyed, and agitated by things that previously had gone unnoticed. They start to become more mindful of what others are saying, wearing, or doing. They become more self-aware and self-conscious. This is a crucial time in their lives to teach them about the power of thoughts.
We have done an injustice to our children without even realizing it. At a young age when someone would say something to our child that made them feel uncomfortable, we responded with, Did they hurt your feelings? This is where we went wrong. Other people have no control over our feelings; we are completely responsible for our own feelings. Our thoughts control our feelings. Let me say that again, our thoughts control our feelings. If someone tells you they don’t like what you are wearing, that statement does not make you sad. It’s when you let your thoughts turn into I don’t look good, or My clothes are not cute, that creates a feeling of sadness. Although it’s easy to blame those around us—the one who doesn’t like what you’re wearing, in truth, we own our thoughts. We alone have power over our thoughts.
One of the most valuable and empowering tools that I teach is to identify, control, and change your thoughts. The instant we let others’ opinions, words, or actions affect us, we have allowed ourselves the inability to reach our full potential. These habits may have developed in our early years, but it isn’t too late to reverse them and teach them to ourselves and our children now. Starting the drama takes little effort, but learning to end the girl drama is the real achievement. Don’t go throughout your life feeling offended or hurt. You can learn to identify your thoughts and eventually control and change them to serve you and help you progress.
I prompted my daughter with a few more questions, “what thoughts did you have when you were sad?” She explained, “she wasn’t rude and how could her friend say that?” Together we thought of some new thoughts so she wouldn’t feel sad. “I am not rude,” she said as she stepped out of the car and danced into the house.
Life is most definitely not void of hard and challenging relationships and trials. We will continue to have these same experiences of “girl drama” as we become adults. We will experience these in our personal lives and in the workplace. But if we learn to manage what we can control we will learn to end the girl drama.
