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Kelly Love Johnson

Skirt! managing editor

Writer, editor, author, independent girly feminist hipster, slightly neurotic, cynically optimistic, compassionately liberal, fiscally conservative, somewhat intellectual, and always irreverent. ...

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Power of the positive...

Kelly Love Johnson

If I had to make a top 10 list of Things at Which I Do Not Excel, positivity would be somewhere between #4: Flirting and #7: Math. I really have to work at being positive the majority of the time because there’s a guest voice that pops up in my head several times a day that loves to tell me how much things suck, how all of humanity is doomed, how it doesn’t matter if I go to the gym or not because we’re all going to die anyway, and that all my decisions are bad ones.

Luckily, I am self-aware enough to know that the voice is just my own way of talking myself out of doing things I should, could, and want to do. I’m also lucky to have friends who know me well enough to give me a good smack on the back of the head and shout, “snap out of it!” Or the nicer version, which usually comes from my friend and co-worker Katie, “stop being so hard on yourself.” She also made a rule that, if I say something negative, I’m not allowed to walk away until I say something positive to counteract the negative statement. She’s also the person who reminds me that, even though I resist going to yoga class, I always feel better afterwards, especially if there is a happy baby pose involved.

Besides nurturing my positive voice, Katie has also taught me how to check the air pressure in my tires, to wash my jeans before having them altered, and not to put disposable plastic containers in the microwave. Everyone should have a Katie in their lives.

Since I can’t shrink her down and carry her around in my pocket, I also have a “Katie voice” in my head. Today it is telling me 1) that I do not look fat in these jeans, 2) that the dry cleaner will find my three favorite dresses in the world and they are not lost forever, and 3) that just because some people are nasty it doesn’t mean I have to return the favor.

Moving on through my list, I also think that Katie could teach me how to flirt, but I really think I’d need to start paying her the same hourly rate that shrinks and life coaches make.