Conversations with the most beautiful woman I know, my mom.

It had been a while since I had talked to my mom. So when I called her this past Sunday, I was disappointed when she didn’t answer. Disappointed, but not surprised. She works hard, and she takes care of herself by giving herself Sundays off. So, sometimes, her phone is tucked away on the weekends.

Happily, she called me right back, but she was not pleased. Apparently, there was some important football game going on (who knew?) and her most favorite football player in the whole wide world was playing (yes, she loves her some Peyton). So the ring of her phone had distracted her from watching the game, and that, my friends is just not ok. I apologized profusely and vowed to check the football schedule before I called next time. That seemed to appease her. My lesson:

Then she asked for my opinion on Peyton’s father, Archie Manning’s behavior recently. Apparently, at a critical point in a recent game, Archie covered his face and turned his back on the field where his son was making a very important play. My mom has a degree in Psychology, and is very interested in body language. So she thought that, while it might be understandable for Mr Manning to be nervous and maybe cover his face a bit, the act of turning his back really rubbed her the wrong way. I agreed that people often “can’t watch” tense moments, and I realized that we cover our face just in case the people we are watching fail. So the very act of hiding our face is basically communicating that failure is a very real option–probably not something we really want to communicate. And turning one’s back is even more powerful. Our conversation turned to body language in pictures, and how it people’s feelings for each other are very clear in photographs. Our natural tendency is to lean in to whoever we are in the picture with, so anytime I see one person leaning away, even ever so slightly, I have to wonder if they are really that into the other person. This is especially interesting with pictures of couples. Next time you are scrolling through Facebook, pay attention to people’s body language in their pictures!

 

 

 

 

 

Then my mom shared a couple of revelations she recently had.

She had been very sick over the last couple of weeks, and found her self on her bathroom floor one night, getting…well…sick. (We have all been there, right? You have made so many trips to the bathroom you just decide you are better off staying there.) So, while she was on the floor, she looked over to her sink area. And, from that angle, she noticed that there was a little space between the bottom of her vanity and the floor. And in that space, there was hair and dust. Her vacuum doesn’t fit in the little space, and she had really never thought about it before. But now that she could really see under there, she realized, that must have been designed by a man. A woman would never design something that just collected dust, and served no purpose whatsoever. Ugh. Men.

Secondly, and slightly more seriously, she realized that she hasn’t quite been practicing what she preaches. She is a big believer in writing down your goals— there is something about having it in black and white that just helps you focus and work towards it. But you can’t stop with just writing it down. You then have to figure out how to get to your goal. And writing down the actions you will need to take to achieve your goal is a good first step. Otherwise, your goal is an empty wish, and you are setting yourself up for failure. So, she has a vision board and she has goals she wants to accomplish, but she hasn’t kept up with writing down how she is going to get where she wants to go. Her next step: saving up to put a down payment on some dirt east of the mighty Mississippi.

 

 

 

 

 

 

All in all, it was a great talk with mom (as such talks usually are). She always leaves me with something to think about.

What do you think about body language? Do you write down your goals and how you plan on reaching them? Who the heck designed bathroom vanities?! Sound off in the comments below!