Tape Over Your Mouth

Have you ever heard the old saying, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all,”? It’s an easy thing to say, but it’s definitely not as easy to live into.

It took me many, many years to realize that it is not productive to put myself into a situation where there’s an argument or disagreement if I don’t have something kind, loving and positive to say or add. I learned this the hard way, which I’ll get into in a moment, but first I want to share the tool that helps me keep my mouth shut even when I feel like I need to add my opinions to an argument.

Now this might sound a little silly, but in order to stay silent in a heated moment, I vividly imagine putting tape over my mouth. That’s right, tape covering my lips all the way from the left to the right. That way I literally cannot speak, at least in my mind.

Before I had the “tape over your mouth” tool, I would consistently get myself involved in heated moments with my family, not because I liked arguing but because I wanted to help. A perfect example of this was when my twin girls were teenagers they would fight. Yes, siblings argue, but this happened a lot. I spent most of their teenage years trying to be the mediator. When my daughters would fight, I would attempt to make some sense of what was going on between them and, inevitably, I stepped right into the problem. At the end of the argument, they’d still be mad at each other, but they were also mad at me. I can’t count the number of times this kind of interaction ruined my whole day. And not only my day, but I’d go and get my husband involved and ruin his day too. Here's the funny part, a few hours would pass from the disagreement, or maybe my daughters would wake up the next day, and they were totally happy, completely fine. It was as if nothing had ever happened.

Over and over again, this was the pattern. I opened my mouth. I tried to help and fix things. I tried to support. When the reality of it was, in a way I was trying to control my daughters. I thought I had the power to solve their problems and I didn’t. Over and over again, I ended up in a fight with them, when all I was trying to do was to help, two of the people I love most in the world, for no reason. These fights stressed me out and I’d feel unhappy all day.

It took years of repeating this pattern to realize that the most empowering move was to give my daughters the dignity to handle their own situations and work out their own problems, to be who they are. They’re young adults. They’re smart. They’re wise. They’re mature enough to handle their own lives and solve disagreements in their own way. And, at the end of the day, it’s not my life, it’s theirs.

Now, any time an argument comes up between my daughters, even when the words feel like they might escape the imaginary tape covering my lips, they don’t. I stay silent. I get to keep my peace and serenity, and my daughters always come out the other side of the disagreement stronger for having dealt with it themselves.

This is just my way of saying if you’re in a situation where you’re around an argument but not a direct part of it, keep your mouth shut – especially if the argument is between people you’re close to. Somehow, they’ll figure it out, but it’s not up to you to fix them or solve their problems. If someone asks for support or advice, absolutely share your thoughts, but if it doesn’t have to do with you or your input is not asked for – just remember: Tape over your mouth!