‹ Back

Words

 

The power of words is long held. Words are the key to our existence- we communicate, document our history, write our literature and fantasies, and words have the power to affect us in ways no other action can.  Each culture has its own set of words and language, and there are many subsets within each of those.  Over thousands of years we have given meaning to each word and letter within- ball, red, shape, even the word word itself. Other than expression, what is the power of words?

 

If you read my blog on reading, you already know the power of the written word. It can allow us to learn, to transport ourselves to a distant land, to escape, and to increase our understanding of the huma condition and increase empathy.  Reading is the only way to increase empathy other than actually having been in the situation yourself.  Sadly, about a third of high school graduates will never read another book after high school, and 80% of US families did not purchase a book last year.  The power of the written word is being lost.

 

Spoken words, well they have a whole different magic in their own.  As with reading, they can make us feel but the connection is not nearly as strong with movie and television as it is with books.  Effective communication builds trust, improves connections, and solves problems.  We can all, off the top of our head, think of an instance where poor communication caused a situation to deteriorate- and usually it’s FAST.  The spoken language is highly important for our daily lives.

 

Neither of those are why I’m writing this blog today though.  If you made it this far, I’m sorry that I made you read all that to get to the actual point of this literary rambling. What I really want to hit on is your vernacular- your own personal set of words and phrases that you use daily and most importantly how you word things.  Do you use I statements or You statements?  Do you have a positive wording about things such as your work, spouse, home life, health, etc?  What picture are you painting daily with the words and phrases that you use? Using statements such as “You need to…” instead of “I would be appreciative if…” causes anger and causes the recipient to instant become defensive.  Instead of being accusatory, try to word statements objectively.  What words are you choosing when it comes to health? I want to bring up an example of a conversation between a friend and myself- I gave this friend a recipe for healthy brownies containing no eggs, no added sugar, and no oil. They replied “Oh, so none of the good stuff.”  This negative wording already said before trying the recipe that they were not going to like it. In fact, the recipe takes out all of the items that aren’t good for you, effectively only leaving “the good stuff” but this person personal vocabulary has sugar and oil in it as “good stuff.” Well, what’s the opposite of good? BAD. So this idea is already bad. A joke it may have been, however, the seed is there. Do you think of exercise as “a necessary evil” or “it is a blessing that I am able to exercise”? See where I am going with this? 

 

Our brain has this cool thing called neural-plasticity and that means that it can create different pathways than the ones that it is used to taking.  Like most things in life, the brain wants info to travel down the path of least resistance. Whatever path we have created for those thoughts are the ones that it’ll ride out. No if we create negative pathways with habits of any sorts, our brain is going to continue that road.  However! If we begin to create new pathways and actively focus on those thoughts then the brain will eventually kill off the old pathways as they are no longer necessary! We can literally re-write our brains with just some good old-fashioned determination and positivity. Think of it this way- you’re sitting in a traffic jam all pissed off because now you’re late and you have better things to do than be stuck in traffic because some dumb ass up the way…blah blah blah… you know the drill. Now you’re all mad up about something that probably only delayed you a few minutes. Instead, what if you noticed things around you- I enjoy the song that’s playing, that’s a really cool car over there, at least the weather is nice let me roll down my window. Congratulations, you have completed your first step in creating a positive pathway for that event. Notice your words and how they create your reality, because you have the power to alter reality with something as simple as words and thoughts.

 

We can re-route the brain through the power and process of choosing our words correctly and with intention. We can change habits, perceptions, and our lives with something as simple as using the right vocabulary. Something my mother always told us that I’ll never forget that illustrates the power of word choice is this “It is ok to sound southern, but it is never ok to sound stupid.” She made sure that we had proper vocabulary and a wide lexicon to utilize when needed. The southern dialect is not the problem; the culture surrounding words is the issue. Choose your words wisely. Stop making self-deprecating jokes because science says you’ll believe it. In fact, stop deprecating humor in general- blowing a candle out never made another candle brighter. Choose your words around food, activity, home life, career, all that- choose them wisely as they can direct your path. Even simply saying your partner is “your other half” implies that without them you are not a whole person when in fact you are. When spoken into existence, written on the page, communicated through movement, or even thought alone in our head, the power of words is real.