The Power of Words to Change....

"Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate, and to humble."? ~Yehuda Berg

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The power of words can have an unforeseen impact on you, your life, and the life of others. How we wield them can either be extremely negative, extraordinarily positive, or land somewhere in-between.

And it is these negative words that do the most damage, especially if we are the recipients of them early in life.

I think it is safe to say, that at some point in our lives, someone has directed one or more of the following words towards you; dumb, stupid, idiot, ignorant, asinine, inane, despicable, egregious, ugly, fat, failure, repulsive, substandard, jackass, loser, moron, reject, not enough x, y, or z, or some derivative of these negative words. .

Whether delivered in a fit of anger or as a mis-intended comment meant to be funny or sarcastic, the power of these words can leave a lasting negative impression on ourselves or others.

It is my belief, that some of us are still carrying around the negative impact of those words we received as children far into our adulthood. This can be either consciously or unconsciously.

Tearing You Apart?

The truth is that negative words form the basis for criticism. In its original meaning, criticism is derived from the Greek word 'critic' which means to separate, to pull apart, or to tear. That is why when faced with criticism (vs. constructive feedback), it can feel like we are literally being torn apart.

Either we are not aware, or we have lost sight of the power of our words in our everyday conversations.

Why? I think it's because in a 24-hour news cycle (words) plus the constant barrage of social media content (more words), we have become numb. Numb to words, numb to their impact, just plain numb.

It All Changes When...

Hopefully at this point, you have become a little more aware that you might be over-using negative words or maybe more aware that your propensity is to lean towards using negative words. In either case, there is a path out of this cycle.

It starts by paying attention to the words you use in both self-talk and the language you use when interacting with others.

For example when we say, "this is going to be so hard," "There is no way I can succeed," "I will never be smart enough, pretty enough, good enough to x or y, " we are setting ourselves up for negativity or failure.

Another example is if we notice in our conversations with others that we start down a negative path or eventually veer off into negativity. Many times this process happen unconsciously.

The breakthrough happens when we become aware of our behavior and right the course.

I Don't Remember That!

You see, our words come from our thoughts, regardless if they are negative or positive. These thoughts many times relate to events that have happened and are buried in the subconscious part of our brains and filed by emotions. All our happy thoughts and events in one file, our sad thoughts and events in another file and so on.

The interesting point is that the sub-conscious does not recognize time, so it cannot distinguish between 1 minute and 1 decade. This why we can get over-triggered by a current event that is connected to a past event that was traumatic.

When we experience fear or danger, the brain tells the body to release powerful stress hormones into your body so you can overcome the perceived danger. It doesn't matter if it real (an accident, an attack by a wild animal, etc.) or it is imagined (what we think others think of us, that we look stupid, ugly, etc.).

If you experience a constant flow of negativity, anxiety, stress, or fear, it will take its toll and you will feel the impact physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. This is why we say "Stress Kills!"

So how can you use the power of words to change and get what you really want? You just have to be intentional about being more positive and it starts with our thoughts and our words.

3 Steps To Increase The Power of Your Words

1. Observe your words and the words of others when communicating. Don't judge, just notice. When you do, you will begin to see just how prevalent the use of negative words is in your daily communication. Awareness is 75% of the solution so you're already 3/4 of the way there. Congratulations!
2. Arm yourself with a list of positive words. In fact here's a link to a couple hundred to start with Positive Words?. Start by choosing? 5 words from that site that appeal to you or you would love to hear said back to you.
3. Now that you are armed and dangerous, be intentional about inserting those 5 words into all of your communications the rest of this week, especially with yourself. Next week pick 5 more!

The power of words can have an amazing impact on your mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health and that of those you choose to interact with...

So choose to be healthy!

That said, have a priceless, extraordinary, incredibly fulfilling day, week, month, year, and life!