A Powerful Means to Effect Change

I think there are very many of us that are dissatisfied with various events happening in our world: war, violence, starvation, injustices, inequality of advantages.

What can we do?

Sometimes all of this can feel too overwhelming, so we don’t do anything. Today I’m going to offer something very simple that you can do that will make a meaningful and immediate difference.

What is it??

Speak out loud and in writing in ways that align with the world you would like to have. I am not talking about mantras or positive thinking. I am talking about aligning your words so that they get closer to what you want to see and experience in the world – your home, community, workplace, the world.

Where to begin?

Listen for what you say over the next week – about anything. Do the words and messages feel congruent with the loving, peaceful, fulfilled and wise being you are? With the world you would like to live in? You want to notice what your automatic and habitual ways of speaking are.

After paying attention for a week, then begin to replace words that don’t align with the world you would like to see with ones that do.

Why does this make a difference?

Whatever we say influences our personal experience and that of those around us. If you aren’t sure about whether this is true, notice your experience the next time you’re in a room alone and someone walks in. Or notice your experience when you begin a conversation with someone. You are influenced by those events.

Words have a vibrational quality to them, just as does everything. Everything is a vibration of energy.

You can say these words now and feel the difference in your body as you say them:

Fight

Anger

Fear?

Now these:

Love

Peace

Getting along

What does this have to do with issues in my family, workplace, my community, the world??

At the beginning of this piece, I proposed that many of us aren’t happy with what is happening. Each of us can do something now to influence a new possibility. We can speak the language of what we would like the world to be. Begin to eliminate words that don’t align.

Speak the language in any environment, in any conversation. I am not suggesting that you have conversations about what is happening in the world. I’m proposing we pay attention to all conversations about any topic, any time. Our words paint pictures, influence how we feel and others feel.

People say things like they will fight for their rights, their position, their idea. Other words and phrases that bring forward what most of us don’t want:

Go to battle

Hit back

Make them/Have them do something

Culture war

So-and-so is firing back

Beat them

Every time people talk that way, we bring to mind fighting, war, violence. Every day on the news, anchors are highly judgmental and opinionated about how certain reforms aren’t being made and the language that is often spoken is of fighting for something. Just the opposite of what they had said seconds before that they wanted in the world.

So many are unaware of this phenomenon: our words matter, and they reverberate throughout the world – and in our bodies and the bodies of those with whom we speak.

We can think of another way to say what we want to see done or changed.

“I will stand for my position,” for example. To me, as I write this, there is even more power in the idea of standing for my position than fighting for it. What about you?

Each of us is not separate from anything or anyone else, so all of our activities, including our self-expression influences ourselves as well as the energy field of which we are a part and the people in it.

So much of what is expressed even by those who want “positive” change is couched in language of fighting, hitting (“he hit back”).

There is nothing wrong with a sense of outrage. I am outraged with all of the killing. That is fueling this writing and fueling my ideas about what I can personally do. It is based on injustice, not on personal righteous indignation.?

There is a lovely book entitled, Instructions to the Cook, by Bernard Glassman and Rick Fields, which contains Zen wisdom. It is explained that an emotion such as anger, when “sat with” long enough becomes determination. We can allow our immediate reactionary feelings to become deeper, more empowered and empowering emotions.?

Such emotions then align with our essential nature as we recognize activities and events that aren’t aligned with what we know in hearts is possible, such as various injustices and inhumane and disrespectful activities.

And we can be inspired to do something and to say something.?

We can allow our words and actions in all situations to be informed by the love, wisdom, understanding and peace that we are.

As you stay the course, your organizational culture, personal experience, family culture and yes even your experience of the world will begin to align with your understanding as expressed with your words.

Each of us can make an immediate and meaningful difference.

“The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the one doing it.”

-?????? Chinese Proverb

Ready to Live Your Life and/or Align Your Business Culture with the World You Want to Live In?

I invite you to schedule a complimentary 30-minute strategy session where we can:

• Explore what you know in your heart – or gut – is possible
• Identify potential blind spots to having that manifest
• Determine opportunities for making relevant changes
• Create an action plan for implementing these insights

Go to Calendly link in the comments to schedule your strategy session.