Sticks and Stones

*More to the babes…reflecting this week on the power of words.

'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.'

I’m not sure who wrote that, but that last part is all wrong.

While I understand that the phrase is meant to be delivered in the tone of a convincing declaration, indicating that we are bigger than the words and separate from the words, we need to talk about what words really do.

“Words are powerful. They have the ability to create a moment and the strength to destroy it.” Susan Gale, you said it.

We’ll call the misuse of words: negative word power. It’s like the Bad Guy of Words’ superpower.

Negative word power is paralyzing. It’s unnecessary, empty, misdirected, and wrongly projected. You know this, but that doesn’t erase the sting it inflicts or the scars it leaves. It’s ok to feel the pain in order to move through it, but then remind yourself that it is indeed…unnecessary, empty, misdirected, and wrongly projected.

Negative word power is made out of hurt. Everybody hurts, sometimes. It’s what you get when you mix bottling your feelings, isolation, fear, uncertainty and a bunch of other unfortunate ingredients we may collect from the tough experiences in life. It’s up to us to choose what we do with it.

Consult your heart.

Imagine channeling your fear or hurts or frustrations into asking for help or support rather than pushing the negative onto others. Because when you’re done with that supposed release you may temporarily feel better, but in reality you are only left with more problems…the yuck lingers and now you have to deal with the awareness that you’ve hurt deeply and left others wounded. Now you have your old hurts and your new hurts, which you’ve just tried to gift onto another, stacked so high you can barely see around them. Make not others responsible for, or pay for, your decisions, struggles, challenges, or circumstances.

Babes, don’t hurl your hurts. Heal them.

Imagine breaking the cycle. Imagine spreading good words about freely. Imagine stopping the negative words in their tracks at the tip of your tongue and pausing to find out where they are coming from. When you figure it out, send them packing – for good. Passing them along to others affects much more than the person you face. Negative words travel an endless path breaking one hopeful soul at a time.

Erase them or replace them.

Imagine channeling the power and energy behind the words into making one’s day instead of breaking it. Build someone up with confidence and courage to change their perspective. Be a kind voice in their day, perhaps the only kind voice they may hear in their day, in their whole ‘world’. Step in to help when you are presented with the opportunity, hold up your sturdy shield to stop the toxic words from hitting another. You may be the only one who would. We make a difference, in one direction or another, on each person we interact with. Imagine the feel good ripple we could create.

Dish others hope, not nope.

And if the words hijack your better judgment and you find yourself having slipped…apologize. Not apologizing, or ignoring it, doesn’t make it disappear or make like it didn’t happen. Asking for forgiveness will grant you both a bit of freedom.

Discover growth in honesty.

Words have the power to bring tears…the good kind and the bad kind. Bring the good ones whenever you can.

XOXO,

Mama