If you’ve been hanging around this space for a bit you know how much I talk about carefully choosing the words you use to talk to/about yourself and others. Language has ENERGY and we can either use that energy for good or evil, so to speak. Have you seen the experiments online where people talk to rice or plants? I did my own experiment with rice a year ago and the difference between the jar labeled “love” and the jar labeled “hate” was pretty wild after only a few weeks. Each day throughout the day I would say positive things to the love jar and mean things to the hate jar. Soon the hate jar was full of slimy, moldy, nastiness and after a few weeks there was only a small chunk of gross in the love jar.
What I found the most interesting during the entire experiment was how my tone and mood changed when I spoke to the different jars. I felt soft and nurturing saying “You’re beautiful and I love you” and then shifted pretty quickly to feeling really low saying “I hate you, you’re stupid and ugly”. Feelings appeared with the words I was saying to the rice, just as feelings show up when we talk to/about ourselves and others. The words trigger an emotional response in the brain and when thoughts get paired with emotions the subconscious mind gets wired. That wiring determines how we move through life - more of what we say, do, think and feel. So if our words/thoughts/stories are loving we get more of that both internally and in our external world. The same goes for unkind, unloving thoughts/words/stories. You will get more of that junk in your life too!
Here’s the kicker - you get to choose the words and the emotions that you allow to take up real estate on your mental space. At least you do once you become aware of them and decide if you want to keep them or not. This is a long game but I challenge you to take a few minutes and write down some of the words (phrases, stories) you use often (be wary of can’t, should, could, don’t, always, never, no one, any name calling or judgement…) and pick preferred, loving words instead. It’s simple but not easy but it won’t always be so hard. As the new neural connections solidify, your new wiring takes shape and life FEELS better.