Our words are more important than we imagine in shaping our reality. They help us mold and express who we are, and they also shape a lot of our cultural characteristics as well. Choosing our words wisely is key in creating a life vision that can actually be achieved and in living an intentional life.
Words are symbols that we learn, and our subconscious mind uses them to help give meaning to what happens to them. Jim Rohn used to say “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” It is about the meaning we give to things and how we decide to approach them.
If we don’t know how to express our emotions and feelings, our intuition, into words, this greatly limits the possibilities we can access in life. Not only in our communication with others and the possibility of creating an emergence together, but in our ability to understand and shape ourselves intentionally as well. Understanding is power.
Our words shape a lot of how we see what happens in our lives, as they shape what we can do about it. If we are drowning in fear and surrounded by doubtful thoughts, how can we come up with empowering approaches to the challenges we experience? It is our words and the conversations we have, both with ourselves and with others, that clear the path for us to move forward.
In this article, we’ll talk about how to perceive our words as empowering tools in our journey. They can either help us to implement our life vision or limit ourselves and be detrimental to our relationships.
Our words can hypnotize us
It is easy to ignore how many things that happen within us are actually outside our comprehension. It is not that they are hard to understand, but more like there is just too much happening within us. Our heart beating and our lungs breathing are obvious examples of this. So is the programing we induce ourselves to in order to survive.
We gather a lot of information in our lives and it is easy both to feel like we have a hold on everything there is to know as to feel like we have no clue about any of it. There is so much out there influencing us on a daily basis. These forces act without us noticing.
One of them is our self-programing. This relates to affirmations and how they can program us on a subconscious level. The words are not exactly what creates this effect, but the symbols that they carry. It is the feelings and emotions we experience towards these symbols that are imprinted on us. The stronger they are, the stronger the impression.
Some events are so charged with emotion that they imprint some decisions on us for the rest of our lives. Depending on the moment they happen in our lives, they can influence a lot of who we become. These moments of unconscious decisions are hard to find and require a therapist or a spiritual leader to take us on a journey of self-discovery, mindfulness, and transcendence to solve. It seems complicated, but with a good guide, we can experience this journey.
These moments are imprinted not only by the pressure of the emotional power they carry but through reliving these experiences and the pressure as we remember these moments. Words become symbols that represent these experiences and can trigger us into feelings and emotions we don’t wish to experience again. We can be mindful of the things we repeat ourselves and take a look into what they are representing to us. What is the meaning we are giving to what happens in our lives? What are the phrases we usually use to describe the scenarios we are living in, and the experiences we are having?
Take a particular look at the phrases we repeat often, particularly to describe ourselves. Are they empowering affirmations or limiting beliefs that bind us to experiences that might have served us in the past, but we don’t need to live anymore?
Be careful with these words
During our conversation on Elevate Your Best Podcast #016, we discussed a few words that might require some attention from us all. They are “try”, “should” and “but”. An entire discussion going back and forth to check on the proper use of these words in our conversation might seem overkill. Even so, we ended up finding out they are important for the emotions they bring on people as we use them; including in ourselves.
The conversations we have with ourselves greatly influence us. We are the person we influence the most, with our thoughts and beliefs, as we mentioned on the previous topic. The influence these conversations have is enormous, and the words we use in them are important.
Remember how we talked about how emotions imprint our experience on us in order to learn how to survive? Well, these words bring a lot of emotions with them, and these emotions will shape a lot of the meaning we give to our experiences. Are they moments of pleasure or pain? Do we move towards these experiences in the future or away from them?
“Try” can lead us into conformism and a lack of commitment, for example. Commitment is such an important value to nurture in our lives, and ‘trying” things without it is one of the most common errors in judgment we can fall to. Trying is good, failing is a natural product of the process. Yet when we try, we need to commit to an outcome. These are the energies we are investing into something, a cost, and it needs to be well deployed if we wish to build a life vision.
“Should” is a word that brings us into a frequency of shaming. Some sort of neediness also lurks towards its use, shaming people into doing this, making them feel obligated. None of these are feelings we wish to evoke either in us or in our peers and community.
And despite the fantastic versatility of the word “but”, it can easily make the receiver of the message ignored, undervalued, and vulnerable. It is necessary to adopt the other’s personal perspective and pay close attention to recognize what they are communicating and share our ideas as complementary to what they said, not a contrary alternative. A “but” can easily make one feel denied of their individuality, and quickly dismiss anything said before it; no matter the merit it might have.
For more information on why being mindful of these words can make such a difference in our lives take a look at episode #016 of the Elevate Your Best Podcast. We discuss in detail when it is empowering to use them, and when we might be self-sabotaging ourselves without noticing it. We also talk about some other words,
Reinforcing are our values
The values we bring with us are also shaped by the words we use. Someone might intend to communicate a message to another, and this other person receives a completely different meaning from it. The same symbols that infer a meaning to speaker me be inferred differently by the listener.
Our words shape a lot of the values we carry with us. Our familiarity with expressing feelings of confidence, for example, can influence how much confidence we nurture in our lives. Some people simply can’t express their feelings, which leads them to avoid these subjects, connect with others or with even themselves. This takes them into the foggy lands of comfort.
Being empowering with our words is quite simple, though, despite its importance. We need only focus on being familiar with the use of empowering words. Phrasing things in a positive way, bringing a positive scenario into light, looking at ourselves from a positive perspective. Remember that even though we can see things quite negatively, there is always the possibility to change the tone and make it more positive and empowering.
Seeing things in this positive light and being able to look at ourselves in an empowering and compassionate way is an important skill to develop in life. As with any skill that we wish to develop there will be learning, new experiences, and failures involved. Some frustration might creep in and try to bother us, distract us from our purpose, and scare us back into comfort. Exercising it and becoming more familiar with thoughts in positive frequencies will put us into a whole new flow of action where our energies are much more productive.
