Too many people today believe that there is a power in the world that is running rampant in society. They are wanting to claim that the words we say have some type of power over people. Can words actually have to power to hurt a person? What about the power to heal a broken heart? Can words do this? Have we been walking around with the power to cast spells on people like a real-life Harry Potter?
The truth of all this is obviously no. We as humans don’t have the power of wizards and witches. We have power but with the single use of a word I can not crush a man, nor can I build a broken person up. So how do people who get into a fight end up with hurt feelings? How does Tony Robbins get people to be able to walk on burning coals and not get hurt? It has to be magic, or. some type of unknown energy transference. The answer is also no.
In each of those thoughts, we say that people don’t have the ability to control their life. Yet in every instance that magical transfer of power isn’t magic but something more basic to each and every person. The reason I write these blogs is for the very same effect as the magical wishing of people who want to say words have power. Words don’t have any power whatsoever, what has power are thoughts. Not just anyone’s thoughts but your thoughts.
Then why does it hurt when someone calls me names?
Yet does that word actually hurt you? Say you just got called a Lint Licker like in the Orbit gum commercial. Why didn’t that word hurt everyone who heard it? When that commercial was played why didn’t you have an increase in domestic violence? Why do so many people start laughing at that commercial? Because of the intent? Again double-check that premise, because We have seen videos of Karens running around calling people names and they have malicious intent yet Many people love to watch Karen videos. So why were you not affected by that Karen’s intent?
There has to be a connection. So why is it that when your wife said, “You were a lazy bum” did your kids not also become distraught? Does it have to be directed at people? Then why is it that many
They want to think that words can cause harm
Now what I am about to say will hurt some people’s feelings or at least they want to believe that they hurt their feelings. While others it will either give them more determination or nothing at all. Why do people believe that words cause harm? Because they don’t want to take into account their own power. These people don’t want to take responsibility for their own emotional responses. It shows how much easier it is to play the victim and get others to pat them on the back and say we like you. It’s easier and safer to get attention by crying on the sidewalk than to not even respond to a rude comment from someone who believes they know you.
We can sit down in a mud puddle and complain that our pants are wet and dirty. That’s the easy part but to acknowledge that we sat down in the mud puddle is rough on the ol’ ego. That means we have to face other people’s thoughts about the circumstance, and their thoughts don’t necessarily line up with our thoughts of the circumstance. Yet that word didn’t hurt you or your feelings.
Sticks and stones
Now I was looking around and came across a lot of people who do believe that word can hurt you. They talk about how the brain can’t differentiate physical from perceived pain. Yet where does that pain come from? Why does being called a doo-doo head get one person worked up while another person just laughs? If that word actually caused pain, it would cause pain to each person who heard it. So again I ask the question of why?
The answer is as I mentioned earlier it doesn’t hurt you words are just vibrations shaped by our throats and mouths, that our brains pick up and interpret into words. That is what a word is, It’s quivering air nothing more. Sometimes it has a more pronounced shake and others less but it is still just a vibration your ears pick up and pass on to the brain.
So yes the Childhood chant that we would say all the way up to the 1990s is correct
Sticks and stones my break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
Now some folks do play into the misconception that words hurt and so they do muddy up the waters a bit yet they also are trying to get people to start taking their power back instead of holding on to the victim mindset.
Why do words seem to hurt?
Now we are getting into a good question that will take you on to the path that will give you all the freedom you could want. One important line of thinking where you don’t have to worry about what other people think or go into a room and be a wallflower. You can live your life and others can have their opinion and it doesn’t bother you. You might even get audacious enough to welcome judgments from other people.
The reason that words appear to hurt is that you agree with that person’s judgment of you. It is the thoughts you have about the circumstance that creates your emotions. So if a Karen says your restaurant is a horrible establishment and you get angry you might want to actually look at the thoughts around why you are getting angry. That thought may be, “What if this woman is right and our diner is not good? are other people going to hear and stop coming? If they stop coming I will have to close my doors and my dream to run a restaurant is over!”
None of that is true you just had a thought about what a woman who is lost in her own emotional thoughts said to you. Why did she act out like that? Who knows but her thoughts have no effect on you nor do they have effects on your customers. The words she shares are just her verbalizing her thoughts. They have no power to make you feel anything.
This is why someone can’t say something and suddenly make you angry or make you cry. Words don’t have that power, but your thoughts do. So words being said they create a circumstance that you have thoughts about and that is all.
Your wife nor your kids can cause you harm just by saying something you deem to be hurtful. Their actions don’t hurt your feelings. All of that is on you, or in your head. You have the ability to change how you see something. Now granted you were reacting to circumstances at first yet now with all the knowledge you have about why words do you no harm you can start living intentionally. If your wife wants to throw a fit you can see her as a fellow human who is having a human respond to an unintentional life and you can love her for it. You don’t have to change her you can just let her have her emotions and you can have yours.
You can help your son understand where his emotions are from and show him that no matter what society wants to say we men do show our emotions in our own way.
