If You Want to Change Your Life, Change Your Mouth…

Our days tend to be filled with talking.  Meetings, phone calls, socializing, and we all have our favorite subjects—both negative and positive—that we discuss, ponder, praise, and complain about, all while speaking to others, or sometimes only to ourselves. As children, we hear, ‘Sticks and Stones will break my Bones, but words will never hurt me….’ But is that really true? How many of us have been undone, for days or week sometimes, by careless words we’ve overheard, and take them for the truth? Pretty much all of us. And while the source of these words—girlfriend, teacher, boss—may matter in how we process them, they do matter. And they can hurt. While it’s interesting to overhear compliments about the recent project we successfully navigated at work, the play we just directed, for some reason, we don’t take these to heart quite as much as we do the negative comments. But what about the comments and the conversation that goes on in small ways: a remark to a co-worker, a thought while driving to work, a gripe about something that just happened. What about those? Most of us tend to dismiss them as harmless, as something that doesn’t even enter our consciousness, but as simple little throw-away words or phrases.

But they are not.

In any way.

There is an old folk belief that when something is vocalized, it is. That is, by vocalizing, speaking of something, we bring it to being. It becomes something of its own, and begins a life of its own. And, at that point, we, as humans, become the conjurer, the wizard, who has brought this thought, idea, or invention to life, but cannot control its path or its destiny. While a bit like Dr. Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s novel, in that we’ve created a new life form, cobbled from bits and pieces of our life, usually negative, what we have really created is a ‘being’ of negative energy that feeds on every thought, every nuance, and every situation in our life. Why do I know this? Because when you reverse the equation, of NOT speaking in negative ways about your co-workers, the project at hand, the disgruntled clients, something truly magical happens. When what comes out of your mouth—even to yourself—is intentionally NOT NEGATIVE, an unusual thing begins to happen: you begin to see the situation at hand FOR WHAT IT IS, not what you think of it. That realization alone begins to show you that this is not something sent by the gods to irritate you, or your day, but simply something that occurred that must now be addressed.  And yes, THAT can be annoying.  Because we all have expectations.

If we cling to those expectations, and begin to parse what went wrong, we end up in blame, or cursing, but to do so only allows those inclinations to grow. We then have conversations or arguments in our heads with others who are not present, saying things we would probably never say to another human being, and, if present to our bodies, begin to feel the shortness of breath, the tightening of the chest, the fight-or-flight instinct growing, and for what? A ‘conversation’ that will never take place, have any effect, or influence any outcome, yet leave us exhausted with the symptoms of heart disease.

What if…. What if we decided, instead of going into battle stance, to look at what we can and cannot control, let go of that which we cannot control, and simply accept the current situation for what it is. And then manoeuvre as best we can, given what we know, and our ability to change things for the better? And not complain or speak of what we can’t influence? And NOT speak of those things, so as not to ‘give them life’ and bring them into being?  And isn’t that what life is?

I’ve found the tenets of this essay to be invaluable to my own life, and I challenge you all to adopt some form of them in yours. When challenged, really think: can I change/influence this? Or is this beyond my control? If so, can I simply let it go? And when tempted, can I release something that angered or challenged me? And if I doubt the above, can I try to do so, just to see what might happen?

In the above questions and situations, I’m always challenging myself to be better, to rise above the situation, and to do the right thing. And yes, I fail. But, it’s okay. Because I’ve learned something about me that might need work, but I’ve found a new path to pursue….