"Are you hearing the words that are coming out of my mouth?"
One of my most favorite movie series is Rush Hour. If you’ve never seen any of these movies, they are action-packed comedies starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, two hilarious individuals, when they come together. They include three of my favorite things, comedy, martial arts, and a good storyline. (some of you may disagree 😊)
The thing is, it got me to thinking (uh-oh, that could be dangerous), about just that. The words that come from our mouths. How many times have you heard the childhood chant, “sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me”? What a bald-faced LIE. Words can hurt. In fact, they can downright be incapacitating.
Words have the ability to, crush dreams, stop us dead in our tracks, cause us to doubt who we are, and even strip us of any shreds of confidence we may have had. Our words are one of the deadliest weapons known to the human race and yet at first glance they seem so harmless.
I’ve seen the most innocently said words totally crush a child. The sad thing is often we don’t even know the extent of the damage we have caused. These young minds can’t process and handle these careless blows and many times, each blow builds upon the last.
Think of it this way, back to my martial arts, if you were at a level where you had to be registered as a lethal weapon because of the knowledge, skill, and damage you could do, you would be very careful when or where you would exercise your expertise, wouldn’t you. My guess is you would definitely exercise restraint and control and choose your fights wisely. That’s the damage we can do with our words.
We as adults are just as vulnerable and our words to each other can be even more cutting and hateful.
Look, it boils down to responsibility. Remember the illustration I used above about the lethal weapon? Learning the skill and mastering the art is commendable, but with that knowledge, skill and mastery come with heavy responsibility. As masters in the area of words, we have a responsibility to exercise restraint, examine our intent, choose wisely and speak life. Let’s break it down.
Exercise Restraint
Just because someone said or did something harmful to you does not mean you always have to retaliate in like form.
(Mom’s back!) I remember my mom saying to me more than once, “two wrongs don’t make a right.” What she was saying was, lol, often it’s best to take another course of action, one that would defuse the situation. Someone’s got to be the adult!
Oh, believe you me, it’ ain’t easy. Sometimes that ugly monster will rile up inside of me and . . . well that’s where things start going south and it’s up to us to pull up, hit the brakes, and examine our intent.
Examine Your Intent and motivation
I’m ashamed to say, there was a time when I would use my weapon carelessly. In fact, my intent was to inflict harm, make no bones about it. That my friend is immaturity and pure selfishness.
Sometimes we can be so locked in the hurt and pain someone else has inflicted on us that all we want to do is retaliate in kind.
Let me ask you this, once you let go, do you feel any better, does the pain go away, did you change what just happened? It really serves no purpose, than to just give us a moment of satisfaction that quickly becomes empty.
The same energy it takes to choose words to inflict hurt should be the same energy with the care we use to choose our words wisely.
“we must take the time to think before we speak and reflect on the impact or effect our words will leave”
Choose Your Words Wisely
It amazes me how taking the time to think about and choose our words with care can actually bring about change. However, side note, don’t look for the change to be in others, take it home first.
When I take the time to think before I speak and reflect on the impact or effect my words will have, I have better success with getting my point across, expressing my feeling, or even expounding on my thoughts. People actually listen.
Okay, it’s like this, when you write you choose your words carefully right? You also have the ability to go back, reread and make edits. That my friend is what we want to master when speaking.
It’s the mental pause we want to perfect to be more effective when communicating with others. Our words would be more beneficial if we would begin to speak life into others.
Use your words to Speak Life into others
So, what do I mean by speak life?
When I see you, I want to encourage you, lift you up, give you hope, make you smile, bring you a bit of joy, make your life just a little bit better. You get the idea. That my sister is speaking life into others.
We should want to use our words as balms in an already chaotic, messy world. These life-giving words don’t have to be just limited to audible. For instance, with my grandkids, family members, and others that come to mind periodically throughout the day, I will often shoot them a text just to let them know they are being thought of and leave an encouraging word.
See, no harm no foul. But this simple act can sometimes turn a bad day around on its heels and you have no idea the effect your words had. You gave life! I actually have a sweet friend who speaks life to me almost daily with a text.
All I’m asking is, how do you use your words, are they a weapon of mass destruction or a breath of fresh air? Let’s continue the conversation over in our M.O.N.D.A.Y. Crew here, we are also starting an awesome Masterclass in September, all you have to do is join the group here. Remember, we’re here to support YOU!
If you’d like to find out more about our upcoming Run Your Life Mastery Experience starting this soon, check it out here, and see how I can help you start on your path to Mastering Your Monday.
With Fortitude and Grace,
