Make me…!

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

Okay.  So here’s the deal.  My friend Chris is always telling me I have to watch my words.  I’m not talking about swearing or name calling, just the way I phrase certain things.  

What I originally wrote is my problem.   Almost every time I’m telling her something, just in normal conversation, I use the words “have to”, “made me” or “making me”.  It sounds as if I don’t have any control over what I do.  

I don’t know where this all came from.  But I guess if I have to sit and think about it, I would probably say it came from all those times I felt like I HAD to do something.  Usually from my lack of saying no.  See, I would over extend my time because I either felt like no one else would do it or because I wanted to feel important.  But even though I agreed to it–and even sometimes offered–I really didn’t want to, and hence “have to” or “making me”.  “

I don’t HAVE to do anything (except eat and sleep).  No one can MAKE me do anything.  But unconsciously that’s how I have always felt and so that’s what always comes out of my mouth.  

We all remember the old children’s saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.”  Yeah, we all know that’s not true.  

I am learning now that words have a lot of power over your thoughts and feelings.  If you speak joy, you feel joy.  If you speak anger, you feel anger.  If you speak a feeling of being made to do something, that’s how I’m going to feel, and maybe even each and every time that person asks me to do something in the future.

Words have more power than we all can imagine.  Words can be consoling, caring, thoughtful, uplifting, loving, and they can also be hurtful, angry, mean, nasty, punishing.  

I’m not only talking about words we actually speak either.  These include words that we say to ourselves, our thoughts.  We all need to learn how to develop a better mindset, a better way of thinking, not only for ourselves and our loved ones but for everyone we come into contact with each and every day.  

There is a lot of gloom and doom out in the world.  All you really ever hear are all the bad news, horrible things people do to each other, wars, theft, murder.  It is already hard enough to live in a world like this.  Why not try to bring a little light into your mind instead of darkness?  Talk about uplifting stories instead of the latest divorce.  Talk about a happy event instead of the celebrity who just committed suicide.  

We talk and talk but pay no attention to the words that are coming out of our mouths.  If we stopped and listened to ourselves, we may find that our conversations are directly linked to our bad moods.   Even some of our problems can be a direct cause of bad choices we make in our words.

I’m not saying that our words are the cause of all of our problems.  But they are a cause of a great deal of them, directly or indirectly.

Why don’t we all try for one day to slow down our speech, really listen to the words we say, and make an effort to put positivity into them?  It couldn’t hurt, right?