“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”
Yeah, yeah, sure. In which universe can words never hurt me? Even the superheroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe are not immune to nasty words flung in their direction. My pet theory, cape or no cape, is that most of us can be pierced by ugly words. Pierced down to our souls.
So having shared this, I’m making an honest admission. Recently, angry and frustrated, I could hear a veritable smorgasbord of four-letter words just zipping through my mind.
As my internal tirade progressed, I tuned into how tight my jaws were. Tense, clamped shut, and oh, gosh, let’s add a smidgen of tooth grinding, as well. (Please don’t tell me you haven’t been there.)
Suddenly, thank heavens, my internal light bulb of curiosity lit up. (Still lighting up after all these years. Serious gratitude.) With this cascade of internally-invoked expletive deleteds, who was I serving? Me? You bet, or so I thought. Let’s be honest, my multiple invocations of #*%^, and the like, seemed akin to releasing steam from a pressure cooker. For those us who’ve tangoed with pressure cookers, their hot released steam is akin to being in close proximity to Old Faithful, the Yellowstone geyser known for its famous, and deadly, scorching qualities. (Might I say ouch?)
Ah, I had a revelatory google attack just at that very moment, encouraging me to suss out the impact of my own negative words on my body and mind. A seriously major eeeek would probably be warranted here.
“Negative words, whether spoken, heard, or thought….led to situational stress, but also contributed to long-term anxiety.”
Oh, no! My own colorful words, invoked internally, are damaging? Give me a break! All these #*%^!! invocations are such great therapy. (Aren’t they?) Well, seemingly, until my stress hormones hear and are impacted by them. (Such an incredible bummer.)
Do I think there’s value in a modicum of, shall we say, internalized four-letter therapeutic expostulations? Don’t sue me, but I do. How do I discern when my own internal four-letter invocations become self-damaging, as in released hot steam from an internal pressure cooker?
Don’t you just love life questions like this? I don’t.
Oh, well, as much as I rue my tight jaws when angry or anxious, I’ll try to remember to tune in to their discomfort when I’m on a four-letter expletive roll. Heaven knows, it’s one thing to blow off steam and entirely different to know my own colorful words can come back and bite this already-anxious person. Oy!
Why isn’t life more simple?
I agree. Sometime ya just have to blow it out the steam hole. Even when I’m doing it, it’s like I’m watching myself from across the room, but powerless to stop it—yet.
It only does quit though when I ask my Higher Self to help me see this in a different Light. It’s amazing how quickly the shift happens! I love it when it does that!