Hi Friend
This has been a really great week. I had dinner with my son, meals with friends, conversations with clients AND I got to speak at an organizations employee gathering. It’s fantastically rejuvenating to actually do what I love. I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to create opportunities to speak, instead of just speaking. Granted, I’m talking all the time! But to offer ideas that others have never heard before and provide relevant solutions that sustain a soul, is quite rewarding.
I’m always amazed at words. These little containers that carry ideas and enter our ears, can go to the brain, heart or body in a way that alters our existence. Written or spoken, they ignite something inside us when put together in a way we’ve never considered before. That’s why I’m so grateful you take the few minutes to read these ramblings. Who knows what it could prompt?
What I also love about words is their ability to unlock something inside of us. How many times have you been held hostage by your own thoughts till you shared them, which brought relief or freedom? Words stuck in our brain can be tormenting, but once released written or spoken, lose their grip on our psyche.
It’s why journaling and counseling are such healthy endeavors. Or even having good friends in your life with whom you regularly share the inner conversations transpiring between you and you. Expressing those containers of ideas outside our own brain has a magical effect on our mind.
Friend, you know when I write, I primarily think of one person. Sometimes it’s you. 😁 However, others also read these words. Over the last few weeks we’ve had numerous people sign up to take a gander at what I’m gushing on about. I’m grateful you are reading. I’m grateful they are reading. Thank you both.
Words Strung Together Create Stories
It’s one thing to get our thoughts out into the open. It’s another thing entirely to reveal the stories we believe. I’ve had the great misfortune to tell myself stories that were not true and then act upon them as if they were. That doesn’t go well.
Have you ever had someone share their story with you and you thought or said “wow, you think like that?” It’s curious the mental math we each do in our mind, drawing conclusions from the stories we weave together about ourselves or others.
Have you ever believed something about someone, only to spend time with them and discover you were way off in your perspective? Whether positively or negatively, that can be awkward.
Words are powerful
Stories alter lives
Beliefs are stories
Shaping our identity
Containers of life
Spoken or written
Catapult or decimate
Who we become
What I also find fascinating about words is their ability to be a creative force for birthing things into existence that weren’t previously reality. Framing up our future with aspirational declaratives is a profound privilege. Using containers of life to proclaim purposely about another’s potential is also amazingly possible. Is there anything more potent than words that connect usto one another?
Have you ever had someone say something to you that immediately caused you to like or dislike them? Certainly. Whether intentional or unintentional we are attracted to or repelled by others because of the words they share.
What words do you use that compel others to be drawn to you?
Most of us, most of the time are lazy with our words. We rely on the same ones we’ve used for years, rarely learning new terms. Seldom do we use them to fashion stories about the future. When retelling a situation or past experience we offer a descriptive encounter. The blurry uncertainty of tomorrow’s unknown leaves a canvas for our imaginations to be unleashed, yet largely we leave it to create itself.
Instigating Ideas…
1. What if you learned one new word a week and incorporated it?
2. How many different stories about the future can you tell?
3. What words are you investing in someone else?
4. What words do you need to get out of your mind?
My final adoring offering about stories and words is their ability to become seeds. Have you ever had someone’s words come true in your life, years after they were spoken? Have you ever deposited words in someone that you saw realized years later? It’s what we get to do with goals, visions, forecasting and dreaming.
Sow those word seeds!
I’m not a gardener, but I understand how this principle works. Let’s tell as many stories as we can to ourselves and others that create a future where we love who and how we are, what and where we do life; and it’s filled with people we love and admire. Say it, write it or both.