KS&L 335 The Words You Leave Behind

At this time of the year, it is especially important to remember the thoughts below when we are tired and stressed!

What words will you leave behind when you walk away from someone? We live in a world where people have a tendency to be politically correct or so we think and yet at the same time, people just say the strangest things to someone and wonder why that person gets angry, hurt or depressed.

Let us look at a very powerful and important metaphysical principle: all thought is magic. All thought is energy. Words and actions are thoughts made manifest.

When we edit what we say, we are cognizant of the power of the words we use when we speak to someone. People frequently are careful about what they may say to or about someone like their boss, but find themselves utterly thoughtless when it comes to speaking to family members. Some parents deliberately project their pent up anger at their children with seldom a care for the impact that those words are going to have on that child.

Words can be like time bombs. Many a grieving person has rued the last words that they said to someone, wishing desperately to be able to ‘take back’ those last angry or hurtful words. Sometimes we do have to display anger to let someone know how powerfully we feel about something. Yet we would be wise to consider how those angry words are going to impact the person over time.

Consider this routine exchange. A mother and child are in line at the grocery story. Someone says something to the child, like how cute she is, or they like the child’s dress. The supposedly proud mother immediately says, oh, she is just such a bad child. She is a mess. Then she looks at the child and says, ‘You know what I mean.’ The person in line can see immediately how humiliated the child is in front of the stranger. Even if the mother acts as if it is funny, the child feels the sting of shame. More often than not, the mother says hurtful words to the child routinely. Those words become time bombs and as the child grows up, the negativity of those words will be like silent torturers for the child. The parent will probably wonder why the child lived up to the parent’s limited and toxic expectations.

Spouses do the same thing to each other. Each spouse or partner wants the other to be kind and diplomatic but that person does not always hold himself or herself up to the same high expectation.

We have choices each day in what we can choose to say and how we can choose to say it. Sometimes bluntness is in order, but in a limited way. In the military the wisest military leaders only give direct orders in times of emergencies.

Courtesy is the grease that makes day-to-day encounters go smoothly. Little courtesies make people feel appreciated, especially those who feel they are the unseen and unappreciated service and/or care givers. A simple ‘thank you’ for a nice job or a ‘would you please’ go a very long way in making anyone feel appreciated.

The words each of us leave behind may not seem important at the time we spoke them, but the echo of their impact, like a pebble in a pool, will be felt for quite a while.