Be Careful Of The Labels You Use

Beware of labels that can limit your experience. My son has been diagnosed with Irlen Syndrome. It is a label I have spent time talking to him that it isn’t a disability, it is just what they call he has. You see he can’t read black writing on white paper. If he wears glasses with coloured lenses where the white paper now is a different colour then he can read perfectly. 

So you see what I mean, it isn’t a disability. It is just his eyes don’t like white paper. The trouble is this took a while to figure out and he was frustrated that he couldn’t read like the other kids. Once we got the coloured lenses, he could read just as well as all the other kids.

I was at the Irlen Centre last week when the lady who runs the centre was telling me about a young boy she treated that within twelve months of having his coloured lenses won academic awards. The boy told her “I thought I was dumb, but I’m not. I’m really clever.” 

You can imagine how that one change in words has radically transformed his perception of himself and how much of his ability he now taps. What are the words you want to be known by? What characteristic word or phrase do you want others to identify you with?

There is a story of two teachers who were new to a school and participated in an experiment. Teacher A was told her students were gifted; however, they were actually students who struggled with school. Teacher B was told her students were struggling; however, they were actually gifted. Measurements were taken at the start of the year and mid way through to year to measure the students’ progress. Naturally, this story has a lot of detail and many elements to it, but the core message is the outcomes of the students at the end of the day.

The students in Teacher A’s class excelled. The results they got were amazing. The students in Teacher B’s class didn’t progress much at all for the period of the experiment. What does this mean? Well one of the elements that was noted was how if the students have a teacher that believes in their abilities is constantly telling them that they are clever they will understand. If the words she is using are constantly encouraging then perhaps, just perhaps, their results will improve better than ever before.

If the students are not given reassurance in their abilities, encourage to continue to work it out, that they are clever then perhaps, just perhaps, they won’t do as well. 

The words that are spoken to us, the labels that are given to us can and may have a profound impact on our outcomes.

We’ve got to be very careful of accepting other people’s labels because once we put a label on something, we create a corresponding emotion. Nowhere is this truer than with diseases. 

In the field of psychoneuroimmunology, they are reinforcing the concept that the words we use produce powerful biochemical effects.

In an interview Tony Robbins conducted with Norman Cousins, he told him of the work he’d done in the last 12 years with over 2,000 patients. Time and again, he noticed that the moment a patient was diagnosed, i.e. had a label to attach to his symptoms, he became worse. Labels like “cancer”, “multiple sclerosis,” and “heart disease” tended to produce panic in the patients, leading to helplessness and depression that actually impaired the effectiveness of the body’s immune system. 

Conversely, studies proved that if patients could be freed of the depression produced by certain labels, a corresponding boost was automatically produced in their immune systems.

I had this experience personally. My husband, 11 years ago, was diagnosed with skin cancer. My husband and I talked about it and were okay with the whole concept. Even the day he had his operation, rather than sit around, I went to the University and called by the hospital on my way home. 

His mother on the other hand saw it as a death sentence. She was upset, cried, nervous, praying, horrified at our reaction of the whole event. To her, it was all about the “C” word. Her son had cancer. That was it. Fatal as far as she was concerned.

It was the same event with two very different reactions and two very different labels. 

“Words can produce illness; words can kill,” Cousins said. “Therefore, wise physicians are very careful about the way they communicate. Doctors are being taught how to enhance their emotional sensitivity to enable them to contribute more. If you’re in a profession where you work with people, it’s imperative that you understand the power of words to impact those around you.

Similarly, you can try lowering your emotional intensity in areas you may not have thought of. For instance, instead of using the phrase, “I’m starving to death,” what if instead you said, “I feel a little hungry?” By using that, you’ll discover as I have that you can literally lower the intensity of your appetite in a matter of moments. Sometimes people overeat simply out of a habitual pattern of whipping themselves into an emotional frenzy. Part of it starts with the language they use consistently. 

Now is your chance. Take control. Notice the words you habitually use, and replace them with ones that empower you, raising or lowering the emotional intensity as appropriate. Start today. Set this in motion. Write down your words, make your commitment, follow through, and know what the power of this simple tool in and of itself will accomplish without using anything else.

  

“Be an inspiration to yourself and
you will be an inspiration to others.”

How the Words You Use Create Your Reality

The Power of Words 
“I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine.” ― Emily Dickinson

Words … they have been used to make us laugh and cry. They can wound or heal us. They offer us hope or devastation. With words, we can make our noblest intentions felt and our deepest desires known. Words are amazing and yet we often just say them without thinking about what we are saying and the effect they could be having on ourselves or those around us.

We use words to speak to others often we also use words to speak to ourselves consistently and constantly.

Throughout human history, our greatest leaders and thinkers have used the power of words to transform our emotions, to enlist us in their causes and to shape the course of destiny. Words cannot only create emotions, they create actions. And from our actions flow the results of our lives.

Some famous speeches that have impacted world events:

Who can forget the moving invocation of Martin Luther King, Jr., as he shared his vision, “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live the true meaning of its creed...”


John F Kennedy’s speech “and so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.”


The speech by Earl Spencer at his sister Diana, The Princess of Wales’ funeral, “I stand before you today, the representative of a family in grief, in a country in mourning, before a world in shock.


We are all united, not only in our desire to pay our respects to Diana, but rather in our need to do so, because such was her extraordinary appeal that the tens of millions of people taking part in this service all over the world via television and radio who never actually met her feel that they too lost someone close to them in the early hours of Sunday morning.

It is a more remarkable tribute to Diana than I can ever hope to offer to her today.”

The examples could go on and on.

Many of us are well aware of the powerful part that words have played in our history, of the power that great speakers have moved us, but few of us are aware of our own power to use these same words to move ourselves emotionally, to challenge, embolden, and strengthen our spirits, to move ourselves to action, to seek greater richness from this gift we call life.

An effective selection of words to describe the experience of our lives can heighten our most empowering emotions. A poor selection of words can devastate us just as surely and just as swiftly. Most of us make unconscious choices in the words that we use; we sleep walk our way through the maze of possibilities available to us. Realise now the power that your words command if you simply choose them wisely.

This is what I am hoping to pass onto you today. The power of words. How they can change your direction, empower you and help your dreams become your reality.

Words - What a gift these simple symbols are! We transform these unique shapes we call letters (or sounds, in the case of the spoken word) into a unique and rich tapestry of human experience. They provide us with a vehicle for expressing and sharing our experience with others; however, most of us don’t realise that the words you habitually choose also affect how you communicate with yourself and therefore what you experience.

Words can injure our egos or inflame our hearts – we can instantly change any emotional experience simply by choosing new words to describe to ourselves what we’re feeling. If, however, we fail to master words, and if we allow their selection to be determined strictly by unconscious habit, we may be denigrating our entire experience of life. If you describe a magnificent experience as being “pretty good,” the rich texture of it will be smoothed and made flat by your limited use of vocabulary. People with an impoverished vocabulary live an impoverished emotional life; people with rich vocabularies have a multi-hued palette of colours with which to pain their experience, not only for others, but for themselves as well.

Most people are not challenged though by the size of the vocabulary they consciously understand, but rather by the words they choose to use.

We must realise that the English language is filled with words that, in addition to their literal meanings, convey distinct emotional intensity. For example, if you develop a habit of saying you ‘hate’ things – you ‘hate’ your hair, you ‘hate’ your job, you ‘hate’ having to do something – do you think this raises the intensity of your negative emotional states more than if you were to use a phrase like “I dislike “ or “I prefer something else?”

Using emotionally charged words can magically transform your own state or someone else’s. How do the words “impeccable” or “integrity” compare to “well done” and “honesty”? The words “pursuit of excellence” certainly creates more intensity than “trying to make things better.”

Simply by changing your habitual vocabulary – the words you consistently use to describe the motions of your life – you can instantaneously change how you think, how you feel, and how you live.

Taken from “Awaken The Giant Within” by Anthony Robbins

“Be an inspiration to yourself and

you will be an inspiration to others.”

How to Improve Your Communication

Have you ever taken the time to think of the words you often use to describe things? It is known as the way you habitually communicate. The way we speak and the words we use are often from habit. They are the ones that come to our mind without us even thinking.

How do you habitually communicate with your kids, your work colleagues, your partner, your friends? Often we don’t realise the power of our words have on them. Children, as well as adults, tend to take things personally, and we need to be sensitised to the possible ramifications of thoughtless remarks.

Think what could occur if instead of continually blurting out impatiently, “You’re so stupid!” or “You’re so clumsy!” – a pattern that can in some cases powerfully undermine a child’s sense of self-worth – break your own pattern by saying something like “I’m getting a little bit peeved with your behaviour; come over here and let’s talk about this.”

Not only does this break the pattern, allowing both of you to access a better state to intelligently communicate your feelings and desires, but it also sends the child the message that the challenge is not with them as a person but with their behaviour – something that can be changed. This can be the foundation for more powerful and positive communication between two people. It may mean that you have a more powerful and positive impact on your kids.

The key in any of these situations is to be able to break your pattern; otherwise, in your unresourceful state, you may say things you’ll regret later. This is exactly how many relationships are destroyed. In a state of anger, we may say things that hurt somebody’s feelings and make them want to retaliate, or in a worse case say something that hurts them that they don’t want to open up to us ever again. So we’ve got to realise the power of our words, both to create and to destroy.

We’ve got to be precise in the words we use because they carry meaning not only to ourselves about our own experience but also to others. If you don’t like the results you’re getting in your communication with others, take a closer look at the words you’re using and become more selective. I’m not suggesting that you become so sensitised that you can’t use a word. But selecting words that empower you is important.

I want to ensure that I am not being misinterpreted either. We do, at times, need negative emotions.

There are times we need to get ourselves into an angry state in order to create enough leverage to make a change. All human emotions have their place. However, we want to make certain that we do not access our most negative and intense states to start with. So please don’t misinterpret me; I’m not asking you to live a life where you don’t have any negative sensations or emotions. There are places where they can be very important. Realise that our goal is to consistently feel less pain in our lives, and more pleasure. Being aware of the words you use is one of the single most simple and powerful steps toward that goal.

It can be an interesting learning exercise. Becoming aware of the words you use, the impact they have on you and the impact they have on those around you. It is all about awareness. Become aware of what you are saying, the words that you use and the effects or impact of those words.

“Be an inspiration to yourself and

you will be an inspiration to others.”