Be Mindful- Words Have Power
April 13, 2020
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. We are likely to experience strong turbulence. Please don’t panic.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. We are likely to experience strong turbulence. Please stay calm.”
Which of the two statements is likely to have a soothing effect on the passengers?
When the Captain says, “Don’t Panic,” our subconscious first imagines panic, and then it must try to instruct the Brain NOT to DO what it is imagining. On the other hand, when the words “stay calm” are used; naturally, the subconscious mind imagines calmness and instructs the Brain to be calm.
Words create images in our mind which then influence the way we think and act.
Let me illustrate this with a small test.
“Don’t think of a Juicy luscious Golden Yellow Mango”
What happened? I bet you just visualized a luscious Mango and much as I may say, “Don’t think,” your mind has already thought of the Mango. Some of you may actually be able to see a mango in your mind.
We experience something similar when we deal with kids. When I tell my son, “don’t waste your time watching TV,” I am, in effect, reinforcing in his subconscious a desire to watch something on TV.
I should instead be telling him whatever it is I want him to do. “Please complete your school homework.” A statement like this will focus his mind naturally on doing whatever it is I want him to do.
Words have the power to manifest into reality. When I was young, my mother used to tell me don’t utter bad words; there are “Tathastu” (A Sanskrit phrase meaning, ‘So be it’) angels that will make the negative words you say real. This was my mother’s way of conditioning my impressionable mind to focus on saying positive words. Our elders knew this intuitively. When you say something aloud, it has a way of manifesting into reality.
Negative words are five to eight times more potent than positive words in the impact they have on others.
As a parent, the words I use with my kids have the power to shape their self-image and self-worth.
We use words to not just speak with others but also to speak with ourselves.
The same principles that apply for how one should communicate with others apply with self-talk too.
What is the tone of the language you use to in your self-talk? Is it positive, or is it negative? There are psychology studies that indicate that 60% to 80% of all self-talk we have with ourselves is negative.
Your subconscious rhythm drives your life. Your subconscious mind accepts your self-talk as is and tries its best to make that into your reality.
“I hope I don’t screw up,” “I am worried about the outcome,” “I am not good enough,” “people don’t appreciate me,” “I hope I don’t lose more money in the markets.”
In your mind, you are speaking negative words to yourself and but you desire positive outcomes, can that happen? No.
Don’t expect success in your life. If in your mind, you are saying to yourself, “don’t fail.”
You can’t say to yourself, “I don’t have enough” and expect abundance to come your way.
It is to deal with compulsive negative self-talk that affirmations become essential.
Affirmations are positive words and sentences that one keeps repeating to oneself such that the subconscious internalizes them as reality to go after.
As an example-“I am healthy and energetic” or “I am experiencing abundance” is something I say out loud, or I say to myself, as a positive affirmation, here and now. If repeated often and consistently, our subconscious receives these words as a command. It gets into the action as an obedient, loyal servant, to shape your subconscious mindset and the efforts you take to make these words into your reality.
Your life moves in the direction of your words. Choose what you say to yourself and others wisely.
[…] often reveals a lot about our mindset. I have written about this in two of my early blogs- Be Mindful- Words Have Power and Be Careful-Watch Your Internal Language. The core message in both these blogs is that our […]