Choosing Your Words

Throughout the world there are many traditional belief systems that words have power. Words are not just the meanings we attach to them. Words are not mere communication tools. Words are active forces that create and shape our world and experiences. Words are the lenses through which we see everything and understand everything. If there isn’t a word for it, how do you know you are experiencing it? Can you experience something that there isn’t a word for?

Words create the reality you live in

Words have power.

Taking it one step further, in these traditional belief systems, words are magic. Words have spirit. Words have souls. The sounds of words affect the world around the word being said.

This is seen everywhere throughout the world and throughout history: Kotodama in Japan. Yanling in China. Mana in Hawaii. Mantra in India. Heka in Ancient Egypt. The Judeo-Christian biblical story of God creating the world by speaking it into existence. The Hebrew tradition of Kabbalah.

If you don’t believe the magic or linguistics of it, science is here to back up what we have always intuitively known. Using high resolution MRI, scientists found that there are structural differences in human brains from people who speak different native languages. Their native languages and the words they spoke throughout their lives literally shaped their brains (source).

I often forget this truth. I often use harsh, aggressive language with myself. I create a harsh, aggressive reality for myself because of the words I am using.

I met an interesting person a few days ago. When she introduced herself, I was curious about her name as it related to a well know deity. I asked if she 'works’ with said deity. She was taken aback at the word 'work' and said she is ‘allergic to work’. She said she doesn’t use that word in her practice. It made me think about how capitalism seeps into our language even in spirituality.

I often say that I work with a certain deity or work with a tarot deck or work with a meditation. Why is it work? Why am I working? By choosing the word work and framing my experience through the word work, am I making these experiences more difficult than they can be? Than they should be? Am I making the experiences less magical, less fun, less enjoyable than they can be? Than they should be?

Maybe it should be a different word - I can say instead that I learn from a deity, am guided by a Spirit, play with a Tarot deck, walk with a spiritual practice, etc etc etc. There are so many ways to frame my life experience and my spiritual practice outside of the word work.

I want to explore language that is outside aggression, patriarchy, and capitalism. What does that look, feel, and sound like? I don’t know yet. But as I speak, I am beginning to recognize more and more just how much of my language and accordingly my experiences are framed by these forces.

Certain words are perceived as virtuous. Forward. Forward Progress. Progress. Forward Momentum. Bigger is Better. More is better. But then also Self-Control. Restraint. Productivity. Industrious. All of these are perceived as positive and yet is the experience of them actually positive? Does it feel good to always be forward oriented and always move forward? How far forward do we have to go to be considered a success? How much forward is required to be deemed ‘good’? Having more, going far, having momentum is all well and good but where is the limit? Is there a limit? Are we left in a perpetual state of wanting? Is there ever completion if we are always forward oriented? Is there ever a stopping point? Do we have to go forward until we die? Is that the stopping point? Is there ever contentment?

I don’t exactly know what kind of world I will be shaping for myself using language. But I do know that it is not the one I’ve lived in thus far. I am very curious to see what changes as I change my language.

How do you choose your words? What kind of world, what kind of life, do you want to create for yourself using word magic?