Only about 7% of our communication is done through actual words (the rest is tonality and physiology/body language). So words matter. And they matter a lot more than you think.
Every thought we think carries a vibration. That vibration then reverberates through the universe and comes back in physical form.
For example, if you think the world is a cruel and hostile place, then your life experience will reflect those thoughts and you will see examples of cruelty and hostility everywhere you look. Why? Because you are looking for it.
And when you speak your thoughts, you are supercharging the energy of your beliefs as you send them out into the ethos. It’s like you double the vibration of your thoughts because now, it’s linked with the energy of your words.
So really, what are your words reflecting back to you? What are you saying about your current experience, and how is that building your future experience?
When you speak ill of your current state, you are inviting in more to speak ill of. If you constantly complain about how you have no money, you are powerfully drawing more financial situations to fulfill the belief you have no money for you to complain about.
The universe doesn’t work in negatives, so if you’re focusing your attention on the things you don’t want (“I don’t want to get sick”, “I never have any money”, “How come there are no good men out there”) then you are really asking for those things to come to you.
By tweaking your words to reflect what you do want, you will be shifting the energetic vibration to align with those things, and when you look, you will start to see them showing up in your life.
This has immense power, especially when you use it on yourself.
I won’t get into all of the science around it, but suffice it to say that epigenetics suggests the environment surrounding cells affect the way it functions, not the original thought that genes are only heredity and you are a victim to your circumstances.
You can change the way your genes function by thoughts, words, and beliefs alone.
(Dr. Joe Dispenza, Dr. Bruce Lipton, and Dr. David Hawkins have broken this scientific research down for us in ways that are easy to understand, if you’re interested in how it all works).
So, what’s the current environment your cells are living in? Is it loving, accepting, and supportive or is it fearful, hateful, and disempowering?
If you look in the mirror every day and criticize yourself by saying things like “Ugh, why does my hair have to be so frizzy” or “my stretch marks are so ugly, no wonder I’m single” or “I look terrible”, then you’re doing your body more harm than good.
When you have a lot of negative and low-vibe emotions, thoughts, and beliefs hanging around, it puts your body into survival mode, causing your cells to function in a different way than they are meant to.
The stress these (and your other favorite) negative statements cause at an unconscious level trigger you to have an emotional response. That response, in these instances, is usually one on self-loathing, feeling unworthy or underserving, resentment, anger, guilt, shame, embarrassment, hatred, apathy, etc.
Now tell me, does it feel good walking around all day long feeling this way about yourself?
When I was in the midst of my depression, this is what I would feel all day, every day. I couldn’t shake it.
I felt horrible all the time, I had no energy, and I also was projecting my pain onto everyone else. I’d harshly judge others because I hated myself so much. It was time to take responsibility for what was happening in my life.
It hit me one day that I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, something had to change.
So I started with the lowest rung on my ladder: my words.
I knew that words carried energy, and by declaring what I do want rather than what I don’t want, then I should expect to see a shift. And that’s exactly what happened.
I used to say things to myself all the time like “You’re so stupid, you’ll never be able to have what you want. Look at you, you’re lazy. You’re a nobody. No one even cares you’re here and they probably wouldn’t notice if you’re gone. You don’t have enough talent to succeed anyways, don’t waste your time trying, it’ll never work.”
Now, you can imagine how hearing that every single day wouldn’t give you much motivation to go on.
Then I started saying things like “I am happy. I am here for a purpose, even if I don’t know what that is yet. I matter to somebody. I am important and I am valuable. I know this for me, and I’ll prove it to myself because right now, that’s the only person that matters. I know that if I don’t love myself first, I cannot share love with another. Love is who I am. I deserve to have as many good days in a row as I want. I am in control.”
Just by reading those two paragraphs, you can feel the energetic difference.
I finally gave myself permission to not know. I let myself know that I care, and that I love myself enough to care. I took responsibility for how I was feeling and the life I had created. I realized that I was the only one who could save myself, no one else was going to (or could) do it for me.
From that moment on, I started saying kinder things to myself. I talked to my hair, which was one of the biggest turnarounds. I thanked it for being “goddess” hair; soft, healthy, strong, curly, long, and beautiful. Within a few weeks it stopped falling out in clumps, looked healthier, and felt softer. I began wanting to take care of it, and I soon had “high-maintenance hair” with a wonderful, loving, hair-care routine that actually brings me joy.
It’s not always an easy task to speak words of kindness to yourself, but it has to start with you.
It’s not easy either to take responsibility for some of the things life seemingly threw in our path. Sometimes “bad” things happen to help us grow and learn. If we continue to speak and think of them as “bad” then we relive all that energy every time the memory comes up, perpetuating more of the same.
When we turn the “I can’t believe she did that to me” victim mentality to “I can understand she might be going through something I know nothing about, and is acting from her own understanding and perception of life” empowered mentality, we alchemize the emotion.
Turning around words first will help shift the energy of the thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and actions associated with it. Say what you want to feel, and you will start to feel it.
From there everything else begins to change as you are inviting in new awareness and can start making choices from that higher perspective.
So just for today, see if you can be aware of the words that pass through your lips. Pause before you speak and ask if your words are coming from a place of love and kindness. If not, see if you can chose different words in the moment to reflect your higher state of love and awareness.
Often this is not an easy task. If you find yourself struggling (like I did), a helpful hint is to review the situation after the fact and rewrite it the way you would have liked it to go. What would you have said differently?
Write it down so that you can remember you have the power to choose again. Having a handy list will help you be at the ready with a more loving response the next time you are faced with a potentially triggering situation just begging for your negative, knee-jerk response.
Oh, and one more thing. Go have a look in the mirror and say “I love you ____ (your name). I really, REALLY love you”.