Key: Positivity- Words

By Jessica Manuel

Kind words can ‘sweep someone off their feet’, change their direction or create new beginnings. Negative words can ‘take the spring out of your step’, cause you to fall behind, and create new obstacles.

Emotional pain is much harder to see and even harder to understand compared to physical pain. It is a silent war that no one knows they are fighting, or how to win. We eventually resort to finding ways to take the emotion out of the pain by avoiding it, numbing it or accepting it which is the most destructive of the three.

Many people don’t stop to recognize the power that comes from one of the smallest organs we posses, our tongue. A tongue is a vital organ that allows us to chew and swallow food, as well as enable us to talk. Our tongues are not only meant to sustain ourselves, it can sustain the lives of others through communication.

In a experiment performed by Mararu Emoto, he shows what one word (positive vs. negative) can do to rice covered in water when left for a month. Watch it for yourself:

Our bodies are made up of 70% water. If you watched the video, you would understand that negative words will affect us. It will cause feelings of worthlessness, low self esteem leading to bitterness, anger and rage which will eventually culminate into depression.

In a recent speech I did for 450 students at the University of Toronto, I did a demonstration on the power of words (please see my highlight video). The students heard my personal story and how words impacted my ability to find or cultivate healthy relationships.

I was dealing with things that others didn’t know, and like many of us, fighting through school because of it. My shattered self-confidence and lack of self-worth created an inability to be positive. It was easier to accept negative aspects of myself and the circumstances I had because it justified what I was lacking.

Judging someone in your thoughts and using the tongue to say it aloud hurts your progression and the person you are judging. It can be the difference between placing a heavy link onto the chain someone is carrying, instead of taking one away by accepting them for who they are.

People use their words far too loosely, and it’s time to acknowledge the danger in it. It does more damage than any weapon created by man. EVERY word you say has weight to it, and if you’re going to play a part in the “war of words”, choose wisely. Choices have consequences and you hold the key to bringing freedom in the darkest of circumstances.

Speak with kindness, gentleness and encourage people. When you’re swept off your feet because of someone lifting your spirit, acknowledge and replicate that feeling for others.

Win the “war of words” and battle emotional pain. Positivity is the key and can free others from captivity that comes from negativity.