I was recently thinking about a conversation I had with a friend during our Friday lunch meet-up. We were talking about our memories of secondary school. We were recalling all of those precious memories. We reminisced about the times that we laughed, giggled, made friends, and had lots of fun. Very quickly, the conversation changed to pupils that were labelled “bullies.” You know, the pupils that made your school life very difficult. The ones who just knew how to make you feel small and inadequate. My friend and I spoke about what these bullies now did in their lives and how they have now progressed and have moved on in their lives very similar to us. They now also had children, worked full time, and had completely moved on from their time at secondary school. I remembered that their was a young girl who used to make things very difficult at school for my friend. She would call her names, physically push her, embarrass her, and even make her feel silly in front of other pupils and the teacher. My friend told me that as she approached a teacher, they replied, ” sticks and stones will break bones, but words never hurt.” 

As I sit here today thinking, reminiscing, I wonder, is there any power in our words?  

We now live in a very technological world. Teenagers, adults, and older generations are all technologically connected, or at very best, learning to be. So, how powerful is a word? 

Is the old fable correct that words can’t hurt? 

Let’s start by looking at a word. Surely a word is just a few letters from the alphabet linked together to create a new meaning. However, when we hear a spoken word or we link our own thoughts and emotions to that word, it becomes a whole new thing.  

During a person’s life, our experiences, emotions, and personal journeys shape who we are and our beliefs. When we see a word, hear a word, and our own beliefs and emotions help us to understand this word and what it means to us. After all, a simple word such as wealth can have many different meanings to different people. Words a person uses can be a window inside a person’s life. We fuel words with our own emotions and beliefs just like we fuel a fire on a cold winter’s day. We chose our thoughts, and we developed our words over time. Words are very powerful. 

When we hear positive, happy words it can enlighten great feelings within a person. It can make us feel confident and proud, and we can then fuel these feelings and make ourselves feel good about the words we read or hear.

Negative words have opposite effects. We fuel these words with unpleasant feelings, and we often find that we dwell on the negative beliefs linked to words more than the positive ones. When we hear lots of negative words over our life journey that they become stronger and we slowly over time start to use these words to ourselves. I am not good enough, I always get it wrong. This self- talk is powerful. Our mind can go around and around like a never ending big wheel, using the words and descriptions that we tell ourselves.

We are all aware of how our words of others can hurt and shame. But we forget about words we use to bully ourselves. We all need to stop and release our self love.  Hypnotherapy can help you to break old habits and create new neuropathways. It can help you to cut the cord of negative emotions  that you may have attached to old, outdated experiences. Words are powerful, words do hurt and should be chosen wisely. After all , the thoughts we think and say can lead our thoughts in the future. Make yours positive ones this year .

If you have any questions and want to learn how hypnotherapy can help you reach your goals this year. Contact me today.