THE BOLD (The Power of Words)
It’s in our stories. Words are powerful. In Judeo-Christian teaching, God speaks the world into being. In 1001 Arabian Nights, Shahrazad uses tales of adventure and wit to save her own life.
Often, we forget the power of words to create new realities. We sit, trapped in the words we’ve accepted and loose track of the antidote to paralysis—different words, new stories, bigger ideas.
That’s why Gayle Turner of Storyteller’s Channel and did an event together in October to help leaders, entrepreneurs, non-profit advocates and job seekers learn to tell the Who Am I story in such a way that they engage their audience and inspire desired action.
For today, we explore the third part of the discussion about the role of body, emotion, and language in shifting perspective. The most important conversation you have is the one you have with yourself.
The Whisper (Speak It Into Being)
Language is generative. It makes new things happen in the world. Somewhere, way back when, you understood that fully. When I first encountered that sentence a few years ago, I got curious (as I am wont to do) and I started asking people for a definition of language.
Most of the adults said something along the lines of, “It is the system of symbols we use to communicate what has happened.” That’s fair.
What was more interesting, though, were the answers I got from children. Most of them said something along the lines of, “Language is what you use to get what you want.” Hmm. That makes sense. Children use language to acquire treats, to change their situation, to express their wants and needs. Children in loving families learn that many times these spoken requests result in the change they desire, if not in exactly the way they envision it.
“I want to stay up all night. Can I stay up all night?” says the clearly exhausted tiny human.
“How about,” counters the parent, “If we get ready for bed, snuggle and read a good story? You can pick the book.”
What the child really wanted was to escape the nagging feeling of being tired without losing their sense of control.
In Language, they negotiated a very different future than seemed possible from the place of visceral exhaustion.
As with many questions, the answer seems to be another question. What have we forgotten about language?
Before the Plan is the Assumption That a Plan is Possible
To understand the role of language in making new things possible, we can look at the process by which a new skyscraper is installed in a city skyline.
Before the building is completed, it has to be built. Construction workers have to receive their directions. Orders have to be fulfilled for raw materials. Drivers have to follow directions to deliver the goods. Code Administrators must issue reports of successful, safe completion.
In order for the building to be built, it has to be designed. A supporting structure must be drawn and tested. The spaces need to be carved out of the available volume with an eye to the function that must be performed and supported. Use, cost, materials, finishes, function all must be negotiated.
Before it can be designed, it has to be planned. Conversations must be had with those in charge of the purse strings (or the credit line). The permits must be obtained and the planning commission consulted. The potential users must be polled to develop a sense of the need for the new facility.
Before it can be planned, it must be imagined. Someone has to communicate his or her vision to others to build support for even the possibility of a building.
A building is a tangible outcome that stems from a process communicated in language, negotiated with language and supported with language.
If we are going to make something in this world, we will need the support of the generative nature of language.
What is Language?
What do we know about language? Language is:
- A human invention to promote and simplify communication beyond what is possible only with gesture and sound.
- Capable of delivering clarity or removing it.
- Only possible if all or most of the people using the language agree on the meaning of the symbols we call words.
- A system that moved from verbal to written as we desired to capture its power and communicate with others even when we are not present.
- Powerful and P
otent
By noticing our language, we learn how we think. Words do matter because they have the power to change our relationships, our situations, our possibilities, our moods, and our outcomes. Just as the building is built first of words, our lives are built first of word fueled thoughts.
How, then, can we use language to shift our perspective? We shift our perspective when we shift our words.
My favorite tool built of words that can be used for perspective shift is good questions. We’ve looked at how your body can reveal its hidden wisdom and how your emotions can give you insight into how you are primed to act. Our language often offers the most direct clues about what we believe to be possible. It occurs to me that “What we believe is possible” is a very useful definition of perspective.
Here are some great questions to consider. You might want to journal the answers. Or perhaps you want to set a reminder on your phone or computer that pops one of these puppies up at some expected time. Give your future self a jolt. If you have questions to add, I’d love to hear them. As I mentioned, I’m a big fan of powerful questions.
Questions to Shift Perspective
- How am I thinking about this? This question works well because it asks your brain to think about thinking. It can be enough to switch your operating system from the fight/flight/flee control of the amygdala to the higher-ordered thinking of the prefrontal cortex.
- What is important right now? Keep digging with this one to see if you can discover the driver behind the driver that is influencing your decisions and experience right now.
- What else is true? This allows you to broaden your attention net to see if there is anything you are missing.
- What is served by this? Actually, my favorite question is, “In service of what?” Are the efforts I’m making and the sacrifices I’m enduring leading to or feeding something that is meaningful for me?
- What have I forgotten? Often, we think we need to learn to progress. Learning is important but so is checking back in on the skills and wisdom we’ve already required. Remember what your 8-year-old self knew about convincing a friend to play. Remember what 20-year-old you knew about the place of whimsy in relaxation.
The most important conversation you have is the one you have with yourself. The back and forth is almost constant. An event unfolds, a decision crops up, an outcome develops and we decide what it means. We talk to ourselves all day.
Much has been written about the most helpful tone for this conversation. We know we would probably thrive more if we were kinder and more positive as we engage in internal dialog. That can be difficult because we have habits of speaking with ourselves. By asking questions and expecting good, positive, constructive answers, we can begin to shift our perspective to understand the possibilities our words can create.
What questions have helped to open up your world? Leave a comment below.
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