Saturday, October 18, 2008

Language Lesson

I learn a lot from John but today I got a really important lesson: Language creates reality. I can create my reality by how I speak about my life and my experiences. Last night he was telling me about the very painful mouth sores he has now and I said, “That’s awful.” and he said, “No, it’s not awful, it’s annoying.”

Now I had heard him before describing the side effects from chemo as annoying and as inconvenient but I just took that to be his stoicism, maleness, macho-guy stuff. This morning I replayed his words in my head and I got it. If something is awful or terrible then you are trapped. But if it is annoying, well, that’s all it is. You feel it, you deal with it but you go on. It’s affecting you but it doesn’t have you. It can’t rule you and you are not a victim.

All of a sudden I could see that the words I choose are making my life actually BE one way or another. His cancer may be a tragedy, an awful thing, or simply something that is happening in our lives. How many times do we say “the power of language”? I want to play with this, watch my words, and see if I can create a new reality for my experience now.

No comments: