The power of words

Choose your words to build others up, not to tear them down.

Nameless, and faceless judgement from those we don’t know doesn’t tend to affect us as much as those coming from someone we actually do know.

These days, anything you post with your opinion or anything about yourself, you are bound to be hit with a number of people who disagree, or who just want to bring you down. Those people’s opinions typically don’t hold much weight because they usually come from behind a keyboard or screen, somewhere else on the globe, and may not have met you personally. When you actually know the individual and they choose to use words that tear you down… that is a different story.

Recalling a number of various interactions from the past, if I am able to tie hurtful words to a specific name and face, they somehow still hold a thread that can pull on my own insecurity and self-confidence. Either work related or not, these thoughts if given power, can start to unravel the confidence that we have - even if we are teetering on the edge of having any at all.

The crazy part about it is - that person may not have realized or remembered that they said something to hurt you. They likely aren’t thinking about you or what they said even up to years after when you are still having memories about it. They may not have realized what they said was hurtful or even if they did, maybe they didn’t realize how those words could affect someone further down the line.

Now, there are those that intentionally aim to hurt you - and following the old adage - hurt people, hurt people, they may be finding ways to hurt you, as others have hurt them or gain power over their emotions by forcing the appearance of having dominance over others. We can be focused to forgive and move on from these relationships or continue putting ourselves in the position to continue to hear these comments in efforts to find ways to support them, although this takes a lot of your own emotional energy and strength to do so to fight these battles.

Holding grudges against those people doesn’t help you in the long run because you spend energy focused on being upset with them. You may not be able to change how others respond to and treat others, but you can make the decision to handle things differently for yourself. Choose words and actions that encourage and build others up around you. Take the extra pause to think through how your words may affect someone. If someone’s words are affecting you, choose to address that person directly and let them know to give them the opportunity to understand their actions, we all make mistakes and can learn and grow from them.