The Power Of Our Words

The power of our words is genuinely astonishing. With our words, we can ask someone to spend the rest of our lives together, and at the same time, our words can destroy a decades-old relationship. Not only do the word we share affect others, but they also impact us based on what we hear in our heads all day long. Most importantly, our words can create love, kindness, and joy in us and those around us.

(Please note, this is a talk, not a guided meditation.)

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

The power of our words,

This is such a true statement.

I think everyone would agree with that,

But I'm not sure that everyone adheres to how important our words are.

I remember once when I was on vacation in Florida visiting Cape Canaveral,

And there was a woman who had a child with her.

He was probably about six years old,

And at the top of her lungs,

Outside,

She started screaming at him,

Saying how he was ruining their vacation and what a horrible child he was.

It was so moving,

I remember it to this day,

And everyone that heard it,

I'm sure was moved too.

I'm also sure that she was exhausted and a lot of emotional pain and not having a very good day,

But to raise the tempo to that level,

Where everyone could see and hear what she was doing,

Created memories for that little boy that I'm sure lasts to this very day.

In his lifetime,

She might have 10,

000 times told him how much she loved him,

How grateful and precious he was to her,

But those words at Cape Canaveral could take away all those 10,

000 other words,

Because our words are powerful.

With our words,

We can entice another person to fall in love with us,

Particularly if our words are meaningful and true,

But at the same time,

Our words can destroy a relationship in one fell swoop.

Our words are powerful,

And it's amazing how we can say so many nice,

Good,

Or even just neutral things,

And one time,

One night,

One drunken stupor,

And our whole world can change because of certain words that we say.

I really do believe we all know this,

So why do we use our words to hurt others?

Sometimes it is intentional.

We want to hurt them.

They,

We feel,

Have hurt us,

And we want to hurt them back,

And we use our words to do that.

There's a TV series called The Crown.

I don't know if you've seen it,

But it's about the lives of Queen Elizabeth and the British monarchy.

Well,

At the time of this recording,

10 new episodes just came out,

And they're about the relationship between Prince Charles and Princess Diana,

And though I really enjoy this series because I find it very illuminating,

And I know it's based somewhat on fiction,

So it's not 100% accurate,

But sometimes when I watch the derogatory interactions between Prince Charles and Lady Diana,

It makes me cry because our words are powerful.

They can heal,

But they can hurt,

And they can really hurt sometimes.

You may not know this,

But social media has a huge impact on a lot of people.

When it first became prevalent where I live,

The high school that is closest to my home had two suicide deaths in one year because these students had gotten a barrage of very mean and cruel words sent to them through social media,

And they decided that it was so painful that they took their own life.

I can't even tell you the number of people that I've worked with as a clinical psychologist who have come to me in severe emotional pain because of things that people have said to them on social media.

Our words are powerful,

And we need to decide do we really want to use them as a tool to hurt others,

Or perhaps do we want to use them as a tool to love others and be kind towards others because each and every day we have that choice.

And every word we say of kindness or of hurt,

Every word we write to someone of understanding or of hatred matters.

People listen.

They read them.

They feel them,

And it causes them great suffering or great joy.

Great joy.

We have a choice to make.

Sadly,

Because we can be more anonymous,

We sometimes more free with our tongue.

We say what's on our mind,

And we write things on social media to people that we don't like,

And we let them know why we don't like them.

And we think it doesn't matter.

We think they probably don't read it.

We're just being funny.

We're just saying what's on our mind.

But what if they do read it?

The people that I've worked with who are somewhat famous read them,

And it hurts them.

Our words matter.

Is that what we want to do?

Do we want to hurt people?

You may be thinking,

Yes,

Dr.

Puff.

They're disgusting.

I do hate them.

I want to say it to their face.

I want to let you know something that may help you reconsider that approach to life.

Number one,

I believe that people are doing their best.

They may be doing terrible,

But given their background,

Given what happened,

They are doing their best.

And again,

They may be doing awful.

And there's consequences when we make bad choices.

There's karma.

I talked about that last week.

But at the same time,

Are we the judge?

Are we the jury?

Have we known everything about them,

Every aspect of their lives so that we can freely judge them and let them know how much we hate them and what they did?

Is that our role?

And the biggest reason we don't want to go down that path is number one,

It will not make us happy.

That came across to me many,

Many years ago when I worked with a man who used to do that.

He used to anonymously leave scathing comments to people that they no way could trace back to him.

And he told me that.

And I realized so that he was one of the most unhappy people that I had ever met.

If you're listening to this to create more happiness in your life,

That is not the path to get there.

That is a path of suffering.

People that are cruel with their words,

People that say hateful things are not happy are not happy people,

Period.

You cannot be happy and be that way.

Find someone,

Anyone that really does that on a consistent basis.

Not once in a while,

Because they make a mistake,

But they really go out of their way to hurt people and say,

Are they happy?

Would you want to be them?

Really?

But at the same time,

Our words can be beautiful.

They can be uplifting.

They can be so helpful.

I love sharing positive things with people.

I really do.

I probably go out of my way to,

To be honest,

Because it's like this gift to have these beautiful flowers I can give to them.

I'm careful to make sure they're not misinterpreted.

Like I'm hitting on a person.

I make sure that they understand that isn't the reason I'm sharing what I'm sharing with them.

I'm sharing with them because I believe what I said and I want to share with them what I see in them.

Something beautiful,

Something lovely,

Something that they do that is just marvelous.

And do you want to know a secret?

I cannot even tell you the number of times I get told,

Wow,

You just made my day.

Thank you.

You just made my week.

I've heard that so many times in my life.

I can't even tell you.

Now,

Again,

This sharing good words,

You do have to be a little careful with because they can be misinterpreted.

And sometimes people that are just unhappy won't receive them.

I'm careful to share them with people that I'm pretty sure they wouldn't mind hearing something kind said to them.

I wouldn't go up to an old curmudgeon and say,

Hey,

Happy guy,

How you doing?

He would get mad at me or she would get upset.

So I don't do that.

I share it with people that I think I can make their day a little bit better.

I see something in them,

Something that I want to share with them.

And I do.

Our words can be so powerful and we can really help people make their day better with our words,

Telling people that we love them,

Telling them we're so thankful that they're in our lives can really improve their day.

And our day,

I would argue that probably most of us listening right now,

Realize this,

The hard part is doing it.

How do we start saying more kind things and a lot less hurtful things?

Well,

The biggest thing we have to do to avoid saying something hurtful is be quiet.

That's right.

Be quiet.

When we're thinking of something that is hurtful,

Then we need to be mum's the word.

We need to remove ourselves from that situation.

We need to be quiet.

I do know we need to talk about things,

Particularly important people in our lives when there's challenges,

But not when we're upset,

Not when we're angry,

Not when we're hurt.

That is not the time.

And especially not when we're on any forms of substance like alcohol.

That is definitely not the time to share our thoughts,

Particularly if they're negative.

What we want to do is pause,

Give it some time and say,

Okay,

I've given it time.

How can I now talk to them about what I need to talk to them about?

It's very good to talk to people and work through issues,

But in a kind way,

Because our words are powerful,

But we're not going to pause unless we realize how powerful they are.

So that's the first thing,

First acknowledging acknowledging our words are powerful.

Okay.

Once we really realize that,

Then we have to ask ourselves,

Do I necessarily need to say what I'm feeling right now?

Particularly if I'm upset,

I know they may be saying really hurtful things,

So I may need to remove myself,

But do I necessarily want to verbally punch back?

I don't think we should.

I think we should remove ourselves,

Calm down,

And then if necessary,

Talk to them about it later.

So again,

Let me reiterate this one.

It's important first to really acknowledge that our words are important.

We have to see that.

Once we see that,

Then we have to choose how do we engage with people?

We can't control what other people do to us or what they say to us.

We can't,

But what we can do is learn to respond in loving kind ways that we can control.

So we have to decide is when someone is upsetting us,

How can we first calm down and then decide later if we even need to talk to them about it.

And the other thing is on social media is to imagine that whatever we write,

That person reads it.

And do we really want them to hear these words from us?

Are they kind?

Are they loving?

Are they perhaps even constructive?

Are they hurtful,

Painful,

And we're just wanting to bash them?

I think we need to be careful on social media because people read them and that's not our goal in life to hurt others.

That's a path of unhappiness.

But finally,

The thing that I think most of us don't realize really is how important the words are in our head.

The words that we hear about ourselves all day long.

They're probably in many ways the most important words because we can say one hurtful thing to another person and it can destroy that relationship.

But we can say to ourselves thousands of things throughout the day that are hurtful,

That are cruel,

And that is just the path of suffering.

So do you remember earlier when I said probably the first thing we need to acknowledge is that words are powerful?

Well in this situation in regards to the thoughts and words in our heads,

We need to first find out what are we hearing all day long?

What are we telling ourselves?

When we walk by that mirror do we say hey fatso?

When we forget something do we say hey stupid?

Words matter but we have to find out what they are.

We have to be still and listen.

What is the internal dialogue going in in our heads?

Are we being critical of others in our heads?

Are we being critical of ourselves?

Those are both the path of suffering because words matter and they matter what we say in our heads even if no one else hears them.

So the goal here would be to listen to the internal dialogue and say yeah I don't like it that I'm doing that.

I'm going to change that.

I'm going to start finding things that I can say to myself that are kind,

That are loving.

And then when I do make a mistake,

When I do do something wrong,

I'm going to say what can I learn from that and stop calling myself names.

Because when we're kind towards ourselves and we're kind towards others,

That's the path of happiness.

And our words matter.

Just remember that please.

Our words matter.

What we say,

What we hear in our head,

What we think throughout the day matters.

And once we truly realize that we can then say okay now I'm going to work on making my words powerful and good.

Good towards others,

Kind towards myself.

Because if I do that,

That path,

These words will create happiness and joy wherever I go and wherever I am.

May we all realize the power of our words and use them wisely and use them kindly.

Thank you for joining me on the happiness podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

I wish I practiced the pause years ago. My words (and actions) got me a great love, late in life. But my unskilled words lost me that love. Never have I felt so much pain as almost all of 2024, and still going. Healing is VERY slow.

Ahhh so nice, so helpful and you've a lovely voice as well ! TYSM 🫠

💜 Dr. puff is always so helpful.

Our words are so important! Thanks as always for the great talk! Love your work!

So inspiring and so true, with love and gratitude 🙏💖💫

Thank you 🙏

Thank you for this beautiful reminder that our words matter! 💜