The Difference You Make - Day 4

The Difference You Make is a mini-course designed to be taken over the course of a working week. It is a series of meditative journaling sessions that aim to boost your self-belief, put you in touch with your wisdom and potential, and help you to understand that you make a difference by being you. You will need a pen and paper. This fourth session is all about the power of language, the words we use, and the words we hear.

Transcript

Hello,

And welcome back to session four.

In today's session,

We are going to look at the power of words.

What we hear,

What we say,

And how that affects how we feel about ourselves and the world around us.

But let's begin as we always do by opening up our three presents so that we can really relax and focus.

So,

Just make sure that you are sitting really comfortably and you can close your eyes today.

And just relax and exhale all the breath out of your lungs.

And once you've done that,

We are going to open our first present by breathing in long slow breath for the count of one,

Two,

Three,

Holding for one,

Two,

Three,

Long sigh out.

One,

Two,

Three.

Perfect.

Let's do that again.

Breathing in one,

Two,

Three,

Holding for one,

Two,

Three,

And breathing out one,

Two,

Three.

Feel yourself relax.

Blood time breathing in one,

Two,

Three,

And holding one,

Two,

Three,

Long exhale one,

Two,

Three.

Fantastic.

Now we're going to open our second present.

So I want you to become very,

Very still as you are sitting.

Focus on keeping your physical body really still.

Feel yourself in your body in the room that you are in.

And now let's open the third present.

And today we're going to use our sense of smell.

But just take a long inhale in,

Breathe in through your nose.

And I want you to notice the smell of the air in the room that you're in.

What can you smell now,

Right now in this moment?

It may be the smell of fresh air or the smell of stale air,

The smell of perfume or the smell of cooking.

Maybe it's the smell of traffic or your dog.

Whatever is in the air in this moment,

Just be here for a few moments,

Breathing perfectly still,

Smelling the air.

Welcome to this moment.

Welcome to now.

When you're ready,

Just open your eyes and your attention back to my voice.

The words that we use about ourselves and about others are much more powerful than we realize.

You know,

We're so used to speaking to conversation and to living in a world full of words that we don't really stop to consider that what we say has an impact,

As a result,

Has an effect.

I speak to a lot of adults as part of my work,

And I'm always amazed that they can remember with complete detail the unkind words that were said to them as children.

And they can remember the kind words that were said.

Both kind and unkind words affect us for years to come.

It really is like casting a spell.

It's not as dramatic as it looks in the movies and books,

But the effect is the same.

Sigmund Freud,

Who's the father of modern psychiatry,

Said that words have a magical power.

They can either bring the greatest happiness or the deepest despair.

If unkind words are said often enough,

The person hearing them believes them to be true,

And they can shape the lives that we lead.

In fact,

Researchers have discovered that things we hear again and again seem more true to us than things we hear less often,

Even if the repeated words are false.

Often,

The most powerful words are the ones that we say to ourselves,

Because words don't have to be spoken.

Our thoughts are made up of words,

Too.

For example,

Perhaps we might think,

I'm not good enough at this,

Or nobody likes me.

We might think these things very often.

Eventually,

They will affect how we feel about ourselves and how we view the world.

If we can change the words and transform them from unkind to kind,

We can change how we feel,

We can change how we act,

And we can change how we view the world.

It's not always easy to do this,

But once we get used to it,

We can find kinder ways to express ourselves.

And this not only helps us,

But also helps the people that we speak to,

Our friends and our family.

So a sentence like,

I'm not good enough,

Could become,

I'm learning more and more every day.

Nobody likes me might become one of the things that you would like to be good at.

Nobody likes me might become one of the things that you like about yourself from session one.

Maybe I'm a kind-hearted person.

So now I'm going to give you a minute to write down something unkind that you often think about yourself,

And I would like you to transform it into something kind and constructive.

And so I'll give you a minute and I'll be back for you when the time is up.

So okay,

Well done.

That's a minute.

You know,

This isn't an easy technique to learn,

But if you can practice every time you find yourself thinking or saying unkind thoughts about yourself,

You'll develop incredible leadership abilities.

Throughout human history,

Our greatest leaders and thinkers have used the power of words to transform our emotions,

To enlist us into causes and to shape the course of history and our destiny.

Words can create emotions,

Which then create actions and the results of our lives flow from those actions.

So this technique with words and thoughts is very powerful.

So in our next and final session,

We're going to be looking at how you are wiser than you think.

Thanks so much for listening today,

And I shall see you next time.

Reviews

I will practice doing this every day for a week 😀!

Very positive and important message! Thank you!
Donna

Such a beautiful voice and calming session. Thank you!

Thank you 🦋💐

Thank you 🙏 for your beautiful meditation.
Instant tranquility ☺️💗💗💗

Very important session today on the words we use. If we can use kind words to express ourselves, then we can be kinder to others as well. Thank you for this lesson. Namaste 🙏

Thanks for the reminder on words 🙏 often I don't think about the importance of words, they just come out 😃

Just beautiful 🤩!! Today is a very important and profound reminder, thank you so much for sharing this with us. Just this morning I was thinking how I wasn’t a good friend because I didn’t call my girlfriend on her birthday, even though I had spent the day before with her. It’s really interesting how we laid in our self with negative thoughts unconsciously. I will work at remembering all your kind and beautiful words today. 🙏🏻🌸🙏🏻🌸🙏🏻🌸

I am so grateful for these daily blessings & practices. I will return often & am becoming more aware moment by moment of my internal & external dialogue. It literally changes EVERYTHING! Sincere gratitude 🙏🏼 💜

Words definitely have power. I think it depends on who is saying the words to you and that determines how much impact words can have on you. It also depends on how the words are being used and how the person is saying them to you. It can change the meaning of a word. 🙏 Reading about someone else's thoughts/words have also impacted me.

This was a great reminder,thank you it helped me reflect. I often find myself feeling criticized by others but I realize that the words they use are not necessarily critical of me it's how I interpret them, so it's more about how I am critical of myself 🙏🏾.

I'm a day behind. Excited to do tomorrow's. Taking each day in. Thanks for sharing. 💜

Beautiful as always.
❤🙏❤

💖I am so ready for this practice; these are the words I need to hear💖

Thank you🙏❤️🔆

That was excellent Peacebeam. I will go back and check out the first few sessions. Thank you. 🙏

An important and exciting technique! A lot harder than it looks - you have to capture the unkind thought and unravel it sometimes! Thanks for this!