The Gift of Words

I spent a year in therapy over this!

When my eldest brother and dad died within 2 weeks of each other 11 years ago, all of us siblings were a wreck, as you might imagine. One of my sisters took me aside to ... I don't know ... set me straight? The words she chose to say to me that day were definitely a 'not good' gift. They caused me a good deal of post traumatic stress. For years I'd wake up out of nightmares crying and screaming, trying to fight back, barely able to breathe, because her words came back, haunting me.

Because I believed them.

My counselor had me do a specific exercise over and over that finally helped me see that what my sister opined was not the truth about me. I simply needed to stop believing it.

I still flinch when I hear a couple of those trigger words. But now I recognize that they're not true. Not for me.

I am guilty of saying unkind things about people that act rudely to me. I'm guilty of having a really hard time forgiving. I can own that, and I painstakingly work to alter that behavior.

Yet I also know the power of words, and try to curb the way I use them so that they don't belittle others. I go out of my way to find something to compliment because I know how those affirmations can buoy the spirit of the person to whom I am speaking.

The quotation above was a 'good gift' to me. Through my actions and speech, I plan to re-gift that sentiment today.

My mentor, Flylady, wrote about the same lesson in a different way:

Each one of us has a light that shines. Some of our lights have been shaded by those negative words we have heard all our lives. We have to remove that shroud of sadness that has dimmed our lights -- and let our light shine!