WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE...

"Those who know not how to love their own language are worse than an animal and a smelly fish."

- Jose Rizal, Filipino national hero

"Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow."

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Words mean so much to me...language...I really have grown to love it. There are times when I am writing something when I am paused and searching not just for a word, but the RIGHT word...I feel myself rubbing my fingers together or waving hands, feeling a way to source, or conjure, the word that just feels perfect...that communicates what I feel, the best way I can, and hopefully sparks the feeling inside - me or someone reading it - that I intend...if I intend anything at all, I guess. Sometimes, it's just a sharing of some wide-open spaces...

I find it interesting that while "actions speak louder than words," words are very powerful. They carry meaning. Intentions. Feelings. X is a writer, yet when I'd be blown away by something very particular that she'd say, or her use of a particular word, she'd say something like, "it's just a word." To me, "just" has no place in that sentence. I was sitting in Dr. S's office soon after I entered SeparationLand, explaining that no matter how I would try to negotiate safe turf with X, or tell her that something she'd done would have its consequences, it never seemed to make a difference. That the only way to get her to understand whatever it was that I was probably feebly attempting to accomplish, was by DOING, not by telling. "She doesn't hear words," I remember him ringing in my ears. "But she's a writer," I meekly responded. "It doesn't fucking matter," was all he could say. "You can't negotiate with some people." I looked at him, I remember, like he was speaking another dialect. It was as if he had given me one of the Basic Truths, and I could not decipher it. And, he was completely right. Sometimes, and/or with certain people, words mean shit...there's no talk to walk...it's all about the action. Because the words have no meaning.

I was recently working with a guy whose entire life was in the world of "transformation"... personal development...came out of deep involvement in programs/trainings such as Lifespring and EST...I have no problem with any of it, I believe they all have (or can have, depending on the person) deep value, if taken as a piece of the puzzle, as a step along the journey. Not as THE puzzle or THE journey. I learned great words and expressions when I took Lifespring in the earlier 80's...the kind of phrases that have stuck with me...ways of expressing feelings, or communicating with another on a deeper level...if/when those words are married to some kind of emotion, intention, feeling...without that, those words, that kind of "processing" is just JARGON...and, that's what it was like with this colleague...30 years of all the right buzz words, but they were like grasping for air...nothing to hold on to. The kind of language that when someone is refusing to take responsibility for their own actions, puts the dialogue on the other person. Call someone like that on their "stuff," and be told you are a complainer. Suddenly the truth teller that he liked, becomes a "complainer" when the willingness to be honest is turned on them. It becomes "just words."

So, I often look at words as such a reflection of how we think and feel, that's why I might dig and get my fingers REALLY dirty in the mud until I find one, when I am feeling wordneedy or stumped...I see how individual words, ones as small as even 3 letters (change "but" to "and" in most sentences, and see how it changes EVERYTHING energetically...not "just" words)...there are four words that I will come to write about soon, because each one pushes a button within me, I have such confused feelings about their meanings, and what they represent...and, here they are (there are, surely, more)....

1. Entitlement (it has such a negative connotation so often, yet there is a positive aspect to it, in a healthy dose...right? is it true?);

2. Success (wow, just wait to get me started on THAT one)...what the hell does it mean...

3. Money (yowza)....

4. Competition...what is "healthy" competition? How do we teach that to our kids (when most adults/parents don't seem to understand the concept)...

Anyway, I love words...probably why sometimes I talk too much...