Allowing Awareness through the Acknowledgment and Transmutation of Words

We are what we speak.

Photo by Brandi Redd on Unsplash

We’ve all heard the old English rhyme, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me.” This adage was taught to us as children, usually at the first signs of bullying or name-calling, which, unfortunately, has become a rite of passage in childhood.

As hard as we might try to live by the saying whispered as consolation in our young ears, words do cause us harm, especially those spoken with ill intention. When someone deliberately tries to hurt another with words, it becomes an attack; they have now weaponised language. It is just as hostile and aggressive as any physical attack.

Out of the Mouths of Babes: The Teaching of Callous Language

Just about everything starts in the home. I’ve written before about how attachment styles shape the way we relate to each other from birth. We are largely products of what we are exposed to in the home environment. Children are like sponges; their brains soak up everything around them.

We are born with billions of neurons, which, during early childhood, create trillions of neural connections, or synapses. Everything that is heard, seen, smelled, tasted, or touched creates a link in the chaotic mass of neurons firing constantly in the brain, forming individual perspectives with each experience. Around the age of two, the brain, now overloaded with synapses, begins the process of pruning, shedding connections that are no longer needed, those that are not being used.

While theories around neuroplasticity, the ability for neural networks to change through growth and reorganisation, allow us to learn new skills and coping mechanisms through new experiences, we emulate what we see, which has a direct effect on emotional regulation and the development of empathy in childhood.

Language is often thrown around carelessly without much consideration for the child within earshot, the little brain absorbing everything. Suddenly, a child says something that stops the adults around them in their tracks. Some parents laugh at the sentiments being expressed, some are embarrassed by the words or phrases being repeated, and some are totally dumbfounded as to where their child picked up the view. Regardless, words echo the ideologies that children are exposed to.

Much of schoolyard cruelty and bullying is an expression of what children are being taught or hearing in the home. A throw-away comment about a gay swimmer at the Olympics, a slur about a black country music star, a repeated sentiment about an immigrant family, it all reaches the ears of children.

This is how prejudice begins.

Bullying or merciless teasing in the playground is directly influenced by the language used in the home. Are kind words being used? Is support shown and given to the child? Does the child know that they are loved? Is a parent ridiculing, humiliating, or denigrating their child?

Kind parents raise kind children. Cruel parents raise cruel children.

Of course, there is always an exception to every rule, and sometimes we see a child emerging from a specific family environment who refuses to repeat the pattern. Who sees at a young age that the status quo in the home is not the way they wish to be. These children are often more connected to their soul journey, to their place on the planet and their purpose for being here.

Developmental Milestones and Coping Mechanisms

We are all subject to standard developmental milestones. Some may reach them more quickly, but as human beings, we follow the same developmental patterns.

Back to the schoolyard shenanigans. Children also don’t have the skills to manage complex and powerful emotions. As they grow and develop, they work through fears of being hurt while simultaneously building intense friendships. They move on to developing sensitivity to others’ comments, initially finding it difficult to deal with the strong emotions these remarks elicit.

As children wade through the muck and mire of human cognition and emotion, they look to the home, mimicking and repeating parental coping styles and patterns.

Around the age of ten, children begin to feel a desperate need to fit in, thus developing an aversion to standing out from their peers. This leads them to seek out a middle position, a homogenised position dependent on where they live (urban versus rural), the politics of their area or town (liberal versus conservative), and the cultural norms they are subjected to.

We, as adults, contribute to this. We prefer homogenised societies for our own ease and comfort, and as such, homogenise our children. But does this really help them? Is it beneficial to our society to create clones much like those in Pink Floyd’s video for Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2 or George Orwell’s thought experiment in his groundbreaking book, 1984? Does it help society as a whole to raise homogenised groups based on one ideal that benefits only them?

Perpetuating Patterns of Pain

Wayne Dyer put it very succinctly: “Don’t believe everything that you think.”

Many of the thoughtforms and thought patterns that repeat in our heads are ideas that have been given to us, passed down from a parent, grandparent, aunt, or uncle, and we take them on willingly without questioning their origins. As children, we accept these opinions as law, in turn, planting the seeds of specific ideologies. As adults, we root these beliefs through repeating the stories handed down to us, thus perpetuating the cycle of illusion that has been infused into our psyches.

We rarely question them. We rarely ask, why.

One of the main reasons people seek out psychotherapists and counsellors is because they challenge the way we think, they challenge our beliefs by asking an incessant why until a breakthrough. They use words to unlock the mysteries of our patterns, both those used for pleasure and those rooted in pain. We can do this for ourselves, but it requires a lot of introspection, honesty, and ownership, and herein lies the problem: ownership requires us to take responsibility for the words we use, in thought and in speech.

Responsibility also leads to conscious awareness, which threatens the ego; however, it is awareness that removes the shackles of prejudiced patterns and restrictive ideologies, allowing freedom of thought and experience.

The Power of Words

Every thought carries with it a power, an energetic frequency that can help or hinder us along our path. Each thought leads to an emotive response, subsequently becoming a physical response through an expressed action - the utterance of a sentiment. Words hold a unique power that we underestimate until they are aimed at us.

I’m sure everyone can recall something careless or callous said to them, something that hurt, that triggered an old wound. These are easy to bring to mind. But, how many of us recall something we uttered to another that did the same? Do we hold the same memories of the harmful things we have said to others? Are we conscious of the consequences these words had on not only them, but on us as well? Are we aware that each game of verbal jousting perpetuates and strengthens our own internal pain cycles?

Imagine something hurtful that someone said to you recently. Feel it, breathe it in, follow it as it snakes its way through your system. Watch as it changes the way you feel about that person, about the disappointment or bitterness you are holding toward them.

Now imagine that same person sitting with you in a quiet place. Imagine them looking into your eyes and apologising deeply for what they uttered. Watch your feelings for them change in that moment, feel the apology infusing into your heart and soul, notice the tension in your body ease as your mind quells the negative emotions, replacing them with ones of compassion and love.

Words carry power.

As people, we spend much of our time concerned with how we feel, who has wronged us, and the words they have said. If only we spent as much of our energy paying attention to the words we use with others.

A War Against Words

We are currently in a war against words. Some generations and cultures are dead-set on keeping the slurs, patriarchal ideologies, and restrictive terminologies they have used all of their lives. A global unwillingness to embrace the new world order of kindness and compassion has emerged, and it is quite disturbing.

Genders are more openly fluid now than ever before, people of colour are demanding that systems change, and organised religion is under attack for its prejudiced dogma. Neurodivergence is stamping its mark on normative ideals, women are tearing at the crumbling walls of the patriarchy, and extreme capitalistic ideals are being challenged at every turn as the younger generations defy defunct structures.

For the previously advantaged groups who ran amok with privilege, throwing words around callously, and feeling safe surrounded by those who felt, spoke, and acted the same, this is a terrifying time. When challenged, they hang on to their ideologies for dear life, using words like overly sensitive, snowflake, or woke to insult those supporting change, doubling down on words, phrases, or concepts they have been asked to release.

For these folks, inclusion, diversity, and equality are the enemy.
For these folks, change, unless in their favour, is an attack.

We all have words that trigger us, words that cross our boundaries, but expecting others to respect our sensitivities while callously throwing out passive-aggressive or even completely aggressive statements is not acceptable anymore. We have entered a time of awareness, compassion, and enlightenment; we have entered the Age of Aquarius, and the narrative has shifted from me to we.

Getting riled up over the word old to refer to one generation while simultaneously calling another generation lazy is not okay. Expecting to be shown respect while refusing to use someone’s correct pronouns is not okay. Referring negatively to someone’s skin colour and then getting offended when being called out is not okay. Blaming immigrants for entering a country while being an ancestor of invaders and colonisers is not okay.

Absorbing and reflecting on changes in language is important. Words can harm and they can be weaponised. Intention is everything. Everyone is sensitive about something. Taking responsibility for what we say and how we say it is important. It is not enough to transform our language anymore, as transformation is merely a shift in structure. We need transmutation, a shift in the foundation and essence of our language.

Words have power, and we wield that power when we use them. Responsibility for the words we use leads to conscious awareness, and awareness leads to enlightened thought and action.

“It takes courage to be kind.” - Maya Angelou.

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