The of Power Words
When I was growing up there was a saying, “Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me.” That adage supposedly was teaching that it didn’t matter what someone said to you; insults were only thin air. Yet day in and day out I work with people who were damaged by what someone else said. Only it wasn’t the words that were the cause but the interpretation of those words. I wonder what percentage of us really mean our words to wound our loved ones or friends.
When my daughter was seven, my marriage was in shambles. I had been miserable for years and yet kept rationalizing why I should keep trying to make things better. Despite my misery I didn’t consider divorce, maybe because of my two young children. Then one day I got a letter from my mother asking me if I needed money for a lawyer, and soon after my best friend gave me the name of a lawyer and my sister-in-law told me that if I had to make a quick get-away I could count on her to take us in. I couldn’t figure out why they were talking of divorce since it wasn’t on my mind!
One afternoon as I was watching TV with my daughter, she turned to me and asked, “Are you and Daddy going to get a divorce?” I was dumbfounded. “Of course not,” I replied. At that moment I really meant it. I had no such thought. I was so dense that I didn’t get what everyone else knew. Less than six months later I had filed for divorce. I guess I finally realized that I couldn’t stand the pain anymore. My daughter was very upset and angry with me for a long time after that.
About twenty-five years went by during which I married a wonderful man and had a happy life. Around then my daughter was in therapy trying to deal with her life experiences and was making great strides. One day she phoned me to tell me that she had spent her latest therapy session dealing with her anger toward me. “You lied to me,” she accused me angrily.
In that moment I knew exactly what she was upset about. She thought that I lied to her when she asked about our divorce all those years in the past, but the truth was that I wasn’t lying at that moment. Since the divorce took place so soon after our conversation she felt as if I had betrayed her. For twenty-five years she had held that anger toward me. I felt awful when I realized what that one sentence had done to her. Even though she accepted my explanation it couldn’t undo all the ramifications of how her belief that I lied led to unhappiness in her life. If only I had know what was going on in that little girl’s brain so long ago.
In my line of work I constantly hear people recall the exact words that a parent, teacher or important adult said to them in childhood that were like knives turned in a wound. One woman who grew up in New York asked her dad to meet her at the subway station near their house when she came home after dark when she was in high school. “Who would steal you?” he said, trying to reassure her that they lived in a safe neighborhood. What she heard was, “Only things of value get stolen. You are not worth stealing.”
Or how about, “You’re just like your father!” This could be interpreted to mean you are brilliant, handsome, and talented or you are a loser, alcoholic, or deadbeat. The problem is that the person who spoke those words never checked out how they were received. The person who was the recipient believed the negative spin she put on them.
Sometimes when the child grows up, holding on to the hurt that was done, and remembering where the incident took place, and even what he was wearing at that time, the parent has no clue that it ever took place since it started out as an offhand remark not really meant to harm. But by that time the adult child has so much invested in the grudge he has carried that it is difficult to let go of his version of the truth.
How sad! Yet we all do this. Everyone who is reading this has many memories of words that were expressed in passing that have tormented him or her. Now is the time to use EFT meridian tapping to re-think the occurrence and release the anger, pain and hurt of the past.
Here are some suggestions of what you might tap on:
Even though I will never forget what _______said to me, and how I interpreted it as a crticism, I love and accept myself.
Even though _______lied to me and I can never trust him/.her again, I am giving myself a healing treatment now.
Even though _______’s words crushed me when I was___years old, I am releasing that traumatic incident.
Even though will never forgive _______ for verbally abusing me, I deserve to be free of that pain.
Even though I don’t want to let go of the harm that ____inflicted on me by his/her words, I am treating myself for all of that now.
Even though I may have unintentionally harmed others by my words, I have always done the best I could.
