This week in a discussion group on Linked In, a member posted a blog titled “Being Gay isn’t Natural-Is it true?” along with a video of a gay man involved in doing “The Work” of discovering what is true and natural and what basis it was that so much of his understanding and perceptions had come from. (if you’re interested in seeing the video, here is a link to it: “Being Gay Isn’t Natural-Is it true?”
However what I’d like to share with you is a very profound event that took place after this video was posted and the comments that I shared with Miriam who shared the video regarding how it is that words wound and hurt us so often.
What happened when the blog title was seen was that “first responders” jumped in. I say “first responders” meaning those that seen the words in the title, reacted to the words or terms in the title and their own perception of those words and began sharing their comments from their perception of the title and words in it… without seeing even that there was a “question mark” at the end … that it was asking a question… not making a statement. (Boy, how many times have we each done that? LOL)
Next, there came those that were “second responders”, meaning those that responded to the responses of the “first responders” and what they said … and then there were the responses of those that actually watched the videos and seen that it was not an exercise in the attempts to determine if being gay was natural …. but in how words wound us and hurt us and how it is our own perception of words that we believe when we hear them that alters our lives and will do so until we see them for what they are…. “words”!!
If you’d like to read the entire discussion in the Linked In group… here is a link to that as well. “Linked In Group- “Spirituality and Consciousness”.
You will see the following words that I posted there as well… but this is what I’d like to share with you today…. “How is it that words wound and hurt us”….
As the video shows, this young man, took words from someone else about himself and believed them to be true simply because he heard them and believed them to be true. The bible illustrates this also happening with Adam in the beginning. There was no one there hold a gun to his head telling him “you must believe what I am saying to you and live accordingly”.. when Adam “hearkened to the voice of another” and took those words and believed them and acted upon them.
It was when Adam did so though that his entire life changed. His view of himself changed, his actions were based on that new view of himself and the view that he had of his wife changed as well, as the bible illustrates.
Before Adam did this, he was naked and not ashamed. His wife was naked and not ashamed as well and they were not hiding themselves from either themselves or God… they were freely partaking of all the provisions available to them… they were having life and having it abundantly, until they took the words of someone else, and believed them and acted upon WORDS!
Here is my response in the group discussion…
Yes, Miriam, I understand… the old saying that we repeated so often as children is that “sticks and stones can break our bones but words will never harm us”… and yet that is right the opposite so many times.
So yes, we have to realize for ourselves the impact that we allow the words of another or even thoughts created in our minds as a result of those words impact us and can for a very long time if we take them personally.
Another point that I agree with is Ruiz’ instruction not to take things personally….but that goes both directions. What I mean by this is that so often as we’ve seen here… the words of another are taken to a person and cause them issues when that was never the intention or purpose in sharing them.
We cannot live our lives and share whatever it is that is on our own hearts with the intention of helping and healing with the concern of how it will be perceived by another… because as you know the most well-meaning words can be misinterpreted and wound…. because it is always going to be based on the perception of the “hearer”… which is something that we all have to learn as well.
What I’ve also realized is that when I am “wounded” by the words of another…. that it does not and will not happen to me unless I take those words into myself and believe them to be so…. and let additional thoughts and concepts be created in my thinking, as we seen in the video that you shared.
When we sense “wounds” or “hurt” from words… it is to point out to us how it is that we are allowing the power of words of another to be believed within us… so that we address them within ourselves and analyze why they are having the power over us that they are…. its to help us … not harm us… no matter who the “messenger” is… and that is one very amazing thing to consider as is illustrated in the video that you shared!
So again thank you for sharing it and let us all be reminded that it is the perception that we are hearing something in and how we are taking it into ourselves and believing it that will wound us and cause us harm…. for stick and stones are what will break our bones… but words should never harm us!! ♥♥
So what I’d like to encourage each of you reading this blog to do today is to take a few minutes and write down every word that you can remember from your childhood that someone else has said about you or to you, that has hurt you or caused you to be wounded in some way. You can even write beside them the name of the person that said them, if you can remember…. or the situation that you were in at that time when they were said … whatever it is that you can remember about them when you first heard them.
Now, I want you to look at them carefully…. and see if in fact they are true? Are they what you know about yourself and are they the opinion that you have within your own heart about yourself?
Next, I want you to realize that you, like so many of us, have to first believe those words for them to have any impact in your life. For you to believe them, you have to believe them to be true, and if you did that without first analyzing them seeing if they were true in the moment in which you have said them….. then what you have done, again as many of us have in the past, is to believe “words” rather than evidence.
You have chosen to believe something said in “words” when the evidence of your own life and who you are as a person did not SUPPORT their claim about you and you did not really believe them to be true… yet you took them and chose to believe them despite all the evidence against them in that very moment.
Now, ask yourself why you did that? Be honest!! Why did you let the opinion of another person, no matter who they were or what situation you were in, cause you to believe something about yourself or your situation simply because they said it?? Why have you seen yourself through their eyes and their opinions because of their words all this time.. .rather than the evidence that you know of yourself, from within yourself??
Those are their opinions…. and we all know what they say about opinions.. right? They are like armpits… most everyone has at least two of them… and some stink a lot more than others… but none the less most will stink at some point or the other… right… so who in their right mind would want to believe the view or opinion of an “armpit”? LOL
Heck, even if you tell me that my armpits stink, I’m going to check it out for myself before I run off and take a shower and put on deodorant.. right? Wouldn’t you?? Sure you would… so why is it that we will do that in our lives about “armpits”… and yet not about everything else ??
Words that wound and hurt us are signals… they are signs along the highway that remind us that we’re taking some stinking armpits opinion and view of ourselves and our situation without having checked it out first for ourselves. They are the means by which we see the degree in our lives and patterning of our living that we are allowing another to have power and control over us and what we know in!
So take a look at each of those words in the listing that you prepared earlier…. check out them out for yourself. If they are true and you know them to be true… you can deal with them accordingly. If they are not, AFTER you have checked them out… ask yourself why did you ever believe them in the first place? Figure out what it is within you that caused you to believe them as if they were true and to have lived your life up to this point based on those words, without checking them out for yourself…. and before considering the evidence right in front of you about yourself that you KNEW when you heard them.
For as soon as we can all realize that the views and opinions of another are not true and do not have to be believed in and impacting our lives simply because they are said in “words” then we won’t be wounded or hurt by them again…. and won’t find ourselves living by what someone else has said about us or to us for years and years without realizing that had we not FIRST BELIEVED them ourselves…… then “words will never hurt us”!!
Have a wonderful day and remember… check those armpits !!! ♥♥
