When someone says “mind your language” we usually associate it with not using profanities around our parents and grandparents and there could even be a swear jar involved. This is not a lecture about swearing, rather is discusses how the language we use affects the results we get and how we feel about what is going on in our lives.
The importance of our words and language.
Did you know that we have 60,000 thoughts a day? Our thoughts convert into language where we express ourselves and communicate with others. The words we use consistently describe the emotions of life and out of the approximately 3000 words in the English language that describe emotions only about 1000 describe positive emotions and the other 2000 describe negative emotions.
According to Anthony Robbins “The words we use not only affect the experience, they become the experience”
You might be familiar with the thoughts is creative process where we think something, it initiates an action, that then produces a result, which informs our belief system, which impacts our next thought. If we are also speaking out that thought “today is a bad day”, “why do I always get the raw end of the deal”, “this drives me crazy” then we are in effect creating that experience in the moment …. Moment by moment.
On top of that, 60,000 thoughts a day is equivalent to 2500 thoughts an hour or approximately 40 thoughts a minute. Let’s say 10% of those thoughts are negative ones. That equates to you internally telling yourself 5760 times a day that something is not working for you (“I am stuck”, “I am useless”, “I and stupid”.
When we are talking to ourselves (internal thoughts) in this way it’s called our internal chatterbox, and Anthony Robbins goes on to call the act of speaking out your internal chatterbox “dis-empowering mind language”. Imagine putting money in the swear jar every time you spoke that way to your self!
Over a lifetime the accumulating and stacking of the internal chatterbox and dis-empowering language into your body brain system has a huge impact on our life (and a fat jar). It is likely that at best we are not living the life to our fullest potential and at worse we are living a life filled with overwhelm, frustration and anxiety?
Where do our thoughts and mind language come from?
Let’s say we have three levels of existence: The Higher Self where our super conscious, connected and intuitive Self where holds positive thoughts; The Middle Self which is the home of our conscious and reasoning thought; and the Lower Self where the subconscious memories and the negative mind language and chatterbox and lives.
Most of the time we mill around the lower and middle Self, trying to reason with the past, worrying about the future and bombarding our self with mindless chatter. This is when we struggle against life and everything feels like a huge effort which takes inordinate amounts of energy to just get through the day.
Your language has an affect on how you feel. How different do you feel when you say: “I am an idiot!” rather than “I made a mistake”, or “That drives me crazy!” rather than “I am really annoyed”? Would you respond differently if someone said to you “You are an idiot” rather than “could you have done that differently?”
One dis-empowers and the other empowers.
Have you ever had a day when nothing seems to go right, you feel tense and worked up and you finally slump into you chair at the end of the day feeling spent and exhausted without feeling like you have achieved anything?
Consider what you may have been thinking and saying out loud in communication with others that day.
On the other hand, when we do operate from our Higher Self, we experience flow and ease, things don’t phase us and at the end of the day we still have some energy in reserve.
Does it make sense that if you improved the quality of your thoughts and language you could improve the quality of your life?
The choice is yours.
You can either tune into your chatterbox and speak from that perspective, or you can tune into you Higher Self and lead with thoughts and language that comes from a more positive space. By taking control of your habitual vocabulary and using transformational vocabulary instead you can literally transform your life.
The following list of transformational vocabulary could be the starting place for improving your daily outcomes.
| Chatter Box | Higher Self |
| I try to control | I trust |
| I am in turmoil | I am at peace |
| I am bored | I am filled up |
| I am dissatisfied | I am content |
| I am helpless | I am helpful |
| I am always disappointed | I go with what is |
| I am lonely | I am connected |
| I never enjoy | I am joyful |
The self-sabotage of buts and if’s
There are some words I just don’t use anymore. One of these is the word “but”.
“But” is one of those words that when use in a sentence sabotages everything that comes before it. “But” can render things you say as conditional or judgmental, and can indicate you are externally controlled or avoiding change.
For example: “I love you but why don’t you …” is judgmental, “I’d love to go but I don’t have anything to wear” is conditional, “ I’d like to but what of it rains tomorrow?” is externally controlled, and “I’d like to but I don’t have the skills” is avoiding change.
We especially use the “I love you but … ” in relationship and immediately have an impact that doesn’t support the words “I love you”. It sends a message that your love is conditional and depends on the other person doing or being whatever, you finished the sentence with. Another common “but” sentence is the classic “Yes, but ..”. This is one that comes out when you are in a discussion with a work colleague, a friend, a family member and you have opposing ideas. The other person has spent some time adding their idea or theory and all of a sudden you butt in (pun intended) and completely disregard whatever they said with “Yes, but …. blah blah your idea”. How is the feeling in the room then? Do you get the best outcome from the discussion?
The other word is “if”. In my opinion, “If” has a feeling of longing and scarcity which conjures up visions of slumped unhappy figures stuck in the past holding on to regret, or worrying about the future with expectation and wishing reality was different.
For example: “If only I had done …” brings up regret, “If you were different, I would be happy” sets up an expectation that is externally controlled, and my unfavourite “If only …” wishes reality was different.
You can have an immediate effect of yourself and others around you by removing these words from your vocabulary by changing “but” to “and” and not saying if at all. “I love you AND …” doesn’t change the fact the you love them and feels completely different to the listener, for example “I love you AND why don’t you try ….”.
Raising your health and well-being through your language
Research in epigenetics says that the basis for virtually all our physical health conditions is energy related with everything resonating at a certain vibration. The research goes on to suggest that the spoken word directly affects our health, the level of our vibration and state of well-being. According to the Russian biophysicist and molecular biologist Pjotr Garjajev the words we speak can have an influencing effect on how our DNA instructs information to our cells.
Further, Dr David Hawkins, MD, PhD in his book “Power Vs Force” maps out and scales the vibrational frequencies of emotions and feelings, which are all expressed in language and words. This means the way we talk and what thoughts we include in our chatterbox has the power to alter our genetic and DNA expression. Dr Hawkins Emotional Vibrancy Scale locates emotions (and their inherent language and thoughts) on a scale of 0 to 1000. For example: apathy vibrates at 50, anger at 150, acceptance at 365 and love at 500.
It follows then that choosing to transform your vocabulary with words that vibrate higher on the scale could improve your well-being and empower you bring about changes in your life.
| Old choice | New alternative |
| No problem | Its my pleasure |
| Not a bad deal | It’s a good deal |
| Don’t be late | Please be home on time |
| Stressed | Busy |
| Livid | Annoyed |
| Stupid | Not resourceful, learning |
| Hate | Prefer |
| Disgusted | Surprised |
It’s a work in progress
Much of the language we use and the thoughts we think have been influenced by what we learned as we grew. Unhelpful sabotaging self-chatter is often “picked” up as children and you only have to listen to what people say to understand that “minding your language” is not something that many people are conscious of and could stem from embedded cultural use of the language. The key to changing old habits is awareness.
The choice is yours.
Steps to transformation:
1. Listen to what you say and think to yourself
2. Check your chatterbox.
3. Change one thing to get started.
The easiest for me was to replace “BUT” with “AND”.
4. Think before you speak
5. Practice, practice, practice
6. Notice how your world changes for the better around you.
Making different choices around your chatterbox, minding your language you can literally transform your life and improve your health and wellbeing.