Are your words shallow?
I am the kind of person that will jump right into the dictionary or thesaurus to find the best word and or meaning to match whatever it is I am thinking, feeling, seeing, or trying to say! I have always loved vocabulary. Unfortunately, there was a significant chunk of time when I put the practice down to take on the more mainstream lingo of those in my environment. So, in my desire to transcend to new heights during my life recovery process I brought it back to life, and this time, it has a very specific purpose!
My words, the vocabulary I use, speaks directly to who I am, how I am, where I have been, and where I am headed. You see, I noticed that there are a lot of generalities used in everyday words, and in spaces that really need to have depth or texture.
Here is an example of a recent conversation I had with a client and the process we went through to uncover the actual hurdle that was trying to find its way to the surface.
“I jump right to annoyed when I have idle time. I go straight to that list in my head of all the things I could be doing if I weren’t waiting on someone or for it to be the right time for something to start.” “Sounds perhaps like an issue with control.” “Well, I’m ok with the waiting actually, I just take the time to relax. It’s just where my head jumps to first.”
Now, this was just a tiny piece of the conversation, and it is certainly not verbatim, but I needed to set the stage for the process that brought us an outcome! Because the definition of control states a power to make a decision about how something is managed or done; the ability to direct the actions of someone or something, we determined quickly that mainstream language would coin what was described as a control need but this was certainly not what we were examining.
So how else could we describe this uncomfortable experience? Hasty wasn’t right either, although the thoughts were with excessive speed they weren’t with insufficient consideration, they weren’t quick-tempered. It was without forethought but there wasn’t an action. To get you to the outcome, what we landed on was the idiom “a knee jerk reaction” which really means they were responding to something in an equally unthinking way, it was automatic. From there we of course determined a few visualizations and actions that could be used to condition the cessation of the intrusive automatic thought processes. But if we had stopped at “a control issue” we wouldn’t have uncovered a pattern in how their brain was functioning.
So here is my favorite place to start training this ability to know ourselves better.
When someone asks you how you are you must respond with a descriptive word that isn’t a mainstream response. Responding with “fine” is so ambiguous and can imply anything from excellent to delicate. Why leave it to the recipient to figure out what you mean. If you are excellent, exceptional, or outstanding why wouldn’t you just say so? And if you are outstanding why not make sure it is clear you do not mean neglected or that you still have quite a bit undone by saying marvelous or magnificent? Magnificent leaves no guesswork for the person who asked the question. Think about it, magnificent the spectacular adjective tells them you feel impressively beautiful, splendid, spectacular, superb, glorious, and even masterly!
Wasn’t that fun?
Of course, you want to be genuine so if you are just feeling “OK” I get it. But let’s try words that give some texture, some depth. Saying acceptable or satisfactory works. This way we are saying life is adequate or sufficient today, I have enough, I see ample potential. If you don’t already feel the change that can be realized just by choosing words with more flavor. I want you to think about all of those intrusive thoughts that you have, that tells you how not good enough you are, how bad things are, or how undeserving you are, and ask yourself how you would rather your dialogue to sound.
You get to choose right now if you want to stay with the reel of unbecoming, unsuitable, unfitting, inappropriate, low value or low merit language; or if you want to shift into one with intense quality, profound complexity, extensive breadth, richness, and strength.
I am always down to help! We have so many angles we tackle the way we see ourselves in a shallow and flat fashion. I would love to help you transcend to new places!