WORDS

"Stick and stones can break my bones,

but words can never hurt me."

I think I was about five years old when I was first hurt by a word. Actually, it was a series of words - a whole sentence. I know I wasn't in grade school yet, but the other kids were. We were playing a game on my front porch and I felt ashamed because I had lost. An older boy named Joe looked down at me and said, in a tone that still hurts, "When God handed out brains you must have said 'No thanks.'"

The humiliation was overwhelming and I still feel it when I remember the words. I "internalized" the experience - to use some psychological jargon. I believed that there really was something wrong with me. The words and the belief made me afraid to risk making a mistake in front of others for many years, and that fear shaped my life later on in important ways. It still affects me, but now I understand more about it and I usually fight back successfully. I will always have to fight this fear.   

Words are powerful. They surround us: they come from outside of us and they come from inside. We see words, we hear them, and we think them; they can even disturb our sleep. Words inform us, yet they can be true or they can mislead. Words motive us, sometimes in good ways and sometimes in ways that are not so good. Words help us create the beliefs we have about the world, the future, and ourselves. Words change us, especially during times when we are not on particularly solid psychological ground - like when we feel stressed, afraid, or when we are going through big transitions.  Words are particularly powerful when someone we need or respect speaks them.

We need to choose our words carefully - especially those we say to ourselves, in our own heads. We also have to be very thoughtful about the words we use with children because children are very impressionable and the words and beliefs children internalize affect them for a lifetime. Helpful words become powerful guides that are present for the rest of a child's life. The harmful words children hear can become insidious habits of thinking and believing, hidden away like indestructible land mines, waiting to do their damage over and over. The damage comes in the form of irrational beliefs, negative feelings, and then self-defeating behaviors. If children are lucky they will eventually discover the land mines when they become adults. But instead of simply removing them, they will have to learn to replace them with words that are more accurate and positive.  The difficult part, of course, is actually finding the destructive words and beliefs and then finding something accurate, positive, and believable to substitute for them. 

There is a whole set of psychotherapy tools, called cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy, designed to help you root out word land mines and replace them with healthier thoughts and beliefs. A helpful introduction is David Burns' 1999 book Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy - one of the best selling self-help books of all time. It's published by HarperCollins. What I want to do in this article is give you some important cognitive-behavioral pointers for countering some of the destructive things people say to themselves and the similarly destructive things they say to children.

Perhaps the most destructive words you can use on yourself and on children (on anybody, for that matter) are negative labels like "bad," "awful," "stupid," "lazy slug," "looser"... it goes downhill from here. Take a minute and use a few of these labels on yourself. Notice how these words make you feel. Not too good, I suspect, and you're just experimenting. Now call yourself "smart," "beautiful," "wonderful," or "great." Can you feel the difference?  Imagine the impact if the words were spoken by your father or mother, a close friend or teacher. Imagine the impact if the words are actually spoken by you, about you, in your head, all the time. Negative labels are typically inaccurate because they ignore every other aspect of you or the other person, but they are very difficult forces to overcome. Personally, I have never met a person who fit any negative label I ever heard.

 You can replace negative labels with more objective, balanced facts, like "I (or you) didn't make the best choice there," or "That was not as good as I would have liked." You can replace "stupid" with something like "I'm not stupid, so I might have thought that through better." You can replace negative labels by taking the time to use words that are objective and helpful instead of emotional and hurtful.

Another set of words that causes problems are extreme words like "always" and "never." Extreme words are usually wrong and using them often results in the belief that change is impossible, coupled with a subsequent feeling of defeat. Nobody is "always wrong", "never right", or "always too tired." Some examples of replacements are words and phrases like "sometimes," "often," "the last three times," "often when I am in this situation." It is helpful to collect actual data on the behavior so you know the frequency and circumstances of its occurrence before you select an adjective to describe it. Once again, words chosen objectively rather than emotionally are best.   

Another powerful verbal and mental land mine is "catastrophizing" or what Burns calls "the fortune telling error." These damaging words predict that things will turn out badly in the future, and they are closely associated with anxiety. Some examples are statements like "I will make a jerk out of myself," "I will fail this test," "You will kill yourself on those skis," or "Nobody will be interested in what you say." These words take the energy out of any initiative you or others may have. Imagine what the result would have been if Lance Armstrong had said to himself, "I will never be able to ride a bicycle again."

While you are imagining, image the consequences if Einstein had told himself that he was stupid. What if Thomas Jefferson had believed he was a poor writer? Suppose Thomas Edison had told himself that another light-bulb experiment was a waste of time. Imagine what amazing things would happen if you told yourself that you can do whatever you believe in doing - that you will be successful.      

Pay close attention to the words you say to yourself and to others. Words are immensely powerful and can cause great damage or great good. The truth is that "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can really hurt me."

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Copyright 2009. All Rights Reserved. This article is based on my article of the same name that appeared in the State College Magazine, July 2005.