Words create our world and health

Renee Lehman

(9/2019) Words, words, words. We are surrounded by words. We use words to speak with one another and to ourselves in our own brain. Words are used in the music that we listen to and in the news we tune into, and currently you are reading words in this article. The words that we use in our speaking about the "world" shape both our external environment, and our internal state and subsequent actions.

"The language we use to communicate with one another is like a knife. In the hands of a careful and skilled surgeon, a knife can work to do great good. But in the hands of a careless or ignorant person, a knife can cause great harm. Exactly as it is with our words." - Unknown

In previous articles I have written about how our beliefs affect our health. In these articles it was discussed how our biology adapts to our thoughts and beliefs. When we truly recognize that our thoughts/beliefs are that powerful, we hold the key to freedom (Bruce Lipton, The Biology of Belief). Well, what comes before a thought or belief? Words! Words create thoughts, which create emotions, which then create behavioral and physical conditions.

Words Have Power

What you say matters. Words can teach, guide, encourage, inspire, reassure and unite. Words can also destroy visions and dreams, and tear relationships apart. With words, we both create life and destroy life.

For example, there is no past, only what you say about it: "I had a terrible childhood." The present is what you declare it to be: "It’s going to be a horrible day." The future is not separate from what I say it will be: "I’m never going to find love."

Think about this excerpt from the book, My Stroke of Insight, by Jill Bolte Taylor, PhD (a neuroanatomist who had a stroke at the age of 37 years old) about what she learned during her recovery:

"One of the greatest lessons I learned was how to feel the physical component of emotion… I learned that I had the power to choose whether to hook into a feeling and prolong its presence in my body, or just let it quickly flow right out of me…I made up my decisions based upon how things felt inside…I learned that I could use my left mind, through language, to talk directly to my brain and tell it what I wanted and what I didn’t want. "

What kind of life do you want to create with your words? It is your choice! We can choose to build a heaven or construct a hell.

The words we use in our thoughts trigger our brain cells to release neuropeptides (our brain’s chemical messengers to our body). These messengers will cascade throughout our bodies and will either be health-promoting or health-destroying. Thoughts create emotions, and particular emotions are associated with a particular neuropeptide, so that over time, if we are prone to experience a particular emotion, our cellular structure actually changes to accommodate more of the neuropeptide associated with the emotion. In this way, our neural pathways build up to become like well worn roads along which the electrical impulses (which stem from the power of the mind) travel (2004 movie, What the Bleep do we know!?).

"You are literally thinking with your body. The words you say… actually affect the neural networks forming in the brain." - Candace Pert, PhD, author of Molecules of Emotion

Words and Illness

Are negative words precursors to illness and disease? The article written by Barbara Frederickson in the March 7, 2000 edition of the American Psychological Association journal Prevention and Treatment, (Cultivating Positive Emotions to Optimize Health and Well-Being) demonstrated that research has shown that negative emotions like poorly managed anger, fear, anxiety, depression, and prolonged grief have been shown to compromise immune functioning, lead to heart disease, cancer and other stress-related physical disorders. What comes before negative emotions? Negative words!

What is the impact of how you speak about your body and yourself?

I once had a woman referred to me for physical therapy because of pain at the base of her skull and upper neck. She had x-rays and other tests completed that showed no structural problems. One day when working with her, she said, "I know in the back of my head that my husband (who has cancer) is going to die soon." I asked her if she realized what she just had said! The back of her head… where her pain was located! She suddenly realized that the pain dealt with her husband’s condition. Her pains did go away shortly after her husband died.

What do you notice when you repeat the following statements to yourself? "That just kills me." "This anger is eating me up inside." "I’m going out of my mind1" "This is going to be the death of me!" "I can’t stomach this anymore." How do you feel?

Now repeat the following statements: "That brightened my day!" I’m so excited!" "There’s a weight off my shoulders." "I can see clearly now." Now, how do you feel?

One of my mentors in life and acupuncture, Dianne Connelly, PhD, once said: "There are three things of which we can be relatively certain. We are here. We are here together. And there will be a time when that is no longer so. What is the conversation worth having in the meantime?"

Finally, here is an ancient story about the power of words.

A group of bunnies were hopping along when two of them fell into a deep well. All the other bunnies gathered around the well. When they saw how deep it was, they told the bunnies in the well that they were as good as dead and would never make it out alive. The pair of bunnies, not wanting to give up, tried as hard as they could to make it out. The other bunnies discouraged them saying that they would never survive the steep climb. Finally, one of the bunnies, exhausted after having made it halfway up the well’s wall, and discouraged by his friends’ words, simply gave up. He fell to the bottom of the well and died.

But the remaining bunny did not give up. Instead, he exerted even more effort, jumping harder and harder through the jeers of his "friends." He finally made it to the top and over the ledge. The other bunnies were shocked and amazed that he had made it out safely. Once the bunny landed on the grass, the other bunnies asked why he had continued jumping even though the odds were stacked against him.

As it turns out, the bunny was deaf. He did not hear the jeers and negativity of his friends. Instead, he interpreted their words as encouragement and their taunts as cheers. What might have happened if the first bunny hadn’t truly heard the words the others were shouting at him? Might he have made it out alive, too?

This story shows us the power held in words. There is no cost to offer encouraging words, but discouraging words quickly break the spirit. As Confucius once said, "Without knowing the force of words, it is impossible to know more."

Renee Lehman is a licensed acupuncturist, physical therapist, with over 30 years of health care experience. Her office is located at 249B York Street in Gettysburg. She can be reached at 717-752-5728.