Have you ever thought about how powerful words are? They can build or destroy. They can motivate or deter. They can save or devastate. They can illuminate or darken.
We often think about the way our words impact others, but seldom realize how profoundly our own words affect us. Whether said aloud or silently spoken in our thoughts, words can change the course of our grief journey.
I’ve always been aware of how healthy or how harmful our words can be, but recently one of our support group members shared how they manage their grief through their choice of their internal and external language.
They explained they came to identify three words that held them hostage to their sorrow and, in fact, increased the depth of their grief. “I discovered that I was repeatedly using never, always and forever when processing my grief. I came to understand how devastating these words were in my grief journey.”
They continued to share they would often think, “I will never see him again. My life will never be the same. I will never get over this.” They explained the devastating impact of “always” as they would think, “I will always be alone. I will always remember his last days. I will always be this sad.” They shared the difficulty of “forever” thoughts. “This is how my life will be forever. Nothing will change because this will last forever.”
Once they realized the crushing power of these three words, they made a conscious decision to remove them from their vocabulary. When they came to mind, they quickly and intentionally stopped the thought and stayed in the present.
Grieving is hard enough without projecting into the future and clinging to the nevers, the always and the forevers. It is so important to stay in the present and take one day at a time. Managing grief on a daily basis is hard. Projecting into the future makes it even more difficult -- even to the point of feeling a sense of hopelessness. Our internal language is a huge part of moving forward in our grief.
Think about your own grief. What do you tell yourself? What messages do you give yourself? What words keep you hostage to your grief? What words help you move forward?
You have the power to manage and control your inner language. It’s up to you to be intentional with the words you tell yourself.