Talking about something helps. Just talking about it may not seem to have much power to change our life situation for the better, but words are all we have. Do not underrate or underestimate the positive effect of simply talking through something with a trusted other.
My life can be viewed as a series of one conversation after another. Even as a writer, I am conversing with you, as my sensed listeners. I seek, through words, to be an instrument of healing and hope. I tell others I’m not a miracle worker. All I have are words; all I can do is listen and offer feedback from another, more objective viewpoint.
Nothing heals like the right word at the right time. Conversely nothing wounds like the wrong word at the wrong time. I have experienced the consequences of both.
A burden that cannot be shared cannot be lifted. Talking with a trusted other, sharing what lives unspoken in your heart, can lift off the weight, if not the actual substance of your burden.
When you talk something through, even if the situation does not change, you might change, beginning with your attitude. When one person changes in a relationship, the relationship changes as well. If you should change even slightly through talking something out, it might lead to change in the other by virtue of the change in the relationship your changing brings about.
Healing can happen through speaking. Language shines a light on the truth, and offers a path to freedom from whatever in the dark of speechlessness hinders and holds you back. To make evil vanish, shine the light on it, the light language alone affords, honest words spoken to a trusted other.
If you cannot speak what is in you, you cannot fully know what is upsetting you. Writing a journal can be an effective method to self-discovery. A journal is a record of your inner life, of your feelings and fears, wants and wishes, desires and dreams. I have discovered much about myself from keeping a journal; and I have looked on while through my wrestling in words, my feelings and thoughts have undergone change. Self-discovery leads to self-transformation.
While drafting my first book, I wrote: “Strange, but as I write these words, these words are writing me.” I have discovered, and learned to depend on, the power of words to affect me. Words can transfer the soul from a narrow cell of loneliness and torment, to a spacious plane of understanding and acceptance.
When something is upsetting me, and I’m not sure what it is, I engage in a process of “self-talk.” First I go through the various sectors of my life, asking, “If I could remove this sector from my soul, would that take away my turmoil?” Once I have found the upsetting sector, I ask, “When did I first get upset?” Usually as soon as I figure out when I got upset, I realize right away what upset me, who said or did what.
At that point, I let what has upset me become word, through one or more of these means: inner dialogue, journaling, or discussion with a trusted other.
Though it may not seem like much, all we have are words. Truly, more than using words, we are word. And maybe the entire cosmos is word, language of one kind or another. Hence, in speaking words, we are actually speaking ourselves. And in releasing the words held tightly in our hearts, we are releasing ourselves as well.
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