Friend or Foe?

by ANON

That is the question… Words are they friend or Foe?

We are born into this space without them, at the very least without any conscious knowledge of them and on the one hand manage to communicate our needs perfectly at the same time an enormous amount of energy is invested in getting us to learn them.

Eventually we are armed, but are we aware of the power that has been invested in us?

I for one am not too sure!

The first and most obvious facet of this tool is our power to say things, as apposed to just making an unintelligible sound for a sufficient amount of time that invariably elicits the desired reaction.

Words, in the beginning normally mono syllable words some times emphasized with a fair amount of squalling which could be either out of frustration or to better emphasize the urgency of our need, noticeably more effective than squalling alone.

With the passing of time we get better, a bigger vocabulary and the enhanced ability of being able to string more and more of them together to form sentences which we now use to better communicate.

This new found skill is then enhanced through training and practice by adding the power of inflection and body language. A formidable tool indeed!

Now, through all of this there is the second facet, thought.

Words in the head. At some stage in our growth it becomes incumbent on us to consciously think before we speak and I have no doubt that that for the most part we do, either way thought about or not our words with their attached inflections can be delivered tainted. They get to travel to their intended audience with hidden meaning.

Confused?

It is our thoughts that give rise to and define our emotions. It is our thoughts that drive and manage our emotions for without our thoughts, which lest we forget are words, we would not be able to define let alone articulate our emotional state.

It is our emotional state that governs our words, as long as we are “feeling” something our output will contain nuances of that feeling.

Lets assume for a moment that over the passage of time you and a friend have developed a special bond, a deep relationship, as can very easily happen at some point a discussion can, inadvertently, arouse an undesirable emotion in one or the other of you, an emotion that may have sufficient force that as a result the incorrectly chosen words with their attached inflections reflect this pain back, suddenly in the moment two of the best of friends have built a barrier.

Remember that your friendship was built on words, their use allowed for the trust and understandings that existed between you, and now words have damaged that.

In each of them exists the same traits, and lets not forget fed, fueled, with words, ego!

That underestimated monster that has nothing but its own interest and survival at heart, that needs to win at all and any cost, even to the death of its host, that will, without compunction, in the deepest recesses of your mind fuel the flames of emotion to keep alive its position and standpoint.

Worst of all it has such a powerful tool kit. Pride; The Past and The Future, link these three together with, and you got it, words, people nations countries have been destroyed, in some cases even lost forever.

If for a moment we go back to our two friends let us, without getting too deeply involved and further muddying the situation with more words, say that pride has reared its head.

Will ego win, because, do you remember when…? What will happen if…? The past hurt and the promise of potential future hurt put fuel to that emotion, fan up those flames creating fear. What if... Don’t what ever you do forget our pride!

How could either of our two friends be wrong, for what they said, for how they said it, how to admit that had either of them taken one moment longer that which needed to have been said could have been delivered more effectively, achieving the desired intention?

Writing on this site one would be forgiven for believing that I am past these petty differences, I have mastered the art of “head silence” of living in the moment, like you I am working on it, taking it one step at a time as fast as I can.

Far be it from me to criticize where anyone else is on their path as I come from my own experience with myself and observing and helping others, there are times when it seems easy and there are just as many times when it is not.

For most, many more years and much more effort has gone into our “incorrect” training than has into our effort and aspiration of a new way, we work to practice our new skill presenting to the world our new facade in the belief that it is with practice that we will retrain, this is completely true, just as we had to train, for many years to be who we were.

Try to remember that your friends, the ones who are really close to you who are in all likely hood walking their path with you and that they, like you, are vulnerable to their past, their ego is just waiting to take back its lost position and please believe me when I say should it raise its ugly head now it is better trained than it was and will take more effort to re-silence.

It is the past the memories we, you are trying to stop having an influence on our present, that way the future “promises” of what if? Will have no effect, if at any time there is a need to bring back that path in your healing, be gentle with yourself and your friends remember the power you have with your words, they can be your friend or your foe because how you use them will have an influence and if you get it wrong what will you do to take back, erase what is now a new past.

Do you have the words, for yourself, for your friend?