HealthMatters

Soothing Speech
The Healing Power Of Words

BY DEBRA MOFFITT

hough most of us rarely take time to consider how we speak, language is the one element that separates humanity from every other species. A kind, soft-spoken word will reverberate with those around us and may even change the course of our lives.

Using the power of words to heal and uplift can also soothe us during challenging times and serve to make our world a better place. Three particular types of verbal expression — prayer, the spoken word, and writing — can help to mend broken bonds and promote understanding and harmony, especially during the holidays.

An Affirming Perspective
“Words have a vibratory frequency,” says the Rev. Rebecca Nagy. “If you want to go back to any sacred text, they say we were created by the ‘power of the Word.’ A voice lifted in prayer is just about as high a vibration as you can get. Especially when your heart is open and your mind is clear.”

As one of the most active wedding ministers in Charlotte, Nagy is well practiced in the use of vows and words to shape and transform lives. “We are constantly creating,” she explains. “The biggest tool we have to create with is the power of the word. A word can uplift or destroy.” Her CD, Instant Calm, blends music and softly spoken words to quiet the mind and encourage an elevated state of consciousness.

Nagy has used what she calls the “power of a positive mind over matter” to keep herself out of a wheelchair. With a degenerative disc disease, she says she could have chosen to resign from being an active participant in her health and life, get a wheelchair, and return to her parents’ home to live. Instead, after 12 years of physical struggle and surgery, she recently left behind a leg brace and now walks on her own two feet. “If we go around with an ‘Eeyore complex,’ our attitudes and the way we say our words will have an impact,” she says.

Nagy notes that she has seen an increase in the number of people calling to describe feelings of depression, and even suicidal thoughts. “They’re asking, ‘Why am I here?’ ” she says. “I tell them, ‘You’re here to reflect God’s love for us.’ ” She suggests repeating the words, “I am love,” as an uplifting affirmation or mantra during trying moments. She also advises curbing our dependence on newspapers, TV, and other media that have the potential to pollute the mind and create negative feedback loops.

Mind-Bending Talk
Charlotte-based counselor Stacie Davis also encourages people to change their media-consuming habits. “Clients who have a negative experience in their lives may start watching more news,” she says. “They get online and can find any information on the Internet to reinforce the perception that things are not going so great out there. It becomes a hamster-wheel effect.”

Davis suggests that people who are typically negative thinkers or those who are struggling with a difficult situation instead surround themselves with positivity, which challenges them to examine their viewpoints. She also affirms that hearing a kind and constructive word can call into question a distorted or irrational thinking pattern.

“I ask clients to take a look at how they’re engaging in negative thought patterns,” she says. “Typically, they repeat the same few things over and over again. I ask them to observe and identify how their thought processes may be negative or distorted, and then to jot down in a journal each time they catch themselves thinking a negative thought.” By counseling people to change the way they describe their experiences, she hopes her clients can work toward transforming themselves.

“I think it’s important that we challenge ourselves,” Davis adds. “If you go back to the same thing over and over, saying, ‘I should have done that’ — whatever ‘that’ is — stop and call yourself out. Challenge yourself in those areas. Then replace the negative self-talk with more positive words, so that positive speech becomes the habit.” The new, well-intentioned words we use can change our speech patterns and then alter our thought patterns even more.

Journeying Through Journaling
Maureen Ryan Griffin, a local writing instructor and author of Spinning Words into Gold, recommends journaling as a way of taking a trying incident and finding the nugget of gold in it. She says that our word choices can create and form our life experiences and may even influence our futures.

In her Writing to Heal workshop, Griffin uses an exercise from Dr. James Pennebaker, a renowned professor of psychology, which guides people to take individual events they perceived as negative and write about the good in them.

“Some people say, ‘Writing makes me feel worse,’ " Griffin says. “You need to discover the positive in what you’re writing. Identify any kind of good that came out of the event. Instead of saying it was ‘bad,’ write that it was ‘not good,’ for example. Even people who were victims of horrible things can transform their perception and see the experience as an opportunity to be closer to God, or consider it a way to have more compassion for other people.”

Griffin also suggests writing out daily gratitude lists that concentrate on specific moments, and then describing the experiences in detail. This focused writing helps particularly during the holidays, when we often tend to dwell on what we want and don’t have. Another writing exercise might include sending out letters and Christmas cards with uplifting, personalized messages. Even a small compliment or kind word written or spoken with a smile can make a difference — not only for the recipient, but for the giver, as well.

Front And Center
The Rev. Sally Johnston, associate rector at The Episcopal Church of the Holy Comforter, encourages the practice of a centering prayer or meditation, especially during the stress of the holidays. “A centering prayer is silent, with only one sacred word to maintain focus and rest the mind,” she says. “That word may be one you choose, like ‘peace,’ ‘thank you,’ ‘Jesus,’ or ‘Abba,’ and it’s used as a way of letting go of thoughts and moving into a space of being in God’s presence.”

Johnston calls this type of meditation “non-thought-filled prayer,” adding, “It’s not prayer as a request or demand, but rather a state of inner listening. Instead of saying ‘stop it’ to the onrush of thoughts, repeating the sacred word will help you simply to be present.” TCW