‘Oh, you know how it is. You feel like what you say sounds stupid, so you just end up not saying anything at all. You know?’
I’m met with a steely glare from my therapist. Shit, I’m doing it again.
‘Hannah, your words have power. Don’t misuse them. Do you want to repeat what you just said?’
[sigh!!!] … ‘I fear that I sound stupid, so I’m afraid to say what I think’.
Damn! When I put it like that it felt real. And more to the point, I realised it wasn’t even true.
I’ve always loved language. I love how two words with the same meaning can evoke completely different emotions. As if words have personality within a family of definition. I understand the sensitivity of language. How well-intentioned yet poorly chosen phrases can infer judgement, dismissal, or passive aggression. I’m acutely aware of how our language affects others. But what I’m only just realising is how our language affects ourselves.
The first time my therapist pointed this out to me it was embarrassing. There I was, blathering on about taking responsibility, yet I’d unwittingly removed myself from my own sentence structure. Using the royal ‘you’ instead of the uncomfortable ‘I’.
These may seem unimportant semantics, but a linguistic bypass does not go unnoticed in the psyche. By using the word ‘you’ instead of ‘I’, I was unconsciously communicating to my Self that I have no power. That life just happens, and I just happen to be there. Using ‘I’ statements can be uncomfortable if unpractised, because they require showing up in the conversation, being accountable for thoughts, actions and feelings.
Strangely, many of us do reach for ‘I’ statements when implying a fixed state. Critically attaching ourselves to the damning finite; ‘I always screw things up’, ‘I’m bad at maths’, ‘I’m late for everything’. The words and terminology we use create a framework for our habitual self-talk. The scripts narrating our internal monologues that drive or inform our behaviours.
It’s an unfortunate part of the human condition that we are predisposed to a negative bias. This isn’t just because we’re a miserable git of a species. It’s our primal response to pay more attention to the negative because therein lies the potential danger. If our prehistoric ancestors focussed solely on the beauty of that rather handsome cat, they’d be eaten by sabre-toothed Tabby. So we’ve evolved to be suspicious, self-protective, and (in a world where cats now sit on our lap) easily confused and neurotic.
It’s by biological design that negative emotions stimulate the amygdala to put us on high alert. But this response will not discriminate with a critical function, as it would rather keep us safe than sorry. In the brain, fear is fear, and in the body the pain is real. That’s why what we perceive to be harsh words or critical feedback burns in our psyche, and gets etched in our memory, often discounting any good that came with it.
Our attention to the negative may have evolved for self-preservation, but it can lead to debilitating self-talk. Language is active energy. It has the power to inform, persuade, soothe and reassure. But it can also be weaponised to cause pain and disruption, whether spoken aloud or whispered internally. We rarely apply the same diplomacy, consideration and careful filtering to the conversations we have with ourselves, as we do to those with others. Becoming mindful of our inner monologue is crucial, and considering it a conversation can help. If we imagine our self-talk being spoken to another person, would we be perceived as compassionate and kind? Or an aggressive, rambling nutter?
It’s important to recognise that the language we use is a choice. The stories we tell ourselves, our narrative of the present and future is completely within our control, despite what may have happened to us in the past. It speaks to our self-belief, confidence, motivation and hope.
Language is our vehicle for emotion. We have the power to tell ourselves that we don’t care in order to access detachment. We can tell ourselves something was just a mistake, or we can tell ourselves we always get things wrong because we’re an idiot. The language we choose for ourselves, even when used in jest or self-deprication, can be the difference between fleeting guilt or internalised shame. A lot of the suffering we experience is the pain caused by what we tell ourselves, because the body hears everything the mind says.
The good news is that language is habitual and can be easily learned, adapted or changed. A lot of the language we use has been handed to us via culture, ancestry, or our favourite TV shows(!). That’s why it can sometimes be hard to recognise negativity if it was simply the norm you grew up with.
I remember playing a guessing game with my nephew when he was 7-years old. We were being silly and he was running out of guesses, so I teased him, ‘oh come on dude, you’re rubbish!’. He suddenly stopped laughing, looked directly at me and affirmed, ‘I am NOT rubbish!’. He was absolutely right. I knew instantly that my language had been lazy and misjudged, and I was so glad, for both our sakes, that he’d called me out on it ...even if it did feel like being cancelled by a 7-year-old.
We get handed down language generationally, but it is still our choice what to do with it. We might grow up in a household that doesn’t vocally encourage. Perhaps they playfully piss-take or ‘lovingly’ disparage. Perhaps they routinely criticise because that’s what they themselves grew up with, or their words are cloaking their own insecurities. There is often a strong parallel between our own self-talk and the words that were spoken to us by our parents. But again, becoming aware of that allows us to make powerful change. To break the cycle so that we don’t pass negativity onto our children, and can talk more compassionately to the child within. In the instance of my nephew, the voracity with which he asserted himself made me think that my brother and his wife likely made a conscious effort to ensure their son’s self-esteem couldn’t be muddied with idle words. Thus breaking a generational chain of mindless sabotage.
So, as much as it pains me to be reprimanded by therapists and 7-year-olds, I now better understand the importance of language and the power it holds. I appreciate that where words lead, our mind and body will follow. And that in minding our language, we’re protecting our mind.
“The words you speak become the house you live in.”
- Hafiz
The Spin
First-person language is linked with responsibility and accountability. It’s the language of active empowerment.
The language we use becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s important to choose words carefully as they hold more power than we might realise.
The language we use in the present moment is our most powerful, despite what occurred in the past. Although the past is crucial to our psychology and not to be dismissed, we can use the energy of our language in the here and now to redirect the future.
Being specific and direct is more beneficial to our mental health than talking in circles, using conditionals (would, could, so that), taking on vague modifiers (sort of, in a way), or saying things we don’t really mean.
Positive language means moving away from language limitations (I can’t, I don’t, I won’t, I want, I need) and instead using the language of active choice (I can, I am, I will, I choose, I have, I love, I create, I enjoy).
When we say “I am,” the words that follow are experienced by the subconscious as a direct order. Statements like “I am skint” or “I’m disorganised” only reinforce those states. Instead, we can use language, whether internally or vocalised, to describe how we feel about those situations in the present ( I feel sad, scared, hopeless), and then declare what we choose to do instead.
Adding More Weight
Replacing the word ‘should’ in our vocabulary
The relationship between language and thinking
More detail on the negativity bias
Cultural nuances of language, personality and behaviour
Option to Go Deeper
The next time you’re having a bad day, write down some of the self-talk that comes into your mind
Take a look at the language you’re using. Is it fixed or flexible? Is it damning or kind? Is it something you would comfortably say to another person …or are you being an arsehole to your Self?
I remember being in a co-counselling training course some years ago, and one of the participants, a very upper class Englishman, kept saying things like "One is very sensitive about this" and "One finds it hard to ...". After a while the trainer, Anne Dickson (have you heard of her, Hannah? I'm sure you have. She wrote A Woman in Her Own Right) said to him: "Say I find it hard..., not "one finds it hard, because you're distancing yourself from the feeling."
Anyway, I really enjoyed reading your article, and it inspired me to write one myself: https://terryfreedman.substack.com/p/language-and-self?r=18suih&s=w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web