I am fascinated by the energy of words and how what we say can have a profound effect on our emotions, how we carry ourselves and what we believe to be true.

Why not try this simple exercise right now… Find a quiet few minutes and list out words that you find you are using a lot about yourself or about your situation. It might be something like…. “I am always broke… I never have enough money” or “I am so stupid… I always make the worst decisions” etc. you get the picture… So, when you have your list, I want to invite you to say those words out loud… How do they make you feel? How does your body respond to these words? Do you feel your energy contract or expand? Note your breathing. Just take a few minutes to notice…

Now I want to invite you to create a phrase that more or less affirms the opposite of something that you usually say… If we use the two examples above, something like “I always have enough money” or “I always make the best decisions in any given moment” Once again, say these out loud… Do you feel different when you make these statements? How does your body respond to these words? Do you feel your energy contract of expand? Notice your breathing.

Cool huh?! You can try this with specific words also LOVE / HATE    COURAGE / FEAR    HAPPY / SAD

In many spiritual traditions there is the belief that words create a physical manifestation in the world. For instance, in the Bible in the book of John, it states “In the beginning was the word….” and so you get similar writings in may spiritual and ancient texts.

The phrase “Abracadabra” has its origins in the ancient language, Aramaic “Abraq ad habra” which literally means “I will create as I speak“. So when we create as we speak…. How many of us actually want what we say to ourselves, about ourselves to others, about others, about our communities, governments etc. on a daily basis to be true for us? hmmm…. Don Miguel Ruiz writes in his book “The Four Agreements” how every human being is a magician, as we cast spells with our words and opinions everyday. I wonder if that is where the word “spelling” comes from… How we spell characters (to form words)  literally creates spells that we cast on ourselves or others….

Now, I’m not writing this to create fear about how we speak or use our words… It is more of an invitation to become mindful of what we say and that we choose to say or affirm things that we want to be true for us.

I came across a blogpost recently of a guy (Mauricio Estrella) that writes about how changing his password on his computer at work changed his life. He used a mundane task of inputting his password at his desktop computer everyday into an exercise of forgiveness, (forgiving his wife after the divorce) and then went on to input other life-changing passwords – as he was required to change his password every 30 days. Amazing! You can read his post here.

Lastly I do want to mention dr. Masaru Emoto’s work with the water crystals and how he has developed a way to measure the energy and the effect of our words and intention on the world around us. In his original experiment he took two cylinders of water, one he marked “LOVE” and the other “HATE”. To the love cylinder he repeated the word “love”, expressed love and sang to the water etc.  to the hate cylinder he repeated the word “hate”, expressed hate and cursed it, talked to it in a hateful way etc. he then chose to freeze the water in order to see and measure if his experiment had any effect on the water’s molecular composition… Well it did indeed and the water crystals in the frozen water in each looked completely different! The “love cylinder” water had beautifully formed crystals and the water from the “hate cylinder” had misformed blobs as crystals. You can read more about dr. Emoto’s work here.

The thought I want to leave with you though… Our bodies contain about 80% water… I wonder how does the words we affirm over our lives affect us… Do we create beauty by what we say or do we create misery? Do we use our words to create curses or blessings? I want to invite you to change one word or phrase you negatively affirm over your life into a positive statement or a statement that you want to be true for you… even if you don’t believe it, yet… Maybe take a page out of Mauricio’s book and change a computer password into something positive and affirming, which then becomes a regular affirmation of what we wish to create.

I often use the analogy with my clients that our subconscious mind is a like a flower bed waiting for the seeds (words and beliefs) that we plant and then water by repetition. So, maybe some de-weeding is in order and some more planting of seeds that flower and bring beauty, joy and colour to our lives.

May you walk in Beauty,

Jo-Anne