Hurt Or Heal? Your Words. Your Choice. – Moxie On Monday

There is power in what can hurt us as well as what can heal us.

How we choose to use that power makes all the difference in who we are and what we can achieve.

Take words for example.

They can cut and wound, or soothe and heal.

Choose them carefully and be conscious of your intent.

I was talking to a friend recently, a fellow energy worker and intuitive whose greatest gift lies in “seeing” beneath the seen – in understanding the things in life that can’t be understood through the intellect, but rather through the heart.

He looked at me and said, “You chose a path to use words to help people to heal. Yet you were raised by parents who used words to hurt and to harm. It’s because of who you truly are that you would learn to use words to turn pain and suffering into healing. Often, we repeat what we learn.”

It was one of those “Aha” moments in life – a time when you feel your inner self relax a bit and let go. I began to understand how we hold the power to transform pain, any pain, into power. One of those moments when my insides began to integrate to another level – when I began to see my life and my life choices through fresh eyes.

It was all part of this Midlife & Beyond journey of Self Discovery.

Oftentimes, when we feel great pain intentionally or callously caused by another, there is sometimes a tendency to want to pay it forward – to share the abject misery you feel with another. We all have the propensity to become a Mean Girl. It’s a choice.

Thankfully, that has never been possible for me. The words used in my childhood were too mean and belittling to ever consider using words in that way. I guess that’s a blessing in disguise. Somehow, I knew there was a better way. 

Life is made up of a series of choices.

Growing up, I learned that words aren’t harmless. I learned that words can heal or words can do great harm.

My Father, understandably given his painful past, chose to use words as weapons – words jam-packed with angry emotion meant to wound – to unconsciously project his pain, somehow believing that could lessen the pain.

Life doesn’t work that way.

Somehow, intuitively, I knew at an early age that I was choosing differently. I loved words. I even had a giant dictionary that I would read for fun – discovering new words – words that opened me up to new worlds.

When I took my first step into the world of social media, I began to use words and the immense power of language to create connection, to heal and to bust hearts wide open, beginning with my own.

Words strung together like a lustrous string of pearls have the power to create anything in the world.

Writing a book begins by stringing words together.

A TV Series begins by crafting a story, one word at a time.

A life changing Ted Talk is created by one inspiring word followed by another, blowing open our mindsets and our worldly understanding.

Everything in life has two sides – one dark, one light.

In the end, it’s all energy.

One example is electricity. Electricity lights up our homes, heats up our stoves and cooks our food. Electricity can also be used to do great harm, killing humans via the electric chair.

Dramatic I know but that’s the point.

Both energy – one used for positive means and one for extreme negative intent.

Energy itself is neutral. It’s how we use it that makes it positive or negative.

Life is a series of choice points.

Anything that has been used to harm you can also be used to heal you.

We have a choice – to repeat the cycle or to break the cycle – repeating the cycle keeps us stuck in Groundhog Day or repeating our past.

Breaking the cycle allows us to liberate ourselves (and others) and to create a new, more empowering reality.

For me, it was using words not as weapons but as a way to help myself and others to heal.

For you, it might be something else.

As we come to the end of a year and the beginning of a new year, it’s the perfect time to choose differently – to create a new future.

It’s the ideal time to alchemize pain into healing.

I know what I’ll be doing – I’ll be busy stringing words together, words to tell a story, to inspire, to empower and to heal – to bring my life full circle – and to show others that anything that has the power to hurt us also has the power to heal us.