115 – The Magic Of Words - a podcast by Alf Herigstad

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THE MAGIC OF WORDS…
Today I want to talk about something you don’t hear every day, but I think about it a lot.  That is…the power, or like the title of this episode says; the Magic, of words.Among all the creatures on the earth, humans are the ones who invented words.  All animals communicate in some fashion…but we do it with words.  What is a word but a specific sound made that has a specific meaning that can be remembered and repeated to convey that meaning?  Words are quite simple, but they are also ingenious, and incredibly powerful, and I think we take them for granted a lot.
I obviously rely on words as the host of this podcast.  I have to string together a certain combination of words, and when I do…I magically inject your brain with the concept I am thinking of.  It’s kind of fascinating when you think about it; suddenly my thoughts are inside your head.Simple words have started wars, ended relationships, changed lives for both good and bad.  One simple word can either make somebodies day…or bring them instantly to tears. 
Words, either written or spoken are incredibly powerful, and should be wielded very carefully, with great caution.  Words are tools, neither good or bad until we give them meaning with our intention.Words all start out the same way, in our brains as an idea…a thought, an abstract thing that only exists within our skull. 
When we speak or write that thought it becomes a word that carries our thought out of our head onto the physical paper, or our thought travels through space in the form of sound waves created by the vibration of air over our vocal cords. Either way, when another human hears or see’s our thoughts…our words, they immediately understand it.  Now it becomes a thought in their brain. 
I realize I’m getting a little philosophical about words here…but there is a reason for that.  It’s important to understand that our brains don’t always evaluate words correctly.  We have two minds; a conscious mind and an unconscious mind. Our conscious mind is awake, its the one we are aware of.  It can tell the difference between a joke and a serious comment, it can evaluate the truth and merit of a word it hears. 
However…our subconscious mind, the one operating in the background that we are not aware of and don’t control is also hearing and seeing these words.  Our subconscious mind believes what it hears, its not capable of distinguishing between truth and lies, sarcasm and reality.  It processes the words it hears and then subtlety informs our conscious mind of things, and we have no idea that’s going on.Thats why if a child is told all their life they won’t amount to anything…there is a good chance they won’t.  Where as if a child is told over and over how capable they are and what a great future awaits them…it can have the opposite effect.It doesn’t end with children…we sabotage our own subconscious with derogatory statements about ourselves.  We truly are our own worst enemy.  Have you ever heard the saying:  “If you say you can’t do something, your probably right”?  It’s really true, and thats because of the phenomena I’m talking about. 
Our conscious mind is telling our subconscious stuff, that our conscious mind then believes.  If you keep telling yourself that you are fat, and you can never lose weight…guess what?  That becomes a reality.  If you tell yourself you aren’t as smart as other people, or that you don’t deserve to be happy or that it’s hard for you to make friends…then yep, thats right…that will become the reality.  Words become reality!  That is what is so magic about them.  With our words we speak reality into existence.OK, now imagine…imagine if you only said good things about yourself.  It’s a little hard to get used to, but what if you said only good things about yourself even if you didn’t consciously believe them?  What if you said them out loud so they became something more...

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