Your speech can become self-fulfilling prophecy. The truth is we shape our lives, invent our future body by our attitude: what we think, say, and do. Everybody knows how difficult it is to build your body. So why put obstacles in your way?
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “Talk is cheap”. Don’t agree with it myself because I know that “Talk is free”. It doesn’t cost you anything to say what-ever you want, but there are always consequences to what you say. You may end up paying dearly in the long run, making certain kinds of talk extremely expensive. Yes, what you say can literally come true. Say it often enough, mindlessly over and over again and you create and get to experience it. It’s yours now. You may not want what you got but you’ve been asking for it.
Your body hears every word you say and so do other people. Powerless speech, statements that begin with the prefix, “that makes me” tells the world that you have no power on your own, there’s something in the universe that compels you to behave as you do. Push a button get an automatic reaction. The fact is that nothing “makes” you do any-thing. You make a decision consciously (preferred) or unconsciously (below awareness level). If your decisions are made unconsciously as in the case of long established bad habits, they will seem to be out of your control. And they are as long as you continue to speak as if it’s not you that’s responsible for your fate. Intention always precedes action.
How many times have I heard clients talk about their personal trainers, “He has me doing 5 sets of each exercise”, “He makes me work out every day”, “He built my body with his methods”. Wrong. Nobody did it but you. These are forms of power-less speech where the speaker (victim) avoids taking responsibility for the ramifications of their speech that ultimately leads to their actions. No-body can make you do anything. You make the decision yourself and then act on it. I tell clients that I am merely a guide on a journey to fitness, like a map and a compass. I can help them find the way but I can’t carry them to their destination.
Negative body metaphor are the most obvious forms of powerless speech. These are vocalized expressions that can simply be translated as “I do not prefer that”. But instead of saying what you really mean, you may be into the habit of bringing your body into the expression. Here are some negative body metaphors:
“Get off my back”, That’s a pain in the ass”, You make me sick, I can’t stand that, I don’t want to hear it, That gives me a headache, That’s to die for, I can’t handle that, That pisses me off, etc. All these mindless expressions can lead to injury, accident, or illness. They all mean in effect that you don’t like something, but instead of simply stating your preference or dislike in a positive way you bring your body into the equation.
Habitual usage of negative body metaphors can lead to self-fulfilling prophecy and you may develop symptoms of what you are literally saying. You might say your body is much like a 3 year old child who hasn’t yet developed language sophistication. Tell the little toddler that he makes you sick and he interprets that as his presence causes you physical illness. In reality you are disapproving of his behavior but he takes you literally. And so does your body.
There’s much more on the subject of right speech in my Fabulously Fit For-ever book in chapter 7, “Preventing and Healing Injuries”. Here are 4 steps I’ve found helpful in healing injuries:
- Take responsibility by not blaming someone or something else. What part did you play in the injury? You did it, you are experiencing it, no one else. How did you create this situation for yourself.
- By paying attention to what you say and the words you use, find the negative body metaphor associated with the injury.
- Begin to restructure your speech by substituting positive affirmations or power phrases for negative body metaphors.
- Have a healing dream, where you be-come lucid, take control, behave exceptionally, and heal.
So if you want to circumvent unnecessary suffering, clean up your speech, When you catch yourself speaking negatively, simply say “erase that” and re-phrase your vocalizations in a positive way, one that doesn’t store negative energy in your body.
But everyone has bad days, even me. Yesterday, I experience negativity toward me and reacted in a negative way myself. Feeling a little upset later in the day and watching some disturbing television be-fore bed, I fell into a deep sleep around midnight. After several hours I recall incidents from a dream I had in which I knew I was dreaming. The details are a bit sketchy now, since I didn’t get up at 4 am and write it down, but I still remember the main details. I was in this unusual place where energy was streaming in from the skies and people were trapped there, being scared and persecuted by frightening monsters.
One thing about dreams I’ve learned from being lucid is that when you focus on the elements of a dream they can change, so as a monster pursued me, I chanted “Om” (a mantra symbolizing the sound of creation). I remember chanting very loud and deeply resonant, and as I did the monsters subsided and changed into friendly beings, helping not frightening the residents of this strange land. So I saved everybody there including myself as I continued to chant and woke up saying my mantra “Namu Amida Butsu” (a longer version of the “Nembutsu” described by Ken O’Neill in his article). I put on my Mind Muscle Machine glasses and headphones and continued to repeat my mantra as I did a half hour program with the machine. Now fully awake I felt great and yesterday’s negative events were far away. This dream was telling me something , a message to restore my faith in the fact that I can change things by what I say. So can you.
