Think Before You Speak – 5 Tips

“Words have weight. They carry energy and give language its potential to heal or hurt.”

— Madison Taylor

Do you ever wonder like me, where was my head when I said that?  The other night our son, Theo and his bride-to-be, Sarah, were over for dinner. At the end of the meal, as I was boiling water for tea in my electric kettle, I said to my husband, Gus, “Honey, just a reminder, when you use this kettle be sure it’s far away from the cabinets.” (I’ll admit I had an edge to my voice.)

“I always am careful with that.”

“I’m mentioning it because the other day when you were boiling water for me, I saw the steam bathing the cabinets.”

“Well it wasn’t me doing it,” he answered defensively.

Back and forth we went. I saw Sarah get quiet and duck her head to avoid our unnecessary line of fire. Her expression said it all to me. Awkward! Oh, Gail, you didn’t think before you spoke!

By the time Sarah and Theo left it was late, and I knew better than to broach the disagreement then. The next morning I kissed Gus’s cheek and said, “Sorry about last night.”

Kindly he said, “It would have been fine if you’d said it to me privately, but you embarrassed me saying it in front of Sarah.”

In the past I would have beaten myself up for being inconsiderate, but because I’ve been working on showing more empathy to myself I thought, it’s OK Gail, you weren’t thinking of the consequences of your words. You’ll do better next time.

And the crazy thing is, I consciously censor my thoughts before they leave my lips, yet I still at times blurt unnecessary or insensitive words.

How about you. Can you relate?

Psychologists say that it’s common to speak without thinking to our loved ones. One of the benefits of long-term relationships is feeling we can just be our full self. We assume they’ll understand where we’re coming from and not be offended. Not true!

Five Tips for Speaking With More Care

1.      Include the other in your mind before you speak – usually when we speak we’re just thinking of our own feelings and perspective. Embrace the other’s feelings and point of view and consider them as important as your own. When we regard others with more care, it guides us in speaking with more care.

2.      Ask yourself, Will this help or hurt?  Reflect on what you’re about to say. Often our brain is spinning thoughts and our words just blurt out without considering their impact. Slow yourself down before you speak and ask this question as your own friendly inner censor.

3.      Ask yourself, Is what I’m about to say meaningful or relevant to the other person?  If not don’t say it. This is particularly relevant with texting. Often I delete whole statements before I send them realizing its unnecessary information for the other.

4.      Become the observer of your speech. Make it a habit of noticing what you say and how it impacts others. We have the power to manage our thoughts and speech to have a positive impact on others and our relationship with them.

5.      Include affirmations in your conversations. Create positive feelings in your relationships by noticing the good stuff you see in or feel about the person and tell them. When my husband vulnerably told me I embarrassed him, I said, “Thank you honey for being so real and open with me. I am so blessed to have you as my husband.” My affirmation added back some good energy to our relationship.

It’s such a small thing to pause a moment to consider how your words will be received. And it’s such a big thing to say less and care more! Wishing you a wonderful month of positive communicating and connecting!

The Affirming Way of Life: See the Good, Speak the Good, Spread the Good is available at Amazon. May it support you in living your best most fulfilling life!

Be Your Own Cheerleader: Dealing with Negative Self-Talk

I am so guilty of beating myself up needlessly with negative self-talk. In my book, The Affirming Way of Life: See the Good, Speak the Good, Spread the Good, I wrote about my negative self-talk habit in the past tense. But, the slow-down of forward movement in my life, thanks to Covid-19, has brought my old, familiar, undermining voice back.

I first became aware of her (my negative voice) again, during a conversation with a friend who’s a life coach.

My Negative Self-Talk

Jamie was telling me a story about coaching someone with a self-defeatist attitude and it was as if my phone alarm was chiming. “I can’t believe you just said that! Gus and I do puzzles after dinner every night. When I’m working on a section that’s hard, I say things like, ’The piece must be missing. I can’t do this, it’s too hard!’’

“How could you reframe that statement?” she asked.

I knew what she was getting at. I had available to me broader, more positive ways of looking at this minor difficulty. “I could say something like, ‘Hang in there. You eventually always connect the pieces.’”

“How does that statement feel compared to the other?”

“Empowered.” Yes. I could see how the words I say to myself could fuel or fizzle my power.

Feeling more discouraged than usual, my ears were perked to listen for any other self-defeatist talk.

A few days later, I began researching bloggers who wrote about similar subjects to me. I hoped to find someone with a large following who might invite me to be a guest blogger. The ones that appealed to me had from 80,000-100,000 followers.

OMG! To have that many followers! They’re in a different universe than me.

And there she was. My old comparing-self-to-others voice. I was intimidated by the disparity between their number of followers and mine, and went right to putting myself down. So mean of me!

So…

Take a Positive Action

In a kind, compassionate voice that I’d offer anyone else, I say to myself, “I am so sorry, Gailie, for speaking to you that way. You are hard-working and capable, you’ve accomplished many other goals, and you will do this, too!”

Through years of living with my nasty self-talk voice, I’ve developed my own inner cheerleader to soothe and uplift myself. I know she may sound very rah rah, but isn’t that what cheerleaders do?

The way my process works, once I have awareness, I instinctively work at shifting my perspective. Sometimes encouraging self-talk is all I need to make the inner change, but often I turn to my inner circle of people who help me see things from a larger more positive perspective.

Shift Your Point of View

Thanks to Covid-19 (I know it’s hard to imagine it has some silver linings), my husband, Gus and I have dinner and talk every night on our deck taking in the beauty of the pines, our silver maple, and the slowly setting sun lighting up our grass a neon green. Sipping chilled sauvignon blanc I say,

“Honey, you know that ‘I’ll never find the puzzle piece’ thing I say every night, well today I noticed that attitude is spreading. I found two bloggers who I’d like to reach out to as a guest blogger, but they have something like 100,000 followers. No way they’d be interested in me.”

“The sky is falling!”

“Aw, come on. I don’t catastrophize like I used to.”

“How long have those bloggers been at it?”

I grabbed my iphone and googled their histories. “One has been at it for thirteen years and the other ten.”

“See! Developing a following takes time. It’s like expecting a fifth grader to write a college thesis. Give yourself a break and be patient, Gailie. You’ll get there.”

Gus gave me perspective, and I could have kissed his feet. I felt all kinds of things: permission to be a beginner, undeserving of self-putdowns, reigning in of my expectations of my number of blog readers. And if Gussie didn’t help me see the bigger picture, I would have called my sister or my closest friend.

Your Takeaways

• Listen to the things you say to yourself. If you catch yourself speaking negatively, know that it is in your power to change the message.

• Take a positive action and respond to your negative self-talk in a kind, compassionate voice. Encourage yourself and remind yourself of past successes as I did. Become your own cheerleader!

• Shift to a broader more positive perspective by speaking to someone you can rely on for that, or by self-reflection or journaling. Another possibility is to turn to a good book, such as Infinite Possibilities by Michael Dooley.

• Develop an affirmation to repeat each time you encounter the situation that gave rise to the negative self-talk. With puzzles I now say: Hang in there, in time you always connect the pieces.” With blogging I say: Be patient. Developing a following takes time. You’re making a difference person by person.” I really repeat these phrases to myself and feel much more confident.

Why not let these Covid-19 times be an impetus to shift your self-talk to the positive side!

If you like what you read here, check out my award-winning book available on Amazon that can help you have more fulfilling connections with everyone in your life:

The Affirming Way of Life: See the Good, Speak the Good, Spread the Good

Write Gratitude Letters to Boost Your Happiness

The way you came into my life at the two crossroads of my work-life, always has made me feel it was bershert, from God. Such an influence you’ve had on the course of my life! First, you got me the interview that launched my 38-year teaching career. There I got to make a difference in so many lives and established such deep, meaningful relationships. Then with another nudge from the Universe, I was reunited with you after a 30-year hiatus, and you guided me through all the stages of publishing to publish my dream-fulfilling book!...I am grateful and feel blessed beyond blessed for your precious friendship.

Pretty nice thing to receive, right?

The Assignment

This is an excerpt from a letter I recently wrote to a friend as part of an assignment I had from an online course. We were to choose one of the new habits (called rewirements) that we were willing to practice for four weeks in the hope of developing a long-term habit. I chose to write gratitude letters because I love to express my heart to others and was curious if writing the letters would indeed make me feel happier as the research suggests.

Oh, and an important piece of the assignment is the letter must be personally delivered then read. Now that can feel awkward, and during these Covid-19 times, can be especially difficult because we are now just starting to visit with people, 6 feet apart, of course. So most of my letters I’ve read via Zoom or FaceTime, then emailed them as a precious keepsake.

I was first intrigued with the research when I was writing a chapter on appreciative words for my book, The Affirming Way of Life: See the Good, Speak the Good, Spread the Good. Dr. Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, found that expressing gratitude to someone who has made a big difference in your life, increased the happiness of participants in his study more than any other intervention, with benefits lasting up to a month. Powerful!

Benefits to the Letter Writer and the Recipient

I can’t tell you yet, if the happy feeling lasts for a month, but I can tell you all the good writing and sharing the letters has brought to me and the recipients of the letters. For me, reflecting on the positive ways other dear people have impacted my life shows me how loved and supported I’ve been.

1. Too often we focus on what’s missing or wrong in our life, but a gratitude letter shifts our attention to the blessings we’ve been graced with. In my chapter on appreciative words, I talk about the grateful pause. I discovered this technique as I was composing a thank you letter to a woman who was kindly looking in on my ill father.

“Expressing appreciation allowed me to take a grateful pause and savor the comfort Carol brought to me and my family. Though my words were intended to make her feel loved, being appreciative reminded me of how loved and blessed I was. Expressing my appreciation was a gift for both of us. ”

2. So far, I’ve written seven letters. As a whole, they show me how much I’ve grown. The following is from multiple letters:

“I came to you feeling shame and disconnected from my communities. Bit by bit you helped me trust myself and become a deeply happy person…You showed me I had a message that was valued…You saw the best in me and helped me to see it too…Your faith in me has made all the difference in me pursuing my dream, and using my talents to make a difference in the world…You inspired me with four practices that bring me great peace and joy that I share with others.”

I say to myself, you’ve come a long way baby. And I know it’s because as the Beatles sing, I get by with a little (a lot of) help from my friends.

   3. Probably the thing I love most about these gratitude letters is the closeness it makes me feel to the people who’ve most deeply touched my life. I would say I spent about 30 minutes writing each letter. As I reflected on the person’s contributions to my life, my heart swelled with love for him or her. I imagine my letters creating golden webs of connection between myself and my recipients. Reading the letters were teary, joyful, truly uplifting moments for both of us.  I wrote down some of the responses to inspire you to write your own letters.

“Oy vey, I don’t think I will ever feel sad or lonely again…I will always cherish your letter. Your words so truly describe our friendship and how we mutually love and care for one another. I will read your letter often when I am down, when I feel alone, when I need your comforting thoughts…I am so touched you took the time to write this letter. This is what’s important in life. I treasure you.”

And when I asked my husband, Gus, the first letter recipient, how he liked the letter he said, “I’d like to frame it.” Done!

Your Takeaways

• Take a grateful pause and make a list of people who’ve made a big difference in your life.

• Commit to writing one hearfelt letter a week. Explain how he or she has touched your life and why he or she is meaningful to you.  I promise you the joy you will feel will be the best moments you experience in the week.

• Call, visit, FaceTime, or Zoom the person and read him or her your letter. Then give them a copy in person or via email.

• Keep a copy of each letter for yourself. Reflect on your blessings and personal growth as you reread your letters.

• Savor the closeness you are nurturing with those who’ve touched your life.

The subtitle of my book encapsulates the impact of gratitude letters.

When we SEE THE GOOD in our own life because of our relationships,

and we SPEAK THE GOOD by writing gratitude letters and sharing them,

WE SPREAD THE GOOD energy to our relationships and to the larger world!

Why not write a gratitude letter today?!