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Transcript

Measure Words Before Saying Them · Infinitely Precious

• 0:00
  Intro: Welcome to the Infinitely Precious podcast produced by Infinitely Precious LLC. Your host is James Henry. Remember, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are.
• 0:12
  James: Hello, beloved. I'm James Henry, and today, I wanted to talk to you about how we engage in life every day. I'm not saying you don't know how to do it. I'm not saying I even know how to do it. However, when I'm thinking about how I engage in relationship in the world around me, how I embody the relationship that I believe that, is given to us divinely, then I begin to think about the ways that I speak to other people and how I measure what it is I will say to other people, not just the things that might in the moment make me feel good, especially when I am responding to someone who has said something that, I perceive as a confrontation to me, oftentimes in those moments, I want to have a quick and flippant remark, in response that helps me to win in that connective moment.
• 1:28
  There is no winning and losing in those moments. Perhaps there is losing. There's no winning in those moments though when when one baits each other's reactivity back and forth. The only winning is to stop and actually see each other for what we are. The gifts that we already are, each of us infinitely precious, unconditionally loved as the gift we already are.
• 1:58
  So I I have tried to embody 3 questions, try to live into 3 questions, that I ask myself before I speak. I've I've talked about this before. They're not my questions. They belong to a larger world. I think that they, have an origin in the Buddhist tradition.
• 2:23
  You certainly can do that searching out on yourself if you want to know where they come from. But the questions are this, before you say something to someone, you ask first, is it true? Is it really true? That's that's really an important question to ask. I think it would shut down most political rhetoric these days.
• 2:52
  It it would because most of what we say is spin. And spin isn't truth. It's a way of presenting a fact as something perhaps other than what it really is. So the first question is, is it is it true? And if it isn't, you stop.
• 3:12
  You don't say it. You don't say it. If it passes that measure though about truth, is it really necessary to say? That's the second question. Is it really necessary for you to say this thing?
• 3:30
  It, it may feel in that moment that it is true, and therefore, it is necessary to say that in the moment, because you want to get that word in there. So it may feel necessary, but is it is it truly necessary from any kind of point of view? Can you truly feel that what you're about to say is is really something the other person needs to hear? That's the measure of necessary. And if it turns out to be both true and necessary, the final measure is, is it kind?
• 4:21
  Is it kind? And if it's not, does it matter if it's true and necessary? If it's unkind, is there any reason really to speak it aloud? If those become the measures of the way we speak to one another, truth, necessity, and kindness. Imagine the change of the flavor of the conversations we have with one another.
• 4:58
  Imagine how many fewer posts would be on, in any of our social media feeds. Imagine how the connections you feel to yourself and to those around you would change. Think about the things you say to yourself. This isn't just about relationships to others. When we use self talk, oftentimes it's negative self talk as regards our own actions and engagement with the world.
• 5:39
  Is what we have to say to ourself true? Is it necessary and is it kind? Measure the way you interact with the world, the way you interact with yourself by these measures, truth, necessity, kindness. And it doesn't mean every single time you'll be successful. This is not another opportunity for you to beat yourself up.
• 6:12
  If you make a mistake, if you skip any of those questions, if you're just speaking to the moment in whatever snark wants to come out of your mouth, don't, exacerbate that by then turning around and saying ugly things to yourself about how you failed in that moment. You failed. It's part of being human. Actually, I learn more from my failures oftentimes than I do from my successes, so I failed. Don't compound the failure by turning it back on yourself.
• 6:50
  Be gentle and kind with yourself, kind enough to say, whoops. I failed that time. And if you can immediately speak a truth back into that moment, a truth like, I apologize, those words were said in haste without thought. Now usually when we've said something, it's too late. It is too late.
• 7:18
  You can't just unmake the words you said. However, you can learn from them and try not to do that again, and try to measure the next thing you say by its truth, necessity, and kindness. I'm imagining a different kind of world. Maybe it's a world that you don't really want to be a part of or that you think is purely some kind of, Shangri La, some oasis that does not exist in the world. But I think it's worth trying.
• 7:53
  For me, it is worth engagement and the action it is to try, and I think the same is probably true for you. On the side of optimism, of hope, of trying, of making it your intention to be thoughtful in all of your interactions with yourself, with others, all around you all the time. And, perhaps when you can't say things that are true, necessary, or kind, you should say nothing at all. Just a thought for this week. It's a thought as much for me as it is for anybody else, so I thought I would share it with you.
• 8:41
  As you go from this moment, I encourage you to remember you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are. So live into that, be that, and I will be back to share a word at some other time. See you next Tuesday at noon, all things being equal.