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Audio Journal: Your Words Can Hurt or Heal · The Daily Writer

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: One of the dangers of being a writer is that we can use our words to cut down people pretty easily.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you're like me, probably as a kid, you got in trouble for being a smart aleck, sometimes being a little sarcastic, maybe saying things that were inappropriate.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe as an adult, like me, at times you've gotten into trouble for sending off a perfectly worded sarcastic email to someone that was designed to make them feel bad or to cut them down to size a little bit.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've put up some social media posts at times that were designed to be sarcastic, but they came across the wrong way.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe in conversations with people or in text messages or wherever, your words have landed you in hot water with people.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's pretty easy to do when you love words, right?
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, most of us writers probably should have been attorneys because we we love to argue and we love words and we love the power of words.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: We love how words can tell stories, they can make people cry, they can spark our imaginations and do so many good things, but they can do a lot of harm as well.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I want to share a quick story about something that happened recently at my house where I narrowly escaped using my words in the wrong way.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I was doing dishes, and um my wife and my son came into the kitchen and we were just chit-chatting about some different stuff.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the other parties, I'm not gonna say who, obviously.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm not going to name the guilty person.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: They shall remain nameless.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Just in the course of a regular conversation, they got a little frustrated about something, and they said something that just struck me the wrong way.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you've had that happen before where somebody says something and it's not directed toward you, but it's kind of directed toward you, and for whatever reason it just strikes you exactly the wrong way.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you immediately get really mad about it.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm sure I'm not the only person this kind of thing has happened to before.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm standing there in the kitchen, and my mind is thinking about all the ways to defend myself against what this other family member had said and all the things that I wanted to say.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the more that I thought about it, just and this all happened in the span of probably just a few seconds.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know how it is, somebody says something in your mind immediately concocts this intricate, perfectly worded argument against the other person and so forth.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where my mind is going, but I didn't say anything because I knew that if I started to say something, then I would keep going on, and it would probably result in a huge argument or something like that.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I held my tongue.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we talked for a little, maybe 10 or 15 minutes longer, and um my wife and son went about their business.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I stood there finishing the dishes, and as I did that, I cooled off a little bit in my own heart.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now, mind you, I I didn't actually say anything bad, but I I felt it in my heart and in my mind.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to say something in my defense against you know the other person and so forth.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: But I didn't, and I'm so and I'm and I'm so glad that I did.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad that I didn't say anything.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because as I stood there doing the dishes with my hands in that soapy water, I began to realize that what the other person said was totally correct, and I didn't have a defense.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: What they said wasn't a big huge deal necessarily, but it was something that in the moment really set me off.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: But then as I thought about it a little while later, I thought, you know what, they're exactly right.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: They're exactly right in what they said.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, I had let my emotions get the best of me.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And increasingly, as I get older, I'm 46 years old.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of ashamed to admit this, but I feel like it's taken me most of my adult life to realize that my emotions are oftentimes lying to me.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: My emotions are not always correct.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe most of the time they're not correct.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I wish somebody would have told me this back when I was 20, 25, 30, it would have saved me a lot of heartache.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because so many times we let our emotions rule our whole lives.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: We feel upset about something, and then we we use our power of words to lash out, or to say something that cuts people down, or to defend ourselves when actually maybe we're guilty of something.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, this podcast is called Smart Business Writing.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm talking about here has nothing to do with writing or business, but it does have to do with being smart.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a big part of being smart is how we live our lives and our family relationships, how we treat people around us, and I think a huge part of that also is just self-awareness.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like it's really only in my 40s that I have begun to have a lot more understanding of this, in the sense of if I'm feeling angry and upset, maybe that emotion isn't telling me the truth.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm upset for whatever reason, but I don't need to be.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And my being upset or being irritable about something isn't justified.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's just an emotion I'm experiencing.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: But that emotion is not necessarily telling me the truth.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I think as writers, we don't really realize the power that our words have.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, words are the most powerful thing in the world.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: They really are.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: The pen is truly mightier than the sword, someone once said.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't recall who, off the top of my head.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'll have to Google that when I get back home.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: But it's absolutely true.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Our words are really, really powerful.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so thankful that in that moment with my family, I didn't lash out or say anything in anger or say words that were hurtful because they wouldn't have been justified at all.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I was irritated in that moment, I wasn't justified in feeling that way.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I held my tongue, and I'm so glad that I did.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I just want to encourage you and remind myself of the power of our words, and that in those moments where we're feeling irritable or upset or angry, whether it's in person with people or in social media or wherever, you know it's really good to hold our tongues and to cool off.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And our words are like a knife.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's like that Brian Adams song, cuts like a knife, right?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it's true, our words can cut like a knife if we wield them in the wrong way.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, our words can be really powerful, and they certainly are, but we've got to be very careful about how we wield that power.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I just wanted to share that story.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: I hope this encourages you to be careful about how you use your words and to make sure that that we're all using our words to inspire, to encourage, and to lift people up, and not to hurt people or make them feel bad or humiliate people, because it's so easy to do.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, just wanted to share that quick story, and I will see you in the next episode.