E39 | Why It's Important to Understand the Power of Your Words

Welcome back, listeners! In today's enlightening episode, we're diving deep into the transformative power of language and how our words shape our reality. 

Join us as we explore why it's crucial to acknowledge and intentionally use the language that empowers us.

Moving beyond the idea of mere respectful speech to understanding how our words construct the very architecture of our future, we discuss how phrases and words, even something as simple as "yeah" versus "yes," reflect our confidence and conviction, or lack thereof.

We look at the subtleties of language, revealing how seemingly innocuous words can undermine our intentions and self-image. 

We provide practical tips on becoming more aware of our language choices. Whether it's catching diminishing words in emails or consciously choosing affirming words in conversations, these steps can build trust, confidence, and clarity in both personal and professional settings.

Getting to Unstuck is a live podcast with Christal Duncan, Colin Kingsmill, and Carol Vickers from Whole Human Coaching. Find out more about us and the people we work with at https://wholehumancoaching.com

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Transcript

Christal Duncan: [00:00:00] Good morning, hello, hi, happy Tuesday to you all. Welcome to the show today. Well, team, we have been having some fantastic conversations, but before we get into that, let's talk a little bit about what we have been talking about in the past. So if you are here for the first time, or you're just tuning in, or you are So if you've been here for a good time and a long time, as part of our, as part of our lives you'll know that we we've been really digging into the power of, in particular, the power of story and the power of words and, and [00:01:00] also just drawing a line in the sand on ourselves and saying, you know, let's say the thing, let's change the story.

And today, it's really about, let's not be scared to acknowledge and change or lean into how important, how powerful our language is. The power of our words. And this is something, this is something that I don't hear a lot of people talking about. To be honest I think that there's just, we, when we think of like language, language, I think of like a teacher in the hallway, someone got in trouble in grade seven for swearing and they, they're, the teacher's calling them, watch your language.

We think about language as being, whether it's respectful language or not, which is also true, but we, we don't very often talk about what language creates. 

Carol Vickers: Right. 

Christal Duncan: And, and how, how it builds. It's, it's actually it's an architectural [00:02:00] system. And so let's talk about that. 

Carol Vickers: Yeah. So it is, it is a structure.

And when you observe a little one learning language, those pieces that they begin to put together, the sounds that they initially put together that begin to echo and sound like something to us. I mean, how many of us have seen the child that we think is the most brilliant and they're saying something, it's like, can you hear that?

That's a fully formed word. Probably not, because the sounds are the first things that we make. But once we begin to make words, we immediately start to frame and structure our whole word, world, based around them. Because those words actually create our world. And that's the whole principle of Appreciative Inquiry, the constructionist principle, is that our words create our world.

And when we look at it, the first place where we notice that, Is, in our language, with ourselves. Yeah. [00:03:00] What, what's our self talk? How do we describe who we are to ourselves? And I think that's a piece that we'd love to dig into a little bit, about the power of that. Because Colin, you were sharing that what you heard this weekend, someone talking about themselves.

Colin Kingsmill: Someone talking about themselves in a, in a highly professional context and the language was so self limiting, 

Almost to the point of, of derogatory, right? And I don't think that person even noticed what they were saying to themselves and what they were actually saying to me. Right. And it was. It was very self limiting, but it was also the selection of words is so important.

So this individual was using, you know, the conditional a lot, could, maybe, should. So, so creating uncertainty around where the conversation was going and where his plans were going and [00:04:00] where where where they were really going to land. So. I said, I said, you know, you know, you know that words create your reality, the story you are telling yourself is something that, that, like Crystal said, the, is the architecture of your future, right?

You're building a house, and you spoke about structure a minute ago, Carol and, and you see it so often in things, even like the word yes, right? So often I hear, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that's, that is telling yourself a story that you're not confident about it, that it isn't a yes, that it isn't going to be a yes.

Carol Vickers: So I'm going to be very conscious of that currently, Colin, because I'm guilty of that. I'm going to become very conscious of that now. 

Colin Kingsmill: I'm a big what's the word? I'm a big yes, police, but yes, I'm a yes cop. Because I think when somebody says something [00:05:00] like, yeah. They're not convinced. 

Christal Duncan: Oh, that is interesting.

That's fine, 

Colin Kingsmill: right? That's totally fine if you're not convinced. But that's the story you're telling yourself. 

Christal Duncan: You know another word that, oh, sorry, go ahead, Carol. 

Carol Vickers: Well, I was, well, I was just going to say that's the acuity we need to bring in. Yes. Is our listening. Because as you said that, I realize how often I say yeah, when I'm agreeing with somebody, or when I think I'm agreeing with somebody.

But I hadn't considered it that way, so I am very conscious of that right now. I mean, 

Colin Kingsmill: we could have a conversation about that actually, I, if that's just my sort of mental perversion that 

Carol Vickers: It's very, I trust, I trust your ability to observe and draw conclusions, Colin. Crystal, I cut you off. 

Christal Duncan: No, no, I cut you off.

A couple things. First of all, one of the words in English That is, and we're, we're speaking in English, so we're using our English context here just to, and we're all English, as far as I know, for English first language [00:06:00] speakers. One of the words that is I feel like it's a strong structural word.

People may. Your it's it's really can it's really a tricky one is the word just so just puts a condition on something Instead of saying I I want I want to ask a question or I have a question I just have one question and it's diminishing so I catch it in my emails I find it much easier to do that in my emails if I'm if I'm requesting something Everything from requesting payments for something to clarity I will go back through and I, and I will be like, is, have I done any diminishing things here?

Because what is interesting is, we maybe have grown up systemically thinking that to be to be assertive is to be aggressive, but it's not true. To be assertive actually builds trust in other people and gives other people [00:07:00] confidence in your choices. You show that you're confident in your decisions and you are going to confidently make them.

Move forward in something but just is a word that we have been conditioned, especially I think if to be totally honest, I think that that is something that people that are cis gendered female, we have been conditioned to do that a lot. It's to, it's to be diminutive and to try to soften things if we have questions and to, you know, I hope I'm being clear on this, but.

Carol Vickers: You're absolutely right. And now we're going to be the word police for each other today because another way that we do it is we say, I think, before we say what we really mean. And that way we already allow ourselves to draw back from is, Oh no, that was just a thought. I'm not committed to that. You don't have to commit to it.

Christal Duncan: Yeah. Isn't that 

Colin Kingsmill: interesting? There's another good one that we all use that gets used a lot, and that's hope. Right? [00:08:00] Because hope, hope is fear in disguise, right? So, so you've, you've, it's so important to get to the root of what you are truly trying to express or not express, I guess. Yes. Sorry, Carol, go ahead.

Oh, no, 

Carol Vickers: I was, I was about to challenge you on that because I think that hope is also something in context that we need as human beings, that we don't have the ability to see something and have hope for something. We're kind of messed up. Sure. 

Colin Kingsmill: Yeah, absolutely. It lives in that same family as optimism and things like that.

I think you're right. But I think hope as a verb is, is great, right? You know, to, to be hopeful for the future, but in the day to day use, it can often hide something else. I think, 

Christal Duncan: I think hope can be also a bit of a [00:09:00] gaslighting phrase. Like, I hope you understand what I'm saying. I hope this is clear to you.

Colin Kingsmill: Yeah. As if it's not for you, it's for 

Christal Duncan: a problem, right? It can be a manipulative word. 

Carol Vickers: It can. Ooh, something interesting is happening just in our conversation here is that we have, each of us have become really conscious of the words that we're speaking before we speak them. Which is not a bad way to take inventory.

To become aware of how we speak, and it takes something, and I know that Colin, you may not be comfortable with it, but I record myself a lot when I'm teaching, and I have forced myself to watch how it is that I speak when I am teaching. Because I teach coach training and so I'm quite aware of what I sound like and I think all of us are recorded often in what we do.

So that is when we become really [00:10:00] aware of how, what we say and so here we are today being live and no way to edit. Well, at least in the immediate. So it is fascinating, isn't it, once we become aware of those words. It is what we say to ourselves without, when it's not out loud, that worries me. And I'll tell you why.

I, I have two amazing grandchildren, and my eldest grandson, was very, very hard on himself when he was a little bit younger. And he would often call himself stupid. Oh, I'm so stupid. Oh, I'm so dumb. And I know that he would say some of that out loud to me, but I know there was a lot more that was happening internally.

And we played this game for a lot of time when we were together, that if he said something like that, or I said something like that about myself, we would turn it around and we'd say, Oh, I'm such a silly goose. And we made fun of it to [00:11:00] bring lightness to it and to bring some tender gentleness to it. 

Christal Duncan: Yeah.

Carol Vickers: So as we are talking today, what I'm inviting our listeners to is to consider listening, not just to the external. Well, what are you saying inside? Yeah, 

Christal Duncan: yeah. One of the words that I hear people use and that, I mean, we use a lot here too in conversations, in particular when we're, when we, the three of us We still use it too in if we're talking about things that We want to get done accomplished inside of whole human coaching.

We will use words as humans. We use we need we should We have to There there is and if you think about If words could carry an energy, which I believe they do because everything is connected, we we belong to each other. So if words carry an energy, if you say I need [00:12:00] to do something, that is a, when, when I say that I feel myself constrict.

I feel like, like tension in here. I feel like compelling and there's a question of if I need to do it, am I good enough to do it? If I need to do it, is it really something that I'm, I'm drawn to? And don't get me wrong, we, yes, we do need to make dinner for, or like things like that. But when, when we use that kind of language, And this is, this is where I hear people using it or clients using it in coaching conversations when they'll be like, I need to change this about myself.

Like, have you not heard that people say that I really need to change that. And then they, because they really want to emphasize how bad they think it is. I really need to change it. And, and so one of the first things that I love to ask them is, can we, can we rephrase that first? Let's, let's hold that with some curiosity and let's.

Try some different language around that. I, I want to, [00:13:00] I am changing. I, you know what I mean? Like that's more inviting because there's a difference between What we've been taught is motivation and motivation is pushing against and pushing against and pushing against but inspiration draws Inspiration is enigmatic and it pulls us forward and that we create that with our language as well and 

Colin Kingsmill: and words like like need in It's interesting because if you need to make dinner, that's one thing, but this idea of needing to change means that's telling a story as well, right?

That's saying that I'm not complete already, or I'm not perfection, you know in this in this space time body that I'm, that I'm in. So again, you're telling yourself a story that you're supposed to be there, but you're here. So I've got to, you know, 

Carol Vickers: there's a gap, 

Colin Kingsmill: fix the gap. That, and isn't that, isn't that the sort of structural problem that we've got in [00:14:00] our world today?

This, I have, I'm here and I have to go there, right? Whether it's growth or 10X or. Like I'm 

Christal Duncan: not whole, essentially. Exactly. I'm not 

Colin Kingsmill: whole. Exactly. 

Carol Vickers: Yes. 

Colin Kingsmill: Exactly. 

Carol Vickers: And that is where we get agreement. Because that's the other piece that happens when we speak, not just internally, but we start to speak externally, is we begin to look for evidence of it.

And sure enough, those, the world will provide evidence when we are not speaking clearly about what we want. It's a social agreement about how we are together. And so the invitation is always to be considering what we are building with our language. which is a different way of looking at how we construct our words.

If we began today, each of us and everyone who's listening, to begin a story which is constructing something that we would like to move [00:15:00] towards, what would we describe it? How differently would we describe what we're doing today? 

Colin Kingsmill: Well, I think the house analogy is such a great one, right? Because Crystal spoke about architecture and you spoke about structure and you also just spoke about building.

I mean, what's, what is the house that you want to design that you are going to live in, right? From a, from a communication perspective, you know, is it clean and white or, or, you know no, no. No race reference there. I just meant like a nice clean house. Is it clean? Is it well structured? Does it have a foundation?

What does it look like? Is it welcoming? Is it open? Is, you know, is it, is it, what is it, right? Oh, yeah. Is it 

Carol Vickers: colorful? Do things splash and roar and, you know. 

Colin Kingsmill: That's funny. Oh, I love that. Is it complicated inside? What do the rooms look like? How do [00:16:00] you get around? That's a perfect metaphor actually for language and stories in life.

Carol Vickers: What 

Colin Kingsmill: kind of house do you want to build? Maybe that's another episode. So we should leave our listeners with some tips, some ideas on how do you how do you make sure that your words are creating that architecture that are that are they're building that that house with a robust foundation with hopefully with open doors and windows and places for people to come in and yeah.

Carol Vickers: Well, the first thing I was always taught around communication is if someone is not understanding me. It's not their fault. It is in how I am speaking and clarity that I bring to my communication. So that is the first place to look. If there are misunderstandings or miscommunications, as you said, Colin, then let's look internally first.

How am I speaking? 

Christal Duncan: Yeah. 

Carol Vickers: Was I clear? Was I using diminutives? Did I say, I think, or we should, or [00:17:00] was I actually stating what I needed to say to get the communication across? Yeah. 

Christal Duncan: I would invite people to dial it back to step outside of, of words and language and start with a question of, are you offering yourself the opportunity to be more mindful from the get go?

So do you take, I mean, everybody here knows if you, you know me, you know, I'm a meditator. And I know as, as you both are as well and people can be mindful in whatever way I'm not here to, not here to try to preach to the converted. But there is an element of mindfulness that is part of.

Reclaiming. When we want to be whole. So, and what I, what I mean when I say that is by giving yourself a couple moments, whether it's the start of your day in the middle of your day to just be, [00:18:00] then you start to allow yourself to disentangle from what you are. You think you are and to be a be a little bit more objective and then it's it gets easier and easier.

I promise you this is the money back guarantee about mindfulness. It gets easier and easier to recognize things that you want to change and it also gives you the ability to be lighter with yourself about it. Meaning not be heavy handed with yourself but be like, oh isn't that interesting? So for example, We talked in the last episode or two episodes about tools that we use to change the story.

I think it was our last episode note, note to listener, don't forget that was a fantastic episode. We talk about one of the tools that I use is bird songs. Okay. I literally like Google birdsong, and I use, I listen to birdsong music on birdsong voices birds on YouTube or outside and sometimes I just sit for a couple of minutes and I just [00:19:00] allow that sound and what it does, it lifts me out of what I, what I think I am, if that, I'm really not trying to be too esoteric here, but, and so then it gets easier to recognize when I do use language like that on myself in particular because we, we want to, we want to recognize it in ourselves first.

Yes. 

Carol Vickers: Ooh, I love that. So the, the key tip here then is to bring that sense of pause or mindfulness initially At the beginning of the day, or when you have a moment of transition, and then to recognize what it is that's happening internally, so that the external, which is what we're speaking about here, becomes clearer and more reflective of who we want to be.

Is that accurate? 

Christal Duncan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, and, I mean, if you're, if you're a list, if you're a list maker, make a note if you've ever done any kind [00:20:00] of like, you know, sometimes people use food diaries or whatever. If, if you're someone that's like, oh, that's interesting that I said I need to do that and just make a tick.

On a piece of paper or whatever, like do whatever is going to serve you. But the point is, is that the first thing that you have available is to come back to yourself and recognize that you are whole and that, and when you work, when you see and you live and you speak and you be from a place of being whole, then.

You start to recognize, oh, ah, okay, I can, I can use a different word there. I can change how I see that. I, I, I am complete. I don't need to judge myself. I, I, I don't have to feel the, the heavy weight around it. I can just recognize it and I can be curious about it. Mm-Hmm. , I think words I could use that would actually shape my world.

Colin Kingsmill: Right. I always know what time it is. 'cause my dog is, is [00:21:00] nipping at me. I would only add to, to what you just said, crystal. The, the, the opposite side of that, not the opposite side, but the re reflective side of that is intentionality. 

Carol Vickers: Yeah. Right. 

Colin Kingsmill: So if you can stop and be mindful and add intention to the words that you're saying, for example, you might say to yourself, I need to be, or I'm trying to be more productive, right?

In the workspace. What if you shifted that to, I am becoming more and more productive every day, right? That that tells you a different story. And I think the outcome might be quite different. 

Carol Vickers: So let's invite an experiment, and we can play along, and we'll bring it up next time, is what are the words that you have begun to notice?

That you are using in your everyday language, and what would you like to change them to? So we'll do a little inventory. We'll play this game today. [00:22:00] When we hear our self talk, what do we hear? And what could we shift it to that might be more powerful? Oh, are we playing it now? Like, yeah, okay, as of this, as of this moment, Colin, for the next 24 

Colin Kingsmill: hours, so the answer for me would be limitations of, of language that I use that I'm discovering now, thanks to a couple of readings that we've been doing all, all of us that my language has often sometimes been limited.

Or self limiting. Whereas in the past it wasn't. There were times when I was much, much more open about things like money or abundance or success or entrepreneurship. And I think it might be, maybe it's the pandemic that kind of closed that for me. And now I feel like, oh, wait just a second. Those are holding me back and holding me down and they're, they're not, [00:23:00] they're not serving me.

So yeah, limited, limit, limitation words and, and phrases and thoughts. So, 

Christal Duncan: a limiting phrase that I, now that as you, thank you for asking that, Carol, that I use is I will say, I'm not sure. And while that may be true in the moment I do use it, Also against myself. Like, I'm not sure how to make this work, or I'm not sure how to solve this problem, or I'm not sure what I need to do here.

You know what? And so I, I recognize that in as one of my yes. Self phrases. 

Carol Vickers: One of mine is I have to make that work or I have to make it work. Mm. So I noticed that I put a lot of pressure on myself when, oh, I have to get that done. Yeah. So that language, if I have to Mm-Hmm. . Not inviting. It's not encouraging.

It's a lot of pressure. [00:24:00] Yeah. So, we'll listen for that today, we'll touch base together tomorrow, and then we'll let our listeners know. 

Christal Duncan: Yeah. Well, and speaking of not a lot of pressure, as we wrap up, we we believe that you're here for a reason, and that you've stuck around this long, and we're just glad that you're here.

That's it. If you enjoyed the show, feel free to share it and share it out. Give us a rating. That's always fantastic. Anywhere that you listen to podcasts. Leave us a comment and if you have a topic that you would like us to talk about something that is very pertinent for you, we welcome it. Feel free to comment or send us a message over at Whole Human Coaching and you can find out more about us and our work and about our upcoming free workshops and different things that we have coming down the pipeline@wholehumancoaching.com.

Thanks for joining us. Have a 

Colin Kingsmill: great day. Have a lovely day. Bye-Bye.