the weight of words

In this episode, I briefly discussed the power of words and being more careful with what you speak into existence. Words are a form of manifestation. 

Transcript

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Hey, how y'all doing? This is your girl Brianna, and this is the Divine Intervention Podcast, where I try my best to make space and then learn how to take up this space. And since the last episode, I've been in really deep reflection. And I guess that it's on my heart to speak about the power of words. And how my entire life I've kind of watched people be very willy-nilly with words. They say phrases they don't know the meaning to, they crack jokes, they essentially take for granted the meaning of words. And I guess this is on my heart because lately I've also been in a place of watching how I talk, what I say, what I speak over myself, being very careful with my words, mainly one, because it breaks my heart to know that my native tongue that my ancestors spoke that I don't know. And that breaks my heart because in what I've learned and like travel, but also getting to know people that speak different languages, is and I have a friend that studies linguistics. Shout out to her, she's amazing. She be putting me on all types of stuff, y'all. I love that I have friends that work in so many different areas because they give me insight. And yeah, but a lot of languages have things that it's either really hard to translate or it can't be translated. It's it's one of those things where it's like, if you know, you know. And the longer that I sit in my journey, it always breaks my heart that I don't know the language that my ancestors spoke. And it makes me think about how many lessons, how many sayings, how many phrases, how many descriptions that I don't quite have the words for, or that could have been handed down to me that wasn't because you know, colonization and all of those things. Um, and so English as a language in general, and what I'm learning from speaking to like other people is it's a very like I don't know if it's awkward language, but the wording and the way things are worded is just very different. So I know that in Spanish there are like different phrases that you use when you're speaking about something that you are in general versus something that you are temporarily. Um, so even with emotions, so saying things like I'm angry or I am sad or I am instead of saying I feel things like that that seem so minute or small when in reality words to me are a form of manifestation, it's a form of channeling an energy, of tapping into an energy of being. Words are a way of being, and I find myself, I've always been the type of person to be careful with my words because I like to convey how I feel effectively, but also sometimes it's hard for me to figure out how I feel, so I have to sit on it and really figure out exactly what it is that I'm trying to communicate. But lately I find myself, and I can give a personal example where somebody can compliment me. They could be like, oh girl, you doing this, you doing that, like, oh my gosh, you're so pretty, I love your outfit. And my response, y'all, is all thanks, I try. And at first I didn't see a problem with saying, like, oh thanks, I try, because in my head, I'm like, okay, I'm comp like, thank you. Like, I'm trying my best. When and it wasn't until I started being around people that would like challenge me and be like, no, you don't try, you do. Like you're doing. Like, if someone complimented you, that means they're acknowledging that you've already done the thing. So you're not trying, you're succeeding. And I guess that's a small example in my life of like words and how I try to be more careful with how I talk about things, how I talk about myself. Oh my gosh, the the self-talk is a really oh my goodness, being more careful with how I speak to myself, how I speak about myself, my relationship with myself, and challenging myself to review what I think about myself, how I view myself, and why do I look at myself like that? Like, do you look at you like that because you came to that conclusion, or did someone else tell you that that's what you are? And you were like, Okay, that seems like a pretty good assessment. I'm this I realized that for a long time I would say things like, oh, I'm shy, or I'm antisocial, or that oh, one I had really, really bad is I don't like people. Like I'm like, I don't really like being around people like that. And I had to sit and clock myself because for somebody that don't like being around people like that, why you keep signing up for stuff to be around people? Obviously, you do like people, you probably don't like past experiences where people have done things that you weren't particularly fond of, but that don't mean that you don't like people, and it may seem like something so small, but I think when I started to clock, even me saying those things, so now I I recently realized like I am very social, I do love being around people, I like talking to people, I love engaging with people, it gives me life, it gives me so much energy, but because I had so many past experiences where I felt heavy after engaging with people, my language and the way that I started to talk about it changed in a more negative way, and I realized that I was allowing more negative things to impact the way that I view life, and I've talked about this in a couple of recent episodes. Then looking at some of the good things, so I love my friends, I could be around my friends for hours and be perfectly fine, absolutely no problem, perfectly fine. I love community work, I can do a community service thing and be perfectly fine, and it made me sit with myself and be like, I had to challenge myself. What is it exactly about being around people in the past that made you say you didn't like people? And I had to walk myself down. I was like, okay, well, I don't like situations where I feel like I'm being backed into a corner or someone's trying to make me into someone I'm not? Then I had to challenge myself and ask, okay, so why are you engaging with people that you feel like make you feel that way? But also, when people do that, do you I hate the words clock they tea, but do you address it? Do you address that things make you uncomfortable? And in so many words, I had to walk myself all the way down to just the way that I interact and how I show up. And it made me change my language because once I realized certain things, I realized I had to change the conversation around it, like how I even speak. Because that's not a true reflection of me and how I feel about things. And you can't get mad when other people view you incorrectly when you don't even view yourself clearly, or when you feel like other people perceive you incorrectly when you do it to yourself, or you're so quick to pick up what other people have put down, or what social media puts down, or I think another big example of watching what you say is songs and lyrics. I had this time period where okay, story time. I was once once talking to someone, and I had music playing in the background, and they paused and they were like, Why you only listening to breakup music? Your feelings must be hurt or something. Y'all, I paused and I really listened to the song. Keep in mind this is a song that I have on repeat. I kept playing the song. I was like, Oh, I like it, I like how it feels. Turns out I had unprocessed stuff that I had to go um, and this happened a while back, but I I realized that there were songs that I was singing that the energy of the song was so I hate words like low vibrational because I feel like social media takes words and turns them into that's a conversation for another day. But songs where the main emotion is like sad, or the main emotion is like I don't know if melancholy is a good word, and it's not to talk about the song because there are times when you need those songs, like you need you need songs that make you feel all of the emotions because they help you process all of the emotions, but I think for me, I realized that I was singing like sad music or struggle music during time periods in my life where everything was going rather well, and it made me question like when you sing these songs, are you just are you manifesting hard times? Like, are you out here repeating lyrics and not really paying attention to what you're saying or what you're listening to and what you're speaking into your life? And it made me be more picky. There's certain songs now when they come on, I just skip them. I'll be like, not today. This is not this is not the vibe from for for my day. Like, I'm I'm I refuse to start my day like this. I noticed it in jokes. And and this isn't necessarily like with me, because I feel like I don't I don't crack too many jokes on myself, but I notice it like when other people crack jokes and what the joke is, and what are you what are you unintentionally, and I guess that's my question for this episode. Like, what is it that you're unintentionally speaking over yourself that you probably don't even realize that you're speaking over yourself? I had a thing this weekend with with the group of like other people my age, and it was a wonderful, it was a lovely experience. Y'all had a great time, but I was talking to them about how once I left the Delta, I was always in spaces where I felt like the Mississippi Delta was talked about rather negatively, or it was always through the lens of like these are the issues in the area, and for one, as somebody who's from there, when somebody talks about where you're from, you'd be like, hold on, wait a minute. Like, let's look, let's make sure we're getting things accurate. And like, yes, there are problems, but let's give historical background and context and all the things. But over time, I had to notice that even the way that I would talk about the Delta or the way that because on this podcast, I mainly get on here and talk about my personal experiences to highlight that I'm not on here to clock anybody's tea other than my own. And if you hear something that I say and you resonate, or you hear something I say, and you can you picking up what I'm putting down, then hey, I'm glad that I could bless you with a good message unintentionally. But I had to realize how I would talk about the Delta and how I would speak about myself. It it's or even when you say things and it's not intentionally negative, but you have to like walk down. And I was speaking in a conference about how I had to realize that amazing people come out of the Delta. A lot of my friends that I made in college are from the Mississippi Delta, and all of them Papa Nay stuff. So if I know all of these people that are doing wonderful things, and I have experienced all of these wonderful things, why is it that something in a textbook or a statistic or something that someone shares not saying that it's not still important to look at those things? It made me question why it is that I viewed where I was from in a certain light while having so much information to highlight that there are people that's doing wonderful work, there are people that's working towards this, there are people that care. And I guess language is also important to me because as somebody who loves writing, I love poetry, I love short stories, I love journalism. Lately I've I've really just been thinking about the narrative and how language and how you talk about things and the connotations and words that you say that hold a little bit more weight, how they can create a certain narrative, and how you can kind of unintentionally perpetuate something that you you you probably don't realize that you perpetuate or repeat things and you're not really even looking at why you feel the way that you feel. I think that's also why when I say things like anxiety, sometimes I find myself saying my and I have to change it to when I feel or the because my makes it my identifier. My makes it a thing that is mine, and I don't I don't want to take ownership over that. That's not mine. I feel it in a moment, but that doesn't mean that it's my own, it's just something that's passing through me, just like any other emotion. I had to realize when somebody would bless me through words, and I would be hesitant to even receive the blessing that the words gave and why I was responding that way. This actually is reminding me of a poem that I wrote. Let's see if I can find the poem, y'all. If it takes too long, I'm saying if it takes too long, like this isn't my podcast, girl, you ain't you got all the time. Here it is. It's a poem that I wrote in 2024. Oh my gosh. This is anyways. But here we go, and this can close us out. It's called My Rats. At the beginning of 2023, I had a feeling it would reveal so much about who I am as a person, and that is exactly what it did. I've always lived in fear of what is coming next, scared that I won't be prepared. My breath would catch in the air, and now that I'm older, I'm realizing that it's still there. The breath that I took as a little girl is still being held in, because that is what fear does to me. I take five steps forward and it paces three steps behind, close enough for me to feel its presence, but never close enough to fully capture my mind, just enough to leave me shaking in fear. When it'll finally have its time with me. Last year was supposed to be the year that I battled my fear. But the more the days went by, the more I learned that maybe it was the year for me to simply acknowledge its hold on me. They say the first steps to healing is admitting that there's an issue. My therapist said to me, You always refer to your problems with my as this identifier, my fear, my anxiety, my imposter syndrome. She said, Baby, the first step is to stop referring to these things as your own. Because that anxious feeling isn't mine, and I refuse to claim its heart, my heart as its home because it's all just passing. I wonder when will I live life instead of worrying about what comes next? If comparison is the thief of joy, then fear is the enemy that binds my chest, filling my body with heavy weights. So when the problems arise, I feel like I'm drowning. And when I ask God to set me free, they sit idle, saying this is a lesson I have to conquer on my own. I can't allow the fear to stop me in my tracks and force me into being alone. Keep in mind, I wrote this in 2024, y'all. Life really is a journey. It's 2026. I've come a long way though, so pat on the back to me. Anyways, if you made it this far, I hope that there was something in here that was helpful. Drink some water, water a plant, God be blessed, and I'll talk to y'all in the next one.