Words are important!
- Alexandra McCarthy
- Sep 10, 2020
- 4 min read
Updated: Feb 20, 2025
By Steph Lavelle - Virtual Assistant
Your words are important. You’ve heard that before right?
Where attention goes, energy flows - have you heard this before?
If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all! - who else’s Mum used this one?
Well while we might take this info in and just consider it learning to be well mannered, we’re helping our kids learn right from wrong etc. our Mums were definitely teaching us something way more powerful and important in life than possibly they even realised.
If you consider how you have felt in the past after conversations with others that involved negativity, abuse or aggression I’m sure for most of us, more likely for all of us, these conversations have left us with emotions like sadness, confusion, agitation, anger, disappointment, intimidation and the list could go on. I’m sure you could also see the impact of these interactions with others having a detrimental, sometimes devastating consequence on our mental and emotional health.
Likewise, if you were to consider the interactions you’ve enjoyed with others, times with your best friends laughing and celebrating each other, conversations of congratulations for your achievements or simply a recognition of someone's love and appreciation for you, the words in these instances most likely left you feeling safe, accepted, confident, happy, loved, blissful, supported etc., these conversations helped strengthen your self belief, your sense of security and your level of confidence to truly be you.
Our brains are highly complex and intricate machines that comprise both our conscious mind and our unconscious mind. Our unconscious mind stores every single experience we have during our life and assigns, what it believes, to be an appropriate belief and response in case it was to ever happen again in the future.
The other key impact of our unconscious mind is that it will always take the path of least resistance. So if we have practiced a certain behaviour over and over, it will take time to create a new reaction. For instance, if we have beliefs that result in low self esteem, lack of self love, negative self talk, etc. it will take time to ingrain a new way of thinking and speaking into our lives.
So when we consider all of this it’s easy to understand why the language we use, both out loud and in our minds, is crucial if we want to have happy and healthy lives. What we speak of, think and take action on grows - what we give our attention to through our language is what we become more aware of in life and therefore impacts the way we experience the world around us.
We know that the most important years developmentally for humans are from birth to seven and during this time we are like amazing, beautiful little sponges who soak in everything that happens around us and it is these experiences that mould our view of the world as we get older and start to become more independent. If our experience of language, either about us or about others, during this time has left us feeling detrimentally affected then, quite often, we will grow into teenagers and adults who experience difficulty with positive communication with ourselves and with others. These limits to our communication and negativity internally then compounds into health issues, mentally, emotionally and physically.
Language is starting to feel even more important about now right?
There are multiple TEDx talks and amazing practitioners who you can research in relation to the power of language but an extremely powerful study, and one you can do in your own home to show everyone the power of language, is an experiment by Dr Masaru Emoto. Dr Emoto experimented with water and later rice, to document the impact of different words and the vibrational frequency these words had on the molecular structure of an object that was impacted by these words.
He had 3 jars of rice covered in water with one being told ‘thank you’ every day, the second being told “I hate you” every day and the third was ignored. The results I’m sure will amaze you, with the difference in both the amount and formation of decomposition that occurs after one month between the jars. There is a link attached showing the results of his experiments with water and if you have children I highly recommend trying the one with rice as well (can be found on YouTube also) as it is a really powerful way to show them in a 3D visual the impact their words have on the world around them and most importantly themselves.
Language truly is the building block of our existence. If we choose to experience the world through negative or challenging words then life becomes negative and challenging. Alternatively if we choose to think and converse through positive and optimistic language then life feels lighter, more fulfilling and open to possibility.
Our words can help elevate our own, or someone else’s, belief in themselves and feelings of safety in the world around them.
Our words can help someone feel like they are not alone and that they matter.
Our words can help create love that ripples out into the world not just because of how we speak to others but by speaking to ourselves with love and compassion and then we have the confidence and willingness to share that with others.
Our words are magic!
Reading this reminded me of my own mother’s advice, "If you don't have anything nice to say..." It's a simple concept from PopEmote but so powerful to remember how our words shape our energy and interactions.
Reading this, I was reminded of the wisdom in ZEnhancer right from the start. The idea that "where attention goes, energy flows" really stuck with me, and it’s a good reminder to choose our words with care.
It’s so true that what we say carries weight. I was smiling at the mention of the classic "if you don’t have anything nice to say..." rule from your mum—it really sticks with you. Sometimes I think using a tool like imposter game generator can help us reflect on our choices in a light-hearted way.
It's interesting how the article points out that our mums were teaching us something more powerful than just manners when they said "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." The idea that our unconscious mind stores every experience and takes the path of least resistance really explains why changing negative self-talk can be so challenging. For anyone working on reshaping those ingrained patterns, a tool like grid maker might be a helpful starting point.
Really resonated with the bit about "where attention goes, energy flows" — it’s such a simple shift but makes a huge difference in how I frame my day. I’ve been digging into game lore lately and came across some thoughtful community writing that explores similar themes of intention and storytelling over on Neverness to Everness Wiki.