Words

It bothered me deeply when my father swore at me. I was a son of a bitch. Is it worse to be inaccurately insulted? To this day, it is the one swear phrase I never use, and prefer not to hear. I certainly hated being called a brat by him. I was also selfish and rude and ungrateful, and a women's libber, Independent. The last two were some of the most vehement insults for him. It confused me, even knowing how stupid he was, to be insulted by being called what I wanted to be. Emotionally fraught, I still feel defensive calling myself Independent. I have read, and know from experience, that the verbal and emotional abuse sticks longest, is the time bomb. I have not spoken to him in five years, we have never had a real adult conversation, yet I can still hear his voice grating in my head 25 yeas after moving out of his house. His opinion of me, always rejected, is still part of how I relate to the world. When I was 18, I believed it. The words still hold power.

I don't know when I first heard about the idea of positive affirmation, I had already heard about it when it was introduced as an actor game one of the Theater program classes. I toyed with it, but never really used it. I preferred to list all that I hated, a game, my life. I couldn't do this, or that or anything I wanted to do or didn't want to do. I was all negativity and dislikes.
I was, however, building up a knowledge base, unbeknownst to me. I was learning how different people spoke, had different voices, from all the plays and movies I saw, all the books I was reading. All the talkative actors who loved theorizing and complaining and expounding. As I was absorbing without understanding or piecing it together. The words were seeping in. The idea of Good Words was percolating.

The picture came into view while I was in Basic. I found I could not run, could not keep marching, if I allowed myself to cry, to whine, to let bad thoughts stream through my head. My feet would falter if I let myself think "Oh, god I hurt, I'm miserable, I can't do this." So I shouted out the cadences, many were about being tough and marching on. The physical effect was immediate, I could keep going. I had to think positive words.

The Drill Sergeants would not accept excuses, "I don't care why you can't do it, I don't want to hear it. NO one wants to hear it." We just did the work. Told to do a job, we did it. A "can't" would mean someone would be in the front leaning rest position, and pushing until the Drill Sergeant got tired. I figured it was better off not being me. I stopped the inner commentary on why I couldn't, and it's not fair, and I hate this, unfair, unreasonable, horrible, why I didn't want to do it... and work became a kind of joy without emotional baggage. Mopping a floor gave satisfaction. When work isn't a personal injustice from the universe, it gives back pride. There is a quiet joy in just solving a problem, fixing trouble, doing the job.

When I began my lifelong conversation with D, he started by changing how I spoke. He would go quiet when I put myself down, or ask me not to talk about myself that way. In no other way would he ever complain about me, only this. It made him so sad, I stopped saying it out loud, and eventually, less and less inside. This was when I started to take the words seriously.

I polished up the positive language in the OR. An anesthesiologist corrected me every time I said anything to a patient using a negative. When coming out of anesthesia, we are like young children, hearing only the word, and miss the Not, Don't, Isn't. The negatives are processed in a different area of the brain. Which is why if I tell a child Don't touch that, that is exactly what they will do. Dr. Timmons insisted that I revise how I addressed the patient at emergence.
Examples:
"Your surgery is all over, you can wake up now." (Instead of "You are waking up"- which could be interpreted as waking up in the middle of surgery.)
"Everything went fine, you are doing well." (Instead of "Nothing went wrong")
"Let me keep your hand by your side." ( Instead of "Don't scratch your eyes.")

Because he was such an obnoxious twit about the whole process, (despite being right) I began to really practice this in my life. I would take a breath when he stopped me, and really try to be creative about what I could say. Mostly so he wouldn't catch me at a wrong phrase again. I really thought about how I said common statements in very negative ways. I worked at it, and the exercise had the same effect as when I was running in the Army. I saw life in a brighter light, and the impossibly difficult became effortless. As I thought better of my work, and then myself, I also thought better of the world. It is easier to laugh when I believe others thoughtlessly silly than when I thought them mean.

Words are important. The wrong ones do so much damage. I see it clearly every day in patients with chronic pain, the negative words grind the pain in deeper. I bear the scars of it in my father's idiotic verbal assaults (Son? of a bitch), and my own self inflicted anger. But the simple, clear, good words, applied daily, can heal many harms. I bathe in good words, slather myself in cheerful ones, steep myself in fine and soft phrases, swear with the strong curses, amuse myself with all the rest.

Life is good.