When Words Gets in the Way

This week was a big week of reflection for me… reflecting on the energy of words. Words we use can create very different experiences for different people. How one word can feel peaceful and freeing to one person… and heavy or impossible to another. How a single word can either open us up… or close us down.

Take the word forgiveness. For one person, it can feel like freedom. For another, it can feel like approving – like letting someone off the hook or saying what happened was okay. The same word with two completely different experiences.

And forgiveness isn’t the only one. Words like:

• healing
• spirituality
• meditation
• self-love
• success
• acceptance
• discipline

can all carry very different meanings depending on our experiences, beliefs, and personal history.

What one person finds inspiring, another may find uncomfortable. What one person finds empowering, another may find overwhelming. And neither is wrong. It simply reminds us that words are often shaped by the meaning we attach to them.

The logical mind loves labels. It wants to define things, categorize them and understand them.

The mind asks:

• “What does this mean?”
• “Is this right?”
• “Is this wrong?”
• “What should I call this?”

But life is so much more complex than the words we use to describe it.

Sometimes we become so focused on the label that we lose sight of the experience itself.

For example, someone may not resonate with the word forgiveness.

Yet they may be:

• feeling their emotions
• creating healthy boundaries
• calming their nervous system
• practicing self-respect
• releasing emotional pain
• and moving toward greater peace and well-being

The word may not fit. But the experience of forgiveness is still happening.

And in my opinion, that is where the wisdom lives. Not in finding the perfect word. But in becoming aware of what is happening within us.

This Week’s Invitation

1. Be curious about the “buzz words” often used around healing, growth, spirituality, and navigating life.
2. Be even more curious about the energy you feel behind them. And if a particular word doesn’t resonate with you… let it go.
3. Instead, tune into the feeling, experience, or understanding that feels true for you. Because while words matter… awareness of what feels right for you – matters more.
4. Notice the words that create a reaction within you. Not because the word is right or wrong… but because the reaction may reveal something deeper…

Ask yourself:

• What does this word mean to me?
• What experience am I associating with it?
• Does this word open me up… or close me down?
• Am I reacting to the word… or to the meaning I’ve attached to it?

And notice what begins to shift when you look beyond the word and into the experience itself. Because sometimes the word gets in the way, and when we look beyond the label, we discover what has been there all along.

The experience. The wisdom. The invitation to grow.

Stay curious.

Stay open.

Namaste my friends;
Leslie 🩵🙏