Self-Healing: The only introduction you’ll ever need. David Lawson
figures in our formative lives constantly used. If that language included words, phrases, sayings or concepts that expressed the difficulty of life, then it is highly likely that our language will also express our deeply held belief in difficulty and struggle.
Struggle words are burdening. They weigh us down mentally, emotionally and physically, leaving us feeling dispirited and making us magnetic to difficulty in all areas of our lives. Beliefs in struggle contribute to physical tension, in some cases making our bodies look and feel defeated or joyless. They can inhibit us from having our needs met and can frustrate our ability to create the health, prosperity or relationships that we truly desire.
Here are some examples of struggle words, concepts or phrases that many of us use:
• Hard
• Difficult
• Trying
• Struggle
• Hard work
• Crisis
• Disaster.
As in:
‘It is difficult for me to learn new things.’
‘I am in a difficult situation.’
‘It will take hard work to achieve that.’
‘I always work hard but it never seems to get me anywhere.’
‘It is always such a struggle to make ends meet.’
‘I am trying to change but it is a struggle.’
‘I can’t win.’
‘It is hard for me to change.’
‘This is such a crisis.’
‘It is always such a disaster.’
If we are constantly telling ourselves how hard or difficult life is, how can we expect it to get any easier?
COMPULSIVE WORDS
As children, we also learn compulsive words from the people around us. Whenever we are told that we must do something, that we really ought to do it and that it is something that really should be done, we create compulsive beliefs – particularly when words like must, ought and should are repeated to us often. We copy compulsive beliefs from parent figures who constantly talk about what we, they or other people ought, must or should do.
Compulsive words create and reinforce compulsive beliefs that are often frustrating, draining and inhibiting. They act by motivating us to do things in a way that is pressured and joyless. The result is that we often push ourselves to the limit or more often give up in the attempt to reach some unhealthy measure of success or self-worth. Either way there is a feeling of failure and we come to feel bad about ourselves or to punish ourselves for our lack of success.
Compulsive words limit our choices. We use compulsive beliefs to drive ourselves too hard, push ourselves to do things that we do not want to do and in some cases force ourselves into situations that are unhealthy or damaging for us. They can contribute to desperation, workaholic tendencies, depression, laziness and fatigue.
Here are some examples of compulsive words, concepts or phrases that many of us use:
• Must/Must not
• Ought/Ought not
• Should/Should not
• Have to.
As in:
‘I must try harder to succeed.’
‘I must not stop until I have finished.’
‘I have to do this before I can do the things that I want to do.’
‘I should not cry in front of other people.’
‘I should stick to my diet.’
‘I ought to be feeling better by now.’
‘If I can just do this then everything will be all right.’
Some of the things that we think or talk about compulsively may be healthy for us to do. Perhaps we would benefit from sticking to our diet, but it is the way that we are thinking about it that is unhealthy. Compulsive thinking can inhibit, frustrate or sabotage the success of good, healthy schemes by rendering them joyless and turning them into a chore or a punishment.
FEARFUL PHRASES
Most of us also develop a vocabulary of fearful phrases, some exactly the same as those that we learned in childhood, others that we have picked up, adapted and created for ourselves in adult life. Fearful phrases create and reinforce fearful beliefs. At their extreme we use them to paralyse ourselves and render us inactive and impotent. Fear is a natural feeling, but fearful phrases stir us up into a terrified state that is unnatural and unhealthy.
The stress and anxiety caused by fearful thinking can lower the immune system, disrupt our natural ability to protect ourselves psychologically or mentally, raise our blood-pressure and impede our ability to enjoy the pleasures of life. The energy of fearful beliefs can even make us magnetic to the outcomes that we most wish to avoid. What we resist persists!
Here are some examples of the fearful phrases that many of us use:
‘You can’t trust anyone these days.’
‘I would be terrified of making a fool of myself.’
‘We live in a dangerous world.’
‘These are dangerous times.’
‘It is not safe to walk the streets any more.’
‘If the crooks don’t get you the government will.’
‘I’ll dry up in the middle of my exam and forget everything that
I’ve learned.’
‘What if I make a mistake?’
‘It is terrifying!’
‘What a nightmare!’
Like any other negative patterns, our fearful words and thoughts are just bad habits, and bad habits can easily be changed. We just need to be willing to change them.
NEGATIVE AND LIMITING EXPECTATIONS
Fearful beliefs are just one form of negative or limiting expectations. Our language is full of phrases and statements that reveal underlying expectations of failure, disappointment, disaster and loss. When we expect the worst we become like a character in a story or a play who carries within him a negative self-fulfilling prophesy of how his life will develop. Our negative expectations are fatalistic. They paint us as victims of tragedy or mishap rather than as the masters of our own destiny with the power to take charge of our health and happiness.
Here are some examples of phrases that reveal our negative or limiting expectations:
‘Why should I bother, it will never work.’
‘I’ll only be disappointed.’
‘I’ll make myself ill doing this.’
‘They will be glad to see the back of me.’