Words, Words, Words

How to tap into your greatest peace, freedom, and power

Sometimes, words are the enemy.

Well, not really the enemy. But words can get in the way of getting what you want. And not in the way you’re thinking, either.

I’m not talking about saying the wrong thing or not communicating clearly. I’m talking about the whole shebang – language itself. Our Western propensity is to use language almost exclusively as the way we figure things out. And that is not always the most productive way to solve problems.

Shocking, I know.

Especially coming from me. I LOVE words. My entire life is completely enmeshed with words and language. I write, coach, and teach, using language (duh – what else would I use?) all day, every day. Moreover, I use a metacognitive (thinking about thinking) approach to help folks get things untangled and moving forward.

And it works.

Language (what we speak and what we think) is powerful - really powerful – so we won’t throw the baby out with the bathwater here. But if you’re looking for uber-powerful, so-powerful-that-absolutely-anything-is-possible kind of powerful, you need to learn to drop the words for a bit every now and then.

I know. I couldn’t really get my head around it either at first. But get this…

According to Martha Beck, Harvard PhD and Life Coach of OPRAH magazine fame,"…the verbal region of your brain processes about forty bits of information per second. The nonverbal processes about eleven million bits per second."

Now it makes sense!

This is why you get those big creative ideas on vacation when you’re just staring at the ocean for hours on end, at the gym when your body completely takes over, or after spending time in meditation.

Your brain needs space – without being constrained by language – to do its biggest work.

And the more of that space you give it, the bigger the work it’s going to be able to do.

This Week:
Tapping into your power by losing the language for a bit.

There are as many ways to do this as there are people on the planet, so no need to make this difficult. Choose a method (or make one up) that feels easy and absolutely yummy to you and do it a couple of times each day.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

  • Spend some time outside staring at the ocean, forest, desert… If you find yourself drifting into language-based thoughts while you to this, you can trick your brain into silence by staring at one point and then without moving your eyes, expand your vision to include everything in your peripheral.

  • Get sensory… Find a way that’s easy for you to really experience your body.

    • Close your eyes and ‘go inside’ allowing yourself to feel your heartbeat, breath or any other bodily sensation.

    • Stand outdoors, close your eyes and point your face up to the sun and let the warmth of the sun take you over (This is one of my favorite ways)

  • Exercise… Go for a run, do yoga, or any other intense workout where your mind allows your body to take the lead.

  • Meditate… While there are many types of meditation, a breathing or nonsense word mantra based meditation works best for this purpose.

  • Have sex… Yup, you heard me. Sex is great when you’re 100% out of your head and into the sensations of the moment – let it happen.

  • Lose yourself in something creative… Bead a necklace, paint, sculpt, craft, draw – any creative endeavor that absorbs you in that "where did the time go?" way is usually a wordless state.

Wendy Perrottimindful, mindfulness, visualize, awareness, thoughts, power1 Comment