The Power of WORDS

ONCE   someone told me I wasn't very smart.

ONCE   someone told me I couldn't make the world a better place.

ONCE   someone told me I couldn't write and would never be a writer.

ONCE   someone made me feel insecure.

Some DAYS I allow these words to color my day with gloom and doom. I carry them around like weights on my shoulders, heavy enough to drown me. They follow me around like shadows; no matter where I go I can't seem to shake them.

Those days are emotional draining. I feel inadequate, lonely, and depressed. I'm grouchy and cranky and left wondering if the only thing I'm good at is...well, nothing.

WORDS are powerful.- Sticks and stones may break my bones. But words will never hurt me.- Is completely untrue. It's a rhyme to try to convince yourself that you can just ignore the words thrown at you like arrows and they won't hurt when they pierce your delicate skin. But words do hurt and they hurt long after the fact. Some times years and decades later.

I was BULLIED in middle school and it took years to heal from those WORDS flung around so carelessly by people that were hurting so much on the inside that the only way they could feel better about themselves was to make other people hurt too.

But WORDS can only hurt if we hold onto them...If we believe them...If we allow them the POWER  to make us doubt ourselves. 

So TODAY I acknowledge the power of WORDS.

ONCE   someone appreciated this brainy chick

ONCE   someone believed that I could help make the world a better place, even if just a little bit

ONCE   someone told me that my writing was funny and that they enjoyed it


ONCE   someone made me feel secure and loved

It's time to take out the trash. Throw out the WORDS roaming harmfully around in your heart and realize they only have the POWER to hurt you if you let them.