A friend told me yesterday that her new year’s resolution is not to complain about the weather. It’s not easy to do in Luxembourg in Winter. The days have been grey and gloomy the last few weeks, the sun only breaking through the clouds for about half an hour. It rains, it drizzles, and the clouds hang low. It’s a depressing sight, honestly, and hard to keep thinking light-filled thoughts when it’s so miserable outside.
I’m thinking about her resolution again this afternoon and feeling very sure she’s on to something. Because I’m learning that words have power. Words are not just neutral tools of communication, they carry weight. Sentences that people say to us or about us can stay with us – for better or worse – for years.
And so, I think, sitting here in the growing dark, rivulets of rain running down the window, why not use my words to chase the light? Why not join my friend and declare no more complaining. None. Take all the negative words about the darkness, the gloom, the damp, out of my vocabulary. Refuse to utter them, begin to refuse to think them. And perhaps if I refuse to speak it, it’s power over my emotions will dwindle.
If I am no longer allowed to say how depressing the weather is, maybe I’ll stop thinking of how depressing it is, I’ll stop believing it is depressing.
But you can’t remove something without adding something. The vacuum must be filled. And so with what? With words that bring light and bring positivity. What if every time I was tempted to complain about the darkness, I looked for something good to notice, to compliment, to celebrate?
Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.
Proverbs 18:21
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Photo source: Yvonne Young, via Pinterest
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
This is a very powerful resolution. When turning everything negative into something else positive you will glow over your world, over the world and your surroundings will never be the same again.
I went running today at lunchtime. It was raining. I used to hate the rain. Until I started running. I like being rained on when I run (obviously less when I’ve just stepped out of the hairdresser’s). I know I will take a shower later to get watm (and wet). The world looks, smalls and sounds different when it rains, when it’s foggy, when it’s snowing.
And start walking, hiking, running, playing with the dog or kids, or husbands.
People who complain about the weather ought to get out more!
When was the last time you rolled around in the leaves or the mud? Jumped in a puddle?
Seeing the world from another point of view can be very ‘enlightening’.
Thanks for pointing that out.
Great strategy! I was thinking as I read this about the run I took today by the shore, it was so grey, dark and drizzly (at 2pm!) but looked so atmospheric, with the Queen Mary 2 liner rising from the mist and the flares from the oil refinery across the water showing pink through the grey. Ok, maybe a little too poetic for an industrial facility, but it was kind of pretty! So I’m with Mimi on this one about getting outside
You are so so right. And you are definitely on to something. Have you heard about neuro-linguistic programming?
It is basically based on that idea: your thoughts-your feelings-your actions / reactions / reality are all connected and a consequence of each other. If you think / focus on the positive, you will “attract” a positive reality. Said like that it sounds all hippie-dippie and like you have the mind power to control the events of the universe, like you can manipulate the things that happen, but it is more about how you *choose* to experience life.
My sister in law says that whenever she has negative thoughts she suppresses them, she goes like “Cancel, delete, erase”, and thinks of something else. It works…