LEARNING HOW TO LIVE WELL TOGETHER Are your words impactful or hurtful?
Recently I’ve written several blogs about toxic relationships, and as much as I’d like to move on with another topic I can’t seem to get away from this one in particular. Probably because I see so many, what I call “good” relationships get kicked to the curve.
I’m blown away at how easy it is to open our mouths and allow hurtful and harmful words to flow into the atmosphere. My question is “are we even aware of what we’re saying to/and about other people?” My next question is “have you evaluated your conversation recently, or thought about how often your words might be hurtful?” A few years ago several people told me my words were harsh & often insensitive. My initial response was “that’s not true!” Emphatically!! However, it didn’t take rocket science for me to see after several people said the same thing that it was time to evaluate what and how I was communicating to people.
We have a choice to impact people’s lives positively or negatively. Which choices are you making? How do we impact positively? By building people up; edifying them as mentioned in 1 Thessalonians 5:11, “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” Or we can impact people negatively by uttering just a few simple undeserved, disempowering words, well-meaning though we think they may be. Sometimes just plain old body language or facial expression indicates exactly what we’re thinking underneath our well-meaning masks, which of course we think nobody can actually discern. Oftentimes our well-meaning words are just a cover-up of our own insecurities.
Remember when growing up your mother said, “If you can’t say anything good about someone just don’t say anything at all?” Well, she could have gone a step further and said “If you can’t say anything good to someone, don’t say anything at all.” How about let’s strive to be better than we’ve been. Let’s honor, love, respect, and empower people.
Most importantly, let’s learn to live well together!
