Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you…
Except they do hurt you.
I think too often we forget the power our words have on other people. Words can be irrevocably damaging to people’s self esteem but also to their self-concept.
We all have a view of ourselves, our personalities and what makes us ‘me’. Other people telling us how we make them feel and who they think we are contributes to our self concept. Therefore, words have great influence and impact who we are as people. All the characteristics and words spoken over us are taken into account and are either accepted to fit within our construct of ourselves or rejected.
Sometimes words are spoken over us that we know to be untrue but place doubts in our minds as to who we really are. Am I really a bad person? Am I really stupid? The problem is that often these negative portrayals of character come from friends or family members – people whose opinion matters to you.
So today I just want to remind you of the saying “if you can’t think of anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”. Very cliche, but our words are powerful and can influence people more than we can imagine.
