Dating : Words as Weapons or Words as Medicine

It’s strange and beautiful, after my long writing career, that I am here writing a FIRST piece somewhere. But this is it. My first piece on Medium.

And I want to tell you what this piece is for…what it’s about. It is powered by words, because words ARE every bit as powerful as any other form of energy in the world. Words can create and words can destroy.

My writing here on Medium is an effort to use words as a lantern when life feels dark. This blog is a place where you can be sure that when you show up…that the mission, the operation coming from here is to put words together, like beads on a string — with the intention to make things just a little bit better. Not self-improvement….not that…..not motivation, not that either…….more like relief.

Yes, words as relief.

So I want to start first by giving you what the opposite of what relief is. And…that, my friends….my fellow life travelers and weary souls….is what is way too easy to find in our world. Words that feel like the opposite of relief…

….the opposite of relief is hurt, injury, unhappiness, damage and pain. The opposite of relief is suffering.

What about other words that mean relief? ….comfort, alleviation, assistance, support, help, solace, softening, sustenance……

I am constantly on the lookout for words that have been assembled and carefully and strategically and thoughtfully delivered. Not words that placate or patronize or flatter….but words that come from a place of knowing. If the words are delivered to alleviate pain, I need to know that those words have a deep and intimate understanding of pain.

I have spent years collecting these thoughts that I want to deliver in this blog. Years of sitting with my own words, years of sitting with the words of others. Years of sitting eye to eye and knee to knee with human beings from all over the world from all walks of life in my Soul Restoration retreats and years of sitting with the complexities of my own journey that’s been filled with such a tremendous contrast of beauty and sorrow.

This will be a place where the words that are delivered are intended to be a respite from the complexities of your own journey. A place to get refueled for the next mountain you’ve got to climb or the next dark night you’ve got to make it through or even the next finish line you’ve worked so hard to be able to cross.

So this blog has every intention to create a place to rest when you’re suffering. A soft place to land when you’ve been falling. A fireside seat when you’ve been walking for a long time in the cold.

Words are powerful. In my experience, words have had the power to both build & destroy — which is pretty remarkable when you think about it — because really from the outside — spoken words are simply our breath, passed through our vocal chords then shaped with our teeth and our tongue and our mouth on the way out — to make all sorts of different sounds…..

And written words are, mostly these days, the pad of a finger touching a button on a keyboard- sometimes softly, sometimes with great force. Putting visual shapes together that form words.

But words are so much more than that.

They don’t just pass through our throats and out of our mouths….

Sometimes they start in our hearts and then have to form in our minds.
Sometimes they start in our minds and have to take a pass through our hearts before they are ready to be spoken or written.

This is such an important step. When we skip the pass-throughs….all sorts of stuff can happen.

So words can start in our minds — and when they start there and don’t take a nice long pass through our hearts, that’s when I believe they have the power to destroy. They can do so much damage to relationships, to entire groups of people — it’s even been shown that certain words said in certain ways can have an effect on all living things. And, without a doubt, words spoken carelessly and with destructive intent behind them — that originate from our minds and come out of our mouths or onto paper or screens….they can even destroy ourselves while they’re destroying anything within earshot or eyeshot.

When we speak words that both originate in our minds and then skip the quality check of our hearts — and even skip the fact check part in our minds — when we are careless and say the things that first pop into our heads….such messes can be made. Then we have to unwind all of it. And live with the consequences of the delivery of these words. Sometimes it really is best to keep our words to ourselves and send them back and forth between our hearts and our minds until the garbage is edited from them, or the whole truth is added to make them complete…or the emotion is taken out of them…or in some cases when some emotion is put back into them.

We have to be careful with words. They are as powerful as a loaded gun, or a vat of chemicals…

In then in other cases they are vials filled with elixir that has the power to heal even the most stubborn of soul sicknesses or a light that can light up the darkest of places….

These are the words that originate in our hearts, and take a nice long pass through our spirits, our souls….and then back to our hearts…..and back and forth with a combination of all sorts of elements attached to them in the form of intention. You can imagine them making shapes that can either have sharp edges that could slice and cut and leave slivers when delivered….or soft edges, brush-like — or even having elements to them that embrace, or pull in, or light up….

When words originate in our hearts and stay there long enough to be fully developed, then take a pass through our spirits for a quality assurance check — magical things can happen. And do.

And then just before they’re spoken…or maybe a few times in between ‘drafts’ — they can take a trip to our minds for a spell check, and a fact check, and a historical accuracy check — and whatever other data might be useful…..

…but words as medicine have to start in the heart, and the gut and then if we want them to be especially potent and healing — they need that long pass through our souls before they are delivered. Just to make sure there wasn’t something we missed — something that could either be added to make it even better, or taken away to make it even better.

Yes, that’s how powerful words are.

That’s how important it is to take the time to make sure they’re as right as they can be.

What if we thought of words as fuel, as nourishment, as medicine? What if we realized that words taken in and words communicated had such far reaching consequences that we would be foolish to ever use them carelessly again. And even more importantly, that words can be so healing and regenerative that we have another valuable implement in our toolbox to use when we need some encouragement, some comfort, some guidance, some energy to get through the day, or even some healing in places that feel unwell. What if words really are that powerful? Well, I believe that they are.

What if we thought of words the way we think of food?

There is this whole movement out there about eating whole foods that have not been corrupted or modified. Foods that are in their wholesome state, to be best for our bodies….without anything unnatural added and without anything life-giving taken away. This is such a good thing.

And so….what if we thought the same way about the words we think, the words we say and the words we type –

AND- the words we take in….

If we sought out the healthiest, the cleanest, the truest and the most nutrient rich words…if we decided to forego the most toxic, the junkiest and the most damaging words….

Everything could be better. It really could.

So…that’s what this new place is for. Words as relief in a world that can feel like a warzone.

I hope you’ll come back here often when you need a soft place to land, a place to rest, a place to get refueled for the next leg in your journey. I will be here. I will have a bowl of nourishing words to feed you and a glass of healing words to quench your thirst.

I love you, fellow human. I know life can be so difficult. You are doing it though, and I am certain that you’re doing so much better than you think you’re doing.

I’m happy to be here with you today, right now. I hope we get to be together again soon.

I love you and I believe in you.

Be good to yourself, let only the best things in and see the power of only delivering the best things to others.

I will see you next time.

Melody Ross

Originally published at https://melodyross.com.