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Following on How Language Can Shape our Lives

Posted by Bonnie Bright on November 7, 2010 at 3:04pm
In a previous blog, I summarized an article describing a recent Harvard study that indicates using different languages seems to create different preferences or opinions about others, thus raising the question of whether language actually shapes and creates our thoughts.

Now, in November's issue of Psychology Today, therapist Vikki Stark provides a thoughtful anecdote on how one client's recurring description of various everyday events in her life as "hell" seemed to actually be a sort of self-fulfilling pattern. The more her client described her life as hell, the more it felt like it was: thus, her choice of terminology both served to create her thoughts, feelings, and experience and reinforced them.

By encouraging her client to notice pattern and modify her use of the term "hell" for different and more descriptive phrases, Ms. Stark helped her client to generate more nuance which seemed to empower her, making her feel more hopeful and in control. Ms. Stark also notes that when she caught her own self saying "I'm soooo depressed," (something we can all probably relate to on some level), but realized it felt less overwhelming to change that statement out for something like, "I'm feeling blue." More and more, we can realize it may benefit each of us to really pay attention to the words we use and create more positive and empowering terms to create our lives from day to day, minute to minute.

Full article: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/schlepping-through-heartbreak/201011/watch-your-language-your-choice-words-can-harm-you
Tags: attitude, create, language, psychology, terminology, today
Posted by Bonnie Bright

ABOUT THE HOSTS/PRESENTERS
BONNIE BRIGHT, Ph.D.,(Founder of Depth Psychology Alliance), is a Transpersonal Soul-Centered Coach certified via Alef Trust/Middlesex University, and a certified Archetypal Pattern Analyst®, and has trained extensively in Holotropic Breathwork™ and the Enneagram. She has trained with African elder, Malidoma Some'; with Transpersonal Pioneer Stan Grof; and with Jungian analyst, Jerome Bernstein, among others.Her dissertation focused on a symbolic look at Colony Collapse Disorder and what the mass vanishing of honeybees means to us both personally and as a collective. Bonnie’s path to soul began with a spontaneous mystical experience in 2006, and she continues her quest for awakening each day with a sense of joy, freedom, and gratitude at the magic afoot in the world.

JAMES R. NEWELL, Ph.D., MTS, (Director of Depth Psychology Alliance) earned his Ph.D. in History and Critical Theories of Religion from Vanderbilt University (2007), and holds a master's degree in pastoral counseling and theology from the Vanderbilt University Divinity School (2001). James is also the director of the Depth Psychology Academy, offering college-level courses in Jungian and depth psychology. James has spent much of his working life as a professional musician, singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist with interests in jazz, blues, folk, world, and devotional music. Since his youth, James has worked with a variety of blues greats including John Lee Hooker, James Cotton, Jr. Wells, Hubert Sumlin, Big Joe Turner, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and others.