Tag: words

T.H.I.N.K. Before You Speak, Post, Message or Meme

I first shared this post a couple years ago when social media turned really mean and family dinner tables were transformed from generational bonding experiences into hate-filled battlegrounds.

I am saddened that this crisis and upcoming election has once again made us forgetful that our words matter. How I express my opinion matters.

There are real people attached to our Twitter feeds, Facebook profiles and Instagram followers.

❤

There may be some mamas that don’t drill this into their children but if there are, they don’t live south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Every time there was back and forth in the back seat or on the front porch and Mama overheard, we were told, “If you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all.”

Read the rest here: If You Can’t Say Anything Nice….

Not Quite Writer’s Block

If others had access to my view of this WordPress site they’d marvel at the number of post drafts I’ve left unfinished.

As of today, it’s over a thousand.

But I won’t let them go until I feel like I’ve gotten them right. And lately I haven’t been able to do that.

Unblocking Writer's Block: 10 Ways to Free Your Mind | HuffPost

It’s not traditional writer’s block because I still have lots to say, still put words on [virtual] paper and still dictate random notes onto my phone when walking or driving.

I just can’t finish the thoughts.

Good grief! Snoopy has writer's block. | Writing humor, Writing ...

I’m not sure if it’s a function of the unprecedented times in which we find ourselves, the sudden and unexpected change of having my husband work from home or what I call my “season of sorrow” that lasts from the end of March through the end of May but something is definitely mucking up the works.

I hope to find a few hours soon to sit down in silence with my own thoughts and my computer and finish up new posts I’ve started.

I really do have things I long to share.

So bear with me friends.

I aim to be back in the swing of things soon.

❤

A Reading Technique to Eliminate Writer's Block - The Writing ...

Offering Space Instead of “Fixing”

The world is upside down and inside out and hearts are hurting.

Suddenly everyone knows what it’s like to be stuck in an alternate reality, hoping, hoping, hoping that one morning they will wake up and find it untrue.

When the sun rises day after day after day and nothing changes, it’s oh, so easy to give up hope. And when unhelpful words are tossed at fragile hearts it adds to the burden.

What I say and how I say it (especially NOW) makes a difference. It can be the difference between going on or letting go.

❤ Melanie

I didn’t realize until I was the person who needed comforting how unhelpful and sometimes painful my own past comments were to my suffering friends and family.

There are many important and necessary conversations going on right now about how we talk to and talk about our fellow humans.  I’m thankful folks are learning that words are rarely (ever?) neutral.

They build up or tear down. 

And we are responsible for them.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/04/01/instead-of-fixing-offer-space-to-share/

Speak Peace: Today May Be The Only Chance You Get


Just a couple of days before Dominic left us, I and another one of my kids had a fuss.

He was frustrated and stressed and I was vulnerable and stressed and a few stray words ended up hurting my feelings.

I said, “I can’t talk anymore now”,  and hung up the phone in tears.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2016/10/27/speak-your-peace/

Repost: Words Matter

“Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” ~Jesus

Have you ever had a moment when words “slipped out” before you could stop them?  

I have.  

Standing amidst the wreckage of hasty speech I would do almost anything to stuff them back inside.

I like to pretend that I didn’t mean what I said.  I like to imagine that the words don’t reflect what I really feel.

Read the rest here:  Words Matter

Give Sorrow Words

The morning Dominic ran ahead to Heaven, after I made the awful phone calls I reached for my journal.  

I knew if I didn’t start spilling the grief onto paper my heart would explode with sorrow.  

Since I learned to hold a pencil I’ve been writing. 

It’s how I sort my thoughts, figure out my feelings and express my heart. 

i-write-because-i-dont-know

A few months after and I found several online support groups. 

There I learned a whole other  Language of Grief and Loss.  The more I read what others shared, the better I understood my own experience and understood how to communicate that truth to others.

You might not keep a journal or write poetry or craft lengthy essays about your pain and that’s just fine.  There’s no magic in written words.

Find a safe space or person and speak it aloud.  

Sorrow unspoken swells. 

It can’t be contained.  

It will absolutely consume you.  

Give-sorrow-words shakespeare

 

Repost: If You Can’t Say Anything Nice…

There may be some mamas that don’t drill this into their children but if there are, they don’t live south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Every time there was back and forth in the back seat or on the front porch and Mama overheard, we were told, “If you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all.”

Parents weren’t interested in policing every errant word out of the under 18 crowd’s mouth back in the day.

It was a simple (and effective!) rule:  If what you want to say does not meet the criteria of T.H.I.N. K. (true, helpful, inspiring, necessary, kind) then

Read the rest here:  If You Can’t Say Anything Nice….

Repost: Bridle Your Tongue

In this journey of loss I have been blessed and wounded by words.

I have been encouraged and disheartened by stray comments.  I’ve been thrown a lifeline and pushed under the raging waves of grief by friends, family and acquaintances who often had no clue they were doing either.

Our words matter. 

Our tongues have the power of life and death.

Read the rest here:  Bridle your Tongue

Hollow Words

We don’t mean to speak words that echo like a whistle in an empty auditorium.

But we do.

We open our mouths and pour out platitudes because that’s what’s been poured into us.

But we need to stop.  We need to listen.   

And then we need to respond to the heart that stands before us and not to our need to shut down and shut up and shut out another person’s pain.

compassion and stay with youIt’s hard to choose compassion.  It’s hard to lean in and listen well.  It’s hard to let our hearts get all tangled up with someone else’s when we could just walk away.

I am well aware that you have a life of your own full of drama, daily duties and demands.  I don’t want to drain you dry. 

Truly.

But I might need just a moment of your time and a bit of your courage to make it through my own darkness and despair.

One word.

One REAL word.

“I’m sorry.  That is awful.”

“I hate that you have this heavy burden.”

“How can I pray for you?”

“I don’t know what to say, but I want you to know I’m here and not going anywhere.”

 

fluent in silence

 

Speaking Truth

In the South, we tend to pussyfoot around hard truths because most of us grew up with the admonition, “Now just be nice!”

And while that makes for charming dinner table conversation, it makes for lousy long-term relationships.

Because we all know the longer you live with, work with and love another body, the more things that should be said but aren’t add up.

Pretty soon the pile is so big it obscures the love or fun or shared interests that should be holding hearts together and instead they drift apart.

I haven’t been all that good at following the southern tradition of code words and cute phrases that mask true intent. But I used to be guilty of it from time to time.

These past years of heartache and hardship have pretty much stripped all the veneer that was left off my tongue.

I doubt you will find a soul that would call me a silver-tongued devil.  They’re more likely to call me a brash something else.

But I have important things to say and I don’t want to waste time sugar-coating them.  I don’t want the meat of my message hidden inside a puff pastry of silly words.  I believe truth should be easy to swallow but not necessarily tasty.

Often the most efficacious medicine leaves a nasty aftertaste.

So I’m here to tell you:  don’t drown your important relationships in unsaid words, unshared feelings, unacknowledged wounds.  

All that does is guarantee distance grows between your hearts.  

If you let the distance become too vast, or the pile of unsaid truth get too high, you might just find you can’t reach that far or that high to reconnect.

It takes a bit of brave to say what’s important and uncomfortable. 

But it’s worth it.  

And it’s really the only way to authentic and lasting relationships.  

business-authenticity