Don’t speak negatively about yourself, even as a joke. Your body doesn’t know the difference. Words are energy and they cast spells, that’s why it’s called spelling. Change the way you speak about yourself and you can change your life.
— Bruce Lee
Hear me out…
I lost a friend to a tragic incident two weeks after my sweet 16.
I remember so vividly how I asked my friends, “Why is Nat not in school today?” to which a friend replied jokingly, “She’s so lazy, she’s probably sleeping like she’s dead.”
Little did we all know an hour later that our friend was, in fact, dead…
Since then, I’ve become very mindful about throwing around death-reference phrases in casual conversations, such as “k!ll me now,” “I’m dy!ng to…,” or “…this is k!ll!ng me.”
To most people, these phrases are probably nothing deep. But to me, it’s the complete opposite.
Fast forward ten years, these phrases became more apparent to me when I went through a depressive period in my life. I started to drift apart from friends who would regularly use these phrases in casual conversations because it was extremely triggering for me, especially during a time when no one (not even my therapist) knew I had been having su!cid@L ideation.
I know I can’t control what other people say, which is why I’ve always kept this perspective mostly to myself. And frankly, I’ve learned to ignore these phrases whenever I hear them because in Thai language, we say something similar (i.e. หลับเป็นตาย, จะบ้าตาย) all the time.
But since becoming a therapist, I’ve become even more aware of the words I choose to speak to myself and to my clients… and I can only hope that more people will slowly develop views similar to mine on this.
I’m curious — do you feel a certain way about these words/phrases at all? And now that you’ve read my caption this far, what’s your opinion on this matter? Please share in the comments, I’d really love to hear your thoughts!
With love & light,
Eve