Do You Realize The Power Of Your Words?

April 8, 2008 · by Joanna Paterson · in

As The Boat Comes In V
Originally uploaded by Joanna Young

Do you realize the power of your words? Vern Lun, The Idea Dude, reminds us that

we underestimate the power of language whether it is written, sung or spoken. Take a bag of words, dip your hand in and see what you can do.

When we leave our words on-line we don’t always appreciate the impact they might have on others. It’s one of the reasons I try to write with positive intention. Even if I can’t see or anticipate the impact of my words at least I know I’ve written them with a positive purpose in mind, with the intention to create a positive, resourceful state in the person who’s reading them.

About six weeks ago, some time round about mid February, I started to realize that a decision I’d been mulling over for several years could be put off no longer. It was bubbling up to boiling point and the time to chose, to move, to act, was now. As I look back on the days and weeks around that decision point I can see how things I was reading (and writing) helped to shape my thinking.

It was Robert Hruzek talking about how we can overcome the fear of change. My good friend Emma Bird noticing how a change in environment led to a shift in perspective and a different quality to her writing. Karen Swim asking if I could write the bones of the place where I live and me answering (silently): no.

It was Amy Palko asking where home was, and the stab of sadness I felt at not feeling at home, not knowing where home was, but also knowing that I needed to set about finding it.

It was David Zinger on Groundhog Day with the simplest of pieces (always the most powerful) asking:

If this was my last day would I die happy? If the answer is yes, we are on track and doing well. If the answer is no than we better figure out what we need to do.

I loved the simplicity of that last line. It wasn’t a throw-away remark to change my mental attitude. It was the honest recognition that there are times when we need to change things. We’d better figure out what we need to do. (And of course I knew, really, what it was I needed to do.)

And it wasn’t just posts I was reading it was the comments I was leaving in response to them. The answers I was scribbling to people who know how to ask great questions and the realization that those answers (“screw your courage to the sticking place“, I’d written) were written not for others but for me. They were the answers, the messages, the direction that I needed to hear.

So when it came to the 29th February, the leap day, I wrote a challenge to all of you: if not now, when? and then answered it myself.

I put my Edinburgh house on the market and set about looking for a property on the Isle of Arran, a small island off the west coast of Scotland. Fast forward 6 weeks and I’m still on track: this house is under offer, I’m actively looking for a house on Arran and the dream of living somewhere wild, beautiful and inspiring is finally within reach. A place where I know I can write the bones. A place where my spirit feels at home.

There are lots of downsides I know: it rains (a lot), it’s midgy, it’s a bit remote, you need to get on a ferry to get there and if the wind is high you’re stuck. But those things just don’t stack up against the sense of place and connection I feel when I’m there.


Arran from Ardrossan
Originally uploaded by Joanna Young

As an odd reminder of the power of our words – and the truth we reveal in our writing – I was pointed a few days ago to a piece I’d written last summer.

Rosa Say had penned a wonderful birthday tribute to me, including a link to the first time I commented on something she’d written.

It was on What It Means To Look To Your Source. Look to your source, find your truth, she wrote. And in my comment I linked back to a piece I’d written on knowing your power source.

I was writing about Arran:

My own ‘power point’ is the highlands and islands of Scotland. I found a way to fit in a flying visit to Arran on Sunday. After a dreich start the sun came out at lunchtime, I had a picnic overlooking the Holy Isle, stretched my legs with a seven mile walk and soaked in hours and hours of bright spring sunshine. I came back with my batteries in great health: energised, plugged in, recharged.

When I look back at the things I’ve written and read – a bit like this view back to the island at the end of that trip back in May – I can see everything I needed to know, everything I thought and felt, everything that seems true laid out in black and white in front of me.

I’m not saying this to make you worry about the impact of your words. All the choices I have made, am making, are mine: fully and completely. I take full responsibility for them. But there are times when we like to listen and learn from the words of others, to take those nudges from and to our unconscious minds, to accept the truth that’s being told to us.

So thank you to everyone whose words have helped nudge me towards a decision that I know will be a good one for me.

And thank you to everyone who writes with positive intention, and posts inspiring photos, and asks powerful questions. You may never learn what impact you’ve had, what difference you’ve made. But your words contain power. Your writing has the power to change things. You’ve written with the intention to make a difference – and that is the difference you make.

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