Those pesky 4 letter words!

Those pesky four letter words!

Much attention in our society is often focused on those four letter words that rebellious teens/adults use that rile up folks.

 

Remember that old childhood refrain…

“Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”?

Particularly during middle and high school, I tried to believe it, but didn’t really succeed. The words did hurt.

There is a lot of power in words, as much as we might prefer to deny it. And whether we were on the receiving end or the giving end, it did have an effect.

Without conscious effort to the contrary, our minds will take them all in. But the power they have is what we choose.

 

 Playing With Four Letter Words

I have a favorite exercise for you to do. It only takes a few minutes.

Search your mind for four letter words. With a paper and pencil write down in one column all the positive ones you can think of (like “love”), and in a separate column all the neutral ones you can think of (like “hand”).

This is a process and it has a result, but I find the process itself is fascinating.

When you did this (you did do it, didn’t you?) your mind started the search by counting the letters of the words you thought of to see if there were four letters, discarding those with three or five. Then your mind decided what column they belonged in, the positive or the neutral one. Your focus was on the four letters and the task.

But, what happened when a word came up that had four letters but wasn’t positive or neutral but was negative? Did any come up? What did you do with them? They didn’t meet your criteria, so you probably set them aside and went on with your search. That’s how it works. If we don’t choose to keep the word/idea/thought/ feeling, we can just let it go. It’s not what comes into our mind, but what we allow to stay there!

 

So, did you try it?

  With some energy you should easily be able to come up with 25 words or so for each column. Here’s some of mine:

• Positive examples: life, love, heal, give, hope, care, free, wise
• Neutral examples: wine, land, book, rock, road, list, hand, foot
• Negative examples: ****, debt, dull, fear, hate, lack, pain, poor

 

All words that we choose to take in and keep, all thoughts that we hang on to, all feelings that we wallow in…are ours! We create our experience by those choices.

 Do you remember this story?

It’s a great example of the choice of focus! From the Old Testament, it illustrates the power of our choice of what we see and the decision we make as to what to name it.

It’s the story of Joshua and Caleb, two of twelve spies sent to check out the Promised Land. The other ten spies returned with a gloomy, despondent picture of a land dominated by giants who were unconquerable and unwilling to give up their land. The spies’ advice was to remain in the desert.

Joshua and Caleb returned with a completely different picture. They reported seeing a land filled with milk and honey. Compared to the desert, it was beautiful, filled with green rolling hills, freshwater springs, and lush fruit trees. Their advice was to move ahead.

They looked at the opportunities, not the obstacles. Their only mention of the existing people and armies was “they are our bread; their protection has departed from them.” Their vision of the new land was greater than any problem that needed to be solved.

In contrast, the other ten spies never mentioned the bounty of the country. They were too blinded by fear to see the good things.

Thus Joshua and Caleb led the Israelites in conquering the land, and were well rewarded.

So, what are you looking for? Choosing to see?

What words will you choose?

As you make your lists, watch your mind at work as you focus on the positive words you want. You are the creator! Play with it! Please share your words below.

 

P.S. If you’d like to take it a step further, just for fun, go for two word phrases with your four letter words like “care much” “feel calm” “good idea!”

 

 

Tags: 4 letter words, Joshua and Caleb, sticks and stones