My client had just finished describing a situation and I posed the question, ‘How did that strike you?’
That was 30 years ago and I’m grateful my clinical supervisor cautioned me that my choice of the words ‘How did that strike you?’ made it a leading question; ‘strike’ assumes a hit, an offense. It is not an open question.
Words can have an aggressive quality and sometimes this is an important, almost desirable, trait. In his book, The Brain’s Way of Healing, Norman Doidges quotes prominent health professional Abraham Fuks on the use of language in medical practice: “Medicine fights the war against cancer and combats AIDS with doctors’ orders. The patient is battling cancer”. When cells are turning against one’s body it makes sense to envision the bad cells as the enemy that needs to be conquered by good cells. There is a place for military images, especially when life is at stake.
But in our pedestrian lives when we are not under threat, it seems we may be overusing extreme words to describe non-extreme situations. ‘Traffic was brutal!’ ‘She was devastated’.
Certain words should be reserved for extraordinary events. The word ‘awesome’, ideally reserved for a Deity or at least the Grand Canyon, is now used to describe everything from a pair of shoes to a doughnut.
There are words that, even apart from their meanings, sound harsher to our ear than others: strike, crush, kick. Hard consonants are often, but not always the key.
Compare the effect of words with no sharp edges: mellow, blue, flowing. Even Hollywood has a sense of this, having Harrison Ford’s gruff television personality in the movie Morning Glory refuse to use the word ‘fluffy’ (Spoiler Alert: In the end, his use of it resolves the plot’s conflict – who would have thought?).
The words we choose can either activate or calm us, and others. Even the word ‘trigger’ can be a trigger.
I was in conversation with a client about tackling a heavy topic (‘tackling’ is another word with punch … so is ‘punch’). She was very clear that she did not want to jump, dive or plunge into the deep end. We talked about the picture that formed for her with those words … abrupt, all or none. Then we spoke of exploration, what the dialogue could look like with a softer approach, a smoother ramp into the deeper water. Even as I type this, there is a different more settled sensation in my nervous system.
My point? Well chosen words can resonate, soothe and validate. Even when there is distress – especially when there is distress – it is helpful to speak the softer words. The ‘hot’ words add more fuel to whatever emotion is cooking, often escalating rather than solving a difficult time.
This isn’t news; this truth has been around for a while: Proverbs 15:1 A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Now we just have nervous system research to back it up.
Cathy Sakiyama, M.Ed.
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