Week 7 – Words Matter …

My mother discovered Edgar Cayce when I was around 10 years old. The biography of his life, There is a River, literally flew off a shelf in a book store and into her hands.

It was a godsend for her.  She is psychic and for all her reaching out to the church to help her understand what she was experiencing, no one would help her.  Although there were plenty who were quite pleased to condemn her.

Her discovery of the man, Edgar Cayce, and his story, did help her. I watched all of this as a child.

It stands to reason, then, that as she learned, I learned.  And since his material was so prevalent in my early life much of the wisdom he taught influenced my thinking and my own personal and spiritual development.

I grew up with sayings like,

• “Create in me a pure heart.”
• “Let me be a channel of blessings.”
• “Turn stumbling blocks, into stepping stones.”
• “If you want to be loved, be loving. If you want to have friends, be friendly.”

These weren’t just pretty words to me, they were words to be lived. I measured myself by them, and other similar phrases and statements.

They are literally hard-wired into my brain.

People say quotes don’t help people, but for whatever reason, they’ve always helped me.

There are these small, seemingly insignificant moments in our lives that affect us, who knows why?

In first and second grade, when all the other kids ran outside to play, I would stand with my nose and fingers pressed against the window of the school’s gift shop and look at all the images of “sacred hearts.”

They seemed to speak to something in my soul. “Be Still, … and Know…”

My Granny kept the Serenity Prayer on the wall in her kitchen.  I remember reading and rereading that framed quote throughout the years of my youth, pondering its meaning, absorbing it’s wisdom.

Later, while in Jr High, I would stop and stand, nearly every day, in front of a small metal quote plaque that hung on the hallway wall at Horace Mann Jr. High to read:

“There are three sides to every argument, your side, my side, and the right side.”

I internalized it’s lesson and in time, changed it to something I felt was more accurate from personal observation and life experience, “There are an infinite number of sides to every argument, as many sides as there are points of view of the people involved.”

To close out a point of view is to lose a window toward reality. The more points of view I can see, the greater the range of my view of reality.

Quotes were never just meaningless words to me. Words matter. In fact, words shape matter.

For a very long time, years and years, I kept a quote on my desk from Gregg Braden.

Every time I started a new journal I wrote this quote and a few other key quotes on the front page.  I read these quotes every time I wrote in my journal, often several times a day.

“Every moment of everyday, what you feel in your heart is a command in the Mind of God. The Mind of God interprets our feelings, very, very literally.”

Right next to this quote was another, from A Course of Miracles,

“Perception in this world is the equivalent to creating in the Kingdom of God.”

They deepened and focused my thinking.  “Thoughts are things.”  Another Cayce saying.  They reminded me I am responsible not only for the deeds I do, but for the words I say, and for what I think, how I feel, and how I chose to perceive.  With the exercise of our responsibility comes our freedom.

Research into how our brains work has informed us that our brains are hard-wired to 2 to 1 toward avoiding negativity. This is an inherent part of our survival system.  It is often called “negativity bias.”

What surprised me though, was that even though our brains are wired to move away from negative experiences twice as much as to move toward positive experiences, it takes a whopping 17 positive statements to balance one negative statement.  Words are that powerful!

Once I realized this, I never let anyone make me feel bad for being positive again. (LOL I say, “I’m just bringing balance to the world.”)

Emerson wrote in his essay, The Law of Compensation, “For men are wiser than they know.”  Nature Intelligence is inherently balanced.

I will always appreciate the woman in an Edgar Cayce Search For God meeting who taught me this helpful lesson about mistakes.  She said,

“Mistakes are not a mark against your soul.  Mistakes point you to the next thing you need to learn.”

It was a “Wowser” moment for me. A game changer in my life.

She then taught me, that if I slip and say a negative to replace it with two positives. The first to cancel the negative and the second to bring my energy back into a positive balance.

It was a beautiful reframe of how mistakes are often handled.

So, if you feel discouraged, and in need of a lift in perspective, think about these things. Let these words and the feelings they invoke within you, work for you.

What you feel in your heart to be true, is extra-ordinarily creative. This one energetic fact, when understood, and applied, can also be massively liberating.

In 6:10 Haanel says,

“Do you love music, flowers, literature, or are you inspired by the thought of ancient or modern genius? Remember, every beauty to which you respond must have its corresponding outline in your brain before you can appreciate it.”

In this way, you are what you appreciate. ❤

What are some words, phrases, quotes, music, or images, that have been especially meaningful and uplifting to you?

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