What We Say Matters - Our Words Contain Death & Life

Show Notes:
The words we say to ourselves and to others carry heavy things.

Those heavy things can be really good and encouraging and helpful, but it could also be attacking and hurtful and vicious. It just depends on what our motives are, where our heart is, and how much we are allowing our emotions to control our actions & responses.

We can have positive intentions when we use our words, when it’s for building people up, helping them solve a problem or offer advice/knowledge that is requested. But there are also negative intentions with our words, sometimes when we don’t even realize it. We can say harsh, evil things to others to hurt them on purpose, we can also spread false information for our own gain and say horrible things because we allow our emotions to be in control, which ends up allowing ourselves to react to whatever the situation is.

Again, it just depends on what our intent is. Regardless of the intent, there are consequences to our words. 

We aren’t perfect, so we WILL falter, sin & make mistakes. But we NEED to take responsibility for these things & do our best to change our ways.

Whether you’re a Christian or not, you can understand how important it is that we choose what we say carefully and know there will be consequences to our choices.
Let me share with you some ways we can know we are using our words for good & in life-giving purposes, rather than negative, harmful ways:

1. Speaking Words of Humility
   1. If we are talking about things that point to our own faults & struggles, then we are sharing about our own experiences & struggles. We could be sharing these things to be a cautionary tale for someone else, how we recovered & got through it or to demonstrate how we have grown in that specific area.
2. Speaking Words of Truth
   1. When we aren’t spreading false information, spreading knowledge that isn’t ours (gossip) or using our words to manipulate others, we are using our words in a positive way.
3. Speaking Words of Compassion
   1. Being kind & compassionate to others and ourselves is a good way to use our words. We end up comforting those that are hurting, including ourselves if we speak this way in our minds & out loud.
4. Speaking Words of Building Others Up
   1. When we are encouraging others or ourselves, we are using our words in a wonderfully positive & helpful way. We are doing the work of helping someone no longer sit in their pit of despair, but to pick themselves back up again.
   2. We do need to be careful we are not doing the work of encouragement for the sake of controlling what they do or manipulating them into something that is only beneficial for you. It needs to be free of selfish gain & of a true, giving heart.
5. Speaking Words of Wisdom & Correction
   1. When someone is in the wrong, we can be gentle, yet purposeful with our words in helping them figure out what they should be doing instead of what is currently happening. But this NEEDS to happen without tearing them down or trying to induce shame in them in the process.

Transcript

0:03

This is the Real Positive Girl podcast and I am your host Sabrina, and I am here chatting with you about your mental health struggles, your emotions, how to take those first few steps towards being more vulnerable, more honest, and becoming more self-aware. And we do that two times a week. Ki of you are New here. Welcome. I'm so glad that you're here and if you are not new, welcome back for those Seeing the video, which if you're listening to this in the podcast version, you might not see this video for a while, but if you head over to my socials, you'll be able to see like, um, a couple clips of it. Uh, there is a new background here, so we're trying it out. We're seeing how it works. So hopefully you like it. Let me know. Um, yeah, so let's talk about our mental health and our mindset today. We're gonna chat about what we say matters, our words contain death and life. But before we get into that, as always, I want to encourage you to pop down into the show notes below and see where you can come and find and become friends with me on socials. If you are on Instagram or talk talk, you can find me by going and typing in at Sabrina Joy Pozo. And do you know how to spell that again? Pop down into the show notes and take a look. If you're on Twitter, I'm also at Real Sabrina Joy. So go ahead follow me, send me a message. Just talk about your favorite snacks, your favorite kind of pizza. I love talking about food. I don't know why. It's just so fun. I always think if I'm gonna have an alternate podcast, it's gonna be like books and food and organization tips because that's just like my alter ego of like who I am <laugh> anyway, so I hope to become friends with you online. And then if you also look down there, you'll see that you can sign up for like the weekly newsletter, which is actually even behind by several weeks because I'm trying to redesign it to be something more fun and not boring and that always causes me trouble. So if you have recently signed up, please be patient. It will be out this week. Um, but sign up for that. Suggest a topic for the podcast and mean email, prayer request, all of the things. So check it all out down there. But let's go ahead and jump into why we're all actually here. The topic of the day, which again is what we say matters. Our words contain death and life. So there is a story that I often tell about how I hurt a boy in elementary school. Um, and ugh, I hurt him only with my words. And this has always been the story that I was proud to tell, I wanted to tell everyone. And you know, in hindsight now, especially now, it's like oh my gosh, I can't believe I was so proud to tell this story growing up. You know? Um, so he was doing and saying inappropriate things and I was just over it. So even as like a kid in elementary school, I still had the same sass where I was just like, listen, we just need to, we need to cut this off. We're done here, <laugh>. We're over it. And so, um, this whole incident. Happened before school started, before it even began for the day. I can't remember if it was wintertime, but if it was, remember I grew up in a, grew up, grew up, born and raised, Ingrid, Alaska. So could have been really cold outside. Maybe that was pushing my buttons. I don't know. I actually like the cold. So imagine that standing in front of an elementary school, me, this kid on the stoop of a classroom cuz they had like some doors that I would access the classroom from the outside, not having to go all the way inside the building. Other kids around were kind of just standing in a circle and I ended up making him cry. I ended up making this kid cry and in the moment I felt like a hero. I was like, where's my parade? Pat's on the back. Thank you very much. I'm so glad to be here and help you guys out in the moment. I felt like a hero. It's just crazy. Um, even thinking about it now, I believe it was then in that moment of me using my words to make this kid cry and stop him from saying whatever ridiculousness he was saying because that's just how 11 year old boys are, right? I realized how powerful my words were. Not kidding, not kidding cuz up to that point in my life, you know, all kinds of chaos and trauma and drama and everything is happening. But I realized in that moment, oh my gosh, you know, I might not be able to fight or really understand why the heck my life was upside down. But my words, my words, they are powerful. Unfortunately, I wasn't thinking about it from a positive perspective. No at all. Not at all whatsoever. And really only a way to use my now power in my words to get what I wanted, defend myself and others and finally have a way to obtain control in my life because I lacked control of my life because of all the trauma, drama, drama, all the things that were happening. And so that's the thing that stuck with me. I was like, oh my gosh, this is my new found talent. I am now a superhero who hurts people with their words. That's what I was thinking in that moment. And I'm sad. I'm sad that that was like the thing that unlocked this feeling in me when I was a kid and it was the environment that I'm in. And I'm not by any means making any excuses for this. It's just what happened, right? And so thinking about that, you know, that's the biggest problem with some things that bring us personal power. You know, when you think about it, if you have your own story about like finally realizing some sort of like personal personal power that you have, we don't end up using it for good. We often end up using it for evil. And I know evil sounds like this big scary like monster of a word, but honestly just being mean to someone being rude, unkind on can be classified as evil. And that's why it's one of the biggest issues is that when we realize the power that we have inside of us, we often use it for evil and not good. Maybe a mix of both, but more evil than good. You know, I mean read a comic book, watch a movie, it's the fear of the ages when people come into power it's like oh my gosh, they're about to hit the dark side. And you know, reflecting on that and thinking about that while I was writing these notes, the whole reason that I wanted to talk about this topic was after reading a passage in the Bible today. And I've been doing a lot more of that as of late because I really wanna study the Bible and understand it so I can live by it better than I have. And so I ended up reading this scripture, Proverbs 18 verse 21 and I'm gonna read it to you. In the new Living translation, the tongue can bring death or life, those who love to talk will reap the consequences. So let's chat about that because that is the verse that I read and it just like really brought about this whole topic on talking about how the things that we say like really actually just matter more than we could ever think. So the words that we say to ourselves and to others carry heavy things. And if you don't believe me, I want you to take a moment to reflect on the last seven days and the things that you've said to others and said to yourself even the things that you've said to a stranger, like if you're going to the coffee shop or you're going to the store and you have this assumption that you'll never see this person again, which is often with strangers and you might end up saying something unkind at a frustrated moment where you allow your emotions to drive the bus, which is also a problem that I've talked about many times because we need to not allow that to happen because we don't know what's gonna happen. It's like a surprise. Our emotions are like, oh my gosh, I'm driving the bus. Where are we going? We're doing all of these things. And so really think about it. Our, the words that we say to ourselves and to others carry heavy things. And that could be heavy, emotional, positive things of love and compassion and care, right? And desire, you know, love. But it could also be heavy things like we're trying to hurt someone. And I want you to reflect on that because often, you know, we ended up blowing our frustration and our pain on other people that we don't think we're ever gonna see against strangers or people that we do see all the time. And we just expect them to forgive us because we have such a long standing relationship with them and we act, we don't and we don't wanna take any responsibility for doing those things. You wanna come up with some sort of excuse as to why. So let's think about this some more. The heavy things. Can really good and encouraging and helpful, right? Cause I wanna make sure you know that when I say heavy things, I do not immediately mean anything negative, anything bad necessarily. It could be both. It could be both sides, you know? So it could be good, encouraging, helpful, but it could also be attacking and hurtful and vicious so easily. And sometimes we can flip flop back and forth so quickly between both of those things, right? It just depends on what our motives are, where our heart is and how much we are allowing our emotions to control our actions and responses. I e driving the bus, having a good time, part of us music's loud blaring going 20 miles over the speed limit. It's crazy party time for our emotions on the bus. You know, we can have positive intentions when we use our words for sure when it's building, when it's for like building people up, helping them solve a problem or offer advice, knowledge when it's like requested when they're like, I need your help or I need to better understand this, you are the person to go after amazing, right? But there are also negative intentions with our words and sometimes when we don't even realize it, sometimes when we don't even realize it, you know, we can say harsh evil things to others to hurt them on purpose because you know we are hurt. So hurt people hurt people, right? We've all heard that it's absolutely true when we're allowing our emotions to drive the bus and just do what it wants because we haven't learned how to regulate and manage our emotions or we don't care to because we think that everyone is, should be like collateral damage because we are suffering the most pain. It's a very selfish outlook, but it's a very real one, right? Or we just don't like that person or we have some sort of vendetta or feelings against them, right? So in heart, through my pur purpose, we can also spread false information for our own gain and say horrible things because we allow our emotions to be in control. Which ends up, which ends up allowing ourselves to react to whatever the situation is. And if you're not aware, it's better to respond than react. Cuz when we react, we allow again our emotions to drive the best. But when we respond, we take a beat to really consider how we should respond, what we should say or do in the situation that would be most be beneficial to everything that's happening. Even if that means saying nothing <laugh>, that's also our response saying nothing. So again, it just depends on like what our intent and our intent is. And there is always an an intention whether you realize it or not. And you may not be ready yet. And I encourage you to do it though you may not be ready to actually admit that your intention was actually to hurt them when you're, you're not like fully realizing that, yeah, my intention was to hurt them and say mean things. But it's hard for you to admit that because you don't of person. You don't wanna be that kind of person, but you're dealing with your own pain and struggles and things that you're just spewing pain out because it's all you have inside of you. You only have pain inside of you. So it's all you're able to give. You're not even giving yourself love. So you can't even give any of that away. All you have inside of you is pain and you refuse to take care of it. You refuse to acknowledge it, you refuse to do anything about it. So you have nothing else to give anyone else. And so maybe you wish that your intention wasn't to hurt other people every second and not allow your emotions to drive the crazy party bus. But since you are not taking action to do anything about it, to make those shifts and changes, there's nothing else in there. It's, it's just like if you were to go and like be offered a job to be like an engineer, yet you haven't taken the time to actually study anything about engineering, you have nothing to give to that job. You have nothing, you have no knowledge or experience or anything to give to that job cuz you haven't done the work of actually like understanding it and knowing it and being able to like take action in it. Cuz you haven't done the work, you haven't done the work. So regardless of the intent that we have, whether we have like a positive intent and then we went about it the wrong way. Maybe we didn't, maybe we think we did but we didn't. Cuz in our heart of hearts we actually wanted to be mean. But we were trying to mask it by being nice, you know what I mean? Regardless of the intent, there are consequences to our words. There are positive ones and negative ones. So there's both. Again, we can have both sides here. It just depends on like who's doing what, when and how much. You know, when we share positive things, it usually helps others feel good. And I say usually cuz there are these small times when someone can take the positive things that we say to others and not say to them hurtful or as a direct attack because they're dealing with jealousy. So that's But I wanted to acknowledge that. But again, usually it helps others feel good, helps them feel comforted, helps them feel cared for. But when we share negative things, right, we can be held accountable later to answer why would we do this hurtful thing? You know, why would we risk relationships, opportunities? And not to mention that we will have to answer to God for the things that we say. Oh on judgment day, you know, if you're a Christ follower, you, you are accountable for those things that you say you know. And even if you're not, you still are accountable. It's like why would you do those things? And sometimes we don't even truly know because again, we haven't done any work on self-awareness and understanding why. Why do we go through with those actions, behaviors, thoughts, feelings, mindsets, emotions. Like what is happening? What's it doesn't seem worth it to allow ourselves to put negative words out into the world, but for whatever reason we still do it. We still do it. And that is why having self-awareness and understanding yourself better is worth the time and the effort. So you know the answers to those questions mostly not all the time, but a lot of times. But I understand and I want you to know and I wanna acknowledge the fact that we aren't perfect. We aren't. So we will falter, we will sin, we will make mistakes. And we need to accept that and understand that the best way to get through mistakes and failures is to learn those lessons. And that's really, really good for us. But we need to take responsibility for these things that we do and do our best to change our ways. Action speaks louder than words. You can say all day that you will change. But if you don't, people know that you don't have that as your true intention at all whatsoever. We need to do something. And I want you to know just right here in the middle of the episode, that is not my intent to chastise you during the entire episode. Maybe I should have said that at the top, but I want you to know that is not my intent at all. Again, if you're not new here, you know it's not. I'm just here to give you the the truth and the honesty to be vulnerable with you, to be transparent. I'm always telling you what I need to fix, what I'm lacking, what I am struggling with, how a growth that I need. And I want you to be able to see that in yourself too. Or maybe even help someone else. And so I'm not here to chastise you, but for you to understand that you can make different choices. If you think that you can't, that's a fixed mindset and it's a lie that you've been told or you decided to absorb, you can. We can always make different choices. We can. We just have to do that. We have to allow ourself to do that so we can make those different choices that'll lead us to becoming our best selves in our life and in Christ. So just so you know also whether you're a Christian or not, you can understand how important it is that we choose what we save carefully and know that there will be consequences to our choices either way. Again, positive and negative ones. If you're a Christ follower, we must use our words in a way that reflects the character of Christ because we're supposed to be doing everything with him through us, right? Like he is working through us and we are doing the things to illuminate him. But believe or not, if you're not a Christ follower, it's important to that we use our words wisely as often as possible. So we're not out here just like being a jerk for no reason because we choose not to work on ourselves. It's just not good. So we're gonna get into a couple of tips and um, ways that we can best use our words. But let me jump into my disclaimer as always that I have to give to you. That's very helpful I think. So here's my quick disclaimer. The tips and advice I'm about to give you are all based on my own research, knowledge, experience, and the experience of others that I'm allowed to share with you. If you find that you're about like what, what I'm about to share in everything that I've already shared thus far with you does not align with what you need to help you better understand that what we say matters, then I encourage you to seek a therapist or a counselor or if you are a Christ follower, you can maybe talk to a pastor or someone at church and they will help you in that one-on-one time. Have the opportunity to figure out what would best align with you to understand this topic and figure out what you need to do best to make sure that everything you say matters and comes out in the way that it should, right? So do that or you can always go to your best friend Google and type in like why does what we say matter? Use those keywords and then dig deeper into the blogs, into the other podcasts, into the videos, the socials, all the things, and find the answer that best aligns to where you are in this season of life right now. And I encourage you to do that because sometimes my content does not align with everyone because you're in a specific season of life and it just is not gonna work right now or it's just not clicking. And that's okay because not everyone's, everything on the internet is gonna line up with everyone all the time. It's just not, it's just not gonna happen. So just know you have options. It's totally okay. So let's jump in. So today I wanna talk about, let me share with you some ways that we know we are using our words for good and in a life-giving purpose rather than a ne a negative harmful way. And I just wanna talk about five with you really quick so that you can have something to like, think about, meditate on and be like, wow, am I using my words in this way? And again, not chastise you, but even talking to myself cuz sometimes I'd be saying some crap and it's not good <laugh>, it's not good. And so we can just all become aware, you know? So the first one that I wanna share with you is speaking words of humility. Speaking words of humility. So if we are talking about things that point to our own faults and struggles, then we are sharing about our own experiences and struggles, which is good. We're being like we're, we're, we're working in that humility to be honest and be like, listen, I am going through these things too. It's okay, I wanna share those with you. I wanna be honest, vulnerable, kind of like what I already kinda like briefly spoke on, on how I'm not here to chastise you, but here to you know, encourage you to see yourself for where you really are right now and what might need to change. And that's why I'm always honestly being like using my humility to just share with you and be humble about how I'm like, I don't have it all together. Absolutely not. I don't think I'll ever have it all together. I think there'll be parts where those things are really together and everything else is kind of like, ugh, missing puzzle pieces and that's okay cuz it'll shift around to different things. And I want you to know that free too. So we could be sharing what's ever happening in our life, you know, to be a cautionary tale for some, someone, sometimes I do that or how we recovered and got through it, got through whatever the struggle is. The problem is the thing that we're dealing with, even if it's like really personal and really hard to talk about, but wanting to help others in that way or to demonstrate how we have grown in that specific area. How we have gotten from this point to this point and then to the next, right? And that is a great way to use our words and speak to people by just being honest. And even if that means like gory details and I mean that in the best way of just like details that maybe other people wouldn't necessarily share but you wanna share. Cuz again, you just wouldn't wanna be honest and open. You know, we could also be sharing about our own limitations and what we are currently doing to not any longer be under the control of those limits, right? If we just lock ourselves away in our comfort zones and don't do anything, maybe we have a limitation of allowing people into our lives, into our hearts because of some trauma and things that we have gone through, some pain that we're still currently dealing with. But we wanna share about those limitations that we put on ourselves in our life so that we can become stronger and also hopefully influence and encourage other people to do the same if they hear what we're sharing about. And again, I love, I love it, love it so much being vulnerable about my shortcomings. Absolutely. I feel like I'm a good open book. The only thing I don't talk about is anything that's like wrapped up in my kid or my husband because they didn't sign up to share their whole life on the internet. So I do stop there. That's where the boundary is for me. But I love sharing whatever I am going through and my own limitations and you know what I, I'm currently dealing with. And so as most people follow me somewhere on the internet, y'all know that <laugh>, y'all know that. Um, and I believe that we shouldn't be pretending we are okay all the time. We need to share where we are failing, you know, where we're asking for help, who we're asking for help, how we're doing that if we really struggle with asking for help, right? And what we're doing about it. So it's another way to show honesty and integrity, which are both really important. So speaking words, speaking, speaking words of humility, that is a great way to use your words. The second one that I wanna share with you is speaking words of truth, speaking words of truth. So when we aren't spreading false information, spreading knowledge that isn't ours, which is if you've never heard gossip described that way, that is what it is. It's like, you know something about this person, Lisa, and I apologize if your name is Lisa. I'm just, just an example. First hand popped into my head. If you are spreading information about Lisa to other people, but Lisa hasn't done the work to share it with those people first and you only assume that she's willing to tell those people but she hasn't given you like the go ahead that yeah, you can tell people then you are gossiping cuz you're sharing knowledge that is not your own with other people. Not cool, not cool. So when we aren't spreading false information lies, but people, when we aren't spreading knowledge that isn't ours gossip or using our words to manipulate others, we are using our words in a positive way. So if we're not doing all of those dishonest things, perfect, amazing. Our words need to hold truth that aligns with our integrity, okay? We need to be an example of what we are striving to be as people that are truthful and honest and, and wanna uphold these things, even if we currently struggle with that. Okay? So we need to hold the truth, we need to be truthful in things that we say and that we're gonna do and follow through what we say we're gonna do. That also aligns and falls into the integrity that we have and that we want to show to the world. Plus being dishonest, never prospers anything good in the end. It never does. You know, it's too easy to get caught up in your lies. Eventually, eventually maybe years down the line, but it's still gonna catch up with you. And why take that risk? Why take the risk? Let's just not do it. So speaking words of truth, be truthful. I think that we could all be truthful and not in a harsh way where you're just using it as an excuse to be harsh and critical of someone. No, we can have truth in love. That's another conversation I'm gonna have on social this week I think. But it's important for us to speak words of truth and not lies and dishonesty in sharing things that we should not be talking to other people about. Cause it's not our business. Mind your business, okay, please. Number three, speaking words of compassion. Speaking words of compassion. So being kind and compassionate to others and ourselves. Let's not forget about that, is a good way to use our words. And again, speaking words of truth to ourselves by like not lying to ourselves about who we are and what we're all about. Remember that too. But when we're being kind and compassionate to others and ourselves, it's a good way, it's a great way, it's a grand way to use our words. We end up comforting those that are hurting, including ourselves if we speak this way in our minds and out loud. So if we're saying it to ourselves that like, you are doing so good, it's okay that you made these mistakes, uh, you're gonna learn from it. Um, let's just continue to take care of ourselves as we deal with this pain, this loss, whatever we're going through, we're showing compassion to someone else. They're like, oh my gosh, let me know how I can help you. I wanna just sit here and comfort you. If that's okay, how can I, like, do you want me to share something with you that would uplift you? Do you want me to just sit here and listen? You know, using our words to be compassionate towards other people. Amazing, right? Some of my favorite ways to speak words of compassion is to pray for others. It's to pray for people, right? And so even if they don't know, I'm praying for them. Like literally I decided just to put them on my list, my prayer list every week because I just decided to, or you know, God just gave me that feeling to do so I think that's great too. You know, I will just like, just asking God to be with them and help them with whatever they're going through. I think it's a really kind and helpful thing to do. And that's like my favorite way to use my words, to be compassionate without even having to like, feel like I'm getting in anyone's like biz, which I don't want to <laugh>, I don't wanna like overstep my bounds in any way. So that is the way that I like to use my words to be compassionate to others. Sorry, I was just thinking really deeply about that. But how I do, I really love to pray for people and I always offer prayer and not many people take me up on it. Um, but if you ever need prayer, let me know. I will pray for you always. Number four, speaking words of building others up. Speaking words of building others up. So when we are encouraging others and ourselves included, we are using our words in a wonderfully positive and helpful way. Of course you're like, oh yeah, duh, Sabrina. Yeah, yeah, it is. It's like a, it's an amazing way. I feel like it's really easy for a lot of us to do this. Like really easy. Like if you felt like, oh, Sabrina, I don't know how to pray and being truthful is difficult and you know, and I, you know, I struggle with those things. Okay, great. You can build someone up, then you can give them a piece of encouragement. Even if you have to go on your phone and just type something in to Pinterest and be like, oh my gosh, how do I encourage someone in this? You can do it. It's that easy. And then the more you do it, the easy, you'll be able to just do it off the cuff from your own mind, right? So that is such a wonderfully positive way for us to build others up and use our words. We are doing the work of helping someone no longer sit in their pit of despair, but to pick themselves back up again and not give up in our pit of despair is not the place where you want to live. Start decorating, you know, fully like paying a mortgage. That's not where you wanna be because you get too comfortable there. You, you sink further and further and further and it's more and more difficult for you to climb out, for you to see that there is a way out above, you know, we do need to be careful. You know, we are not doing the work of encouraging others for the sake of controlling what they do or manipulating them into something that is only beneficial to you. You know, it needs to be free of selfish gain and of a true giving heart. And I say that because it's so easy for people to come across as being encouraging and building you up and wanting to like to speak life into you, but it has a very specific intent and purpose and motive behind it. And sometimes it's hard, very difficult for you to tell, but often it's easy to under like to see that maybe that's happening if it's someone that you're not used to getting that from, or if it does seem like it has a very specific focus on what you should do. And if you even try to waiver a little bit, they're trying to like, you know, get you back on that course that they have designed because they're trying to get something out of it. Now, I'm not saying that we need to be suspicious of everyone and giving us encouragement. We just need to go into things being like, you know, a wide perspective of like, what's happening <laugh>, what's going on. So don't get sucked into doing something that we like really we're not intending of being part of. It's just tough. It's tough. We gotta like keep our eyes wide open while we're also trying to be trusting and loving and caring and accepting of people. So just, just be careful of that so that people aren't manipulating you and forcing you to do things that you don't wanna do. Or kind of like, you know, weaving you into the journey of that. And then maybe you'll, I don't want you to like discover that too late. So speaking words of building others up a wonderful way, providing encouragement, really loving on people, especially in their hard times. A wonderful way to use our words. And the last one that I wanna share with you is speaking words of wisdom and correction. Wisdom and correction. So everything we say to others and to ourselves isn't gonna be roses and rainbows. It's not. And sometimes we have to tell people hard truths that will help them grow and become stronger in their pursuit of becoming their best selves. And that's some really important to note and I wanted to make sure that you know that because I'm sure that some people might have this episode thinking, oh my gosh, we need to be positive all the time. No, I don't think so. I don't even think that. Like I know that even God knows that that's just not gonna happen. I believe in neutrality and just contentment like in you know, grateful, just content, having peace and joy, not like over the top positivity, toxicity area. And our words still in a helpful life giving way can be full of wisdom and correction to someone. So when we share knowledge with others that they didn't know, not in a condescending way, in a caring way, or in a way that brings more understanding to what they're doing or what they're about to do or what they didn't realize that they were about to get into, right? That's feel like that's quite kind of what I do. I like give knowledge and understanding for things that maybe people just didn't know. And that's helpful. Um, that is really helpful and good use of our words. I think that the things that I provide to you on this podcast is a very good use of my words while having as much, uh, intent for love and care as possible in providing it to you. You know, I can only hold, but that's true.<laugh>, I pray that it's true. Uh, this can even be seen when offering or responding to a need for help from someone. You know, we can help guide and teach them the things that they need help with and that's great, but also when someone is in the wrong, you know, when they do something wrong, they wrong you, wrong someone else. It's just incorrect, whatever it is. And you have the ability, you have that presence in their life. Because remember, if you're just like some random outsider and you're about to correct someone that might not go off so well, you need to figure out, finesse the situation out and understand where you were. You, you know, sit in that situation, you know what I mean? Like, is it appropriate? Is it like, honestly, is it appropriate? Not just because you know better, but is it appropriate for you to say to them, figure that out, pray about it if you don't know. Uh, but when someone is in the wrong and needs a correction, we can be gentle, yet purposeful, gentle, yet purposeful with our words in helping them figure out what they should be doing instead of what is currently happening. You know, if they're engaged in something that they really should not be doing, you wanna come at them not condescending, not critical, not mean or unkind. You wanna be like, Hey, I wanna help you and I want you to know that what you're doing right now is not really gonna help you and it's only gonna hurt you further. And really kind of digging into it with them a little bit, but not in a mean way. You know, you're being gentle, yet purposeful in what you're trying to share with them. So you're not trying to also go off on a tangent on other things that are not important at that time, talking about that correction, you know? But it's important that this needs to happen without tearing them down or trying to induce shame in them in the process. Now shame is something that, you know, we have to decide. That's how we're going to feel cuz we're all in charge of our own emotions and feelings and thoughts and actions and behaviors. But a lot of times people know what they're doing in so they're trying to induce the shame in someone so that they will feel as bad as that person expects them to. And that's unfair. Anyone out there that is trying to induce shame in people because they think that how you should feel is, is like they get to determine how you feel. That's not true because literally like you could feel however you want, you could feel the happiest you've ever felt while doing something that needs a correction. And they might want you to feel really bad about it. And you can choose not to, they don't have control of your emotions. But some people will try to work, they will work that manipulation because they want you to feel that shame because they feel like they're entitled to you feeling as bad as they're feeling or worse. So you gotta watch out for that, and we gotta make sure that we are not doing that to other people. That is so crossing a line, not fair, not appropriate. That is not a good use of our words. It's ap, it's that is, that is inducing death, okay? So we need to be careful. We need to not do that. This needs to happen. Correction and help needs to happen without tearing them down and without inducing shame and incorrection, we need to make sure you aren't enabling them either. That's the other side of it, right? We can't force anyone to change. We all know that you can't, if you didn't know that you can't. It's just a fact. It's not an opinion, it's a fact. It's a fact. You can't force anyone to change. But by not being forthright with what needs to change in any possible repercussions that will come along from them not changing, we are not doing the full job of speaking words of correction because we aren't sharing it in a clear way. Does that make sense? So we can't force 'em to change, but we need to let them know, hey, if you don't change your ways or what you're doing right now, you are gonna, you might possibly end up like this, this, and this in a kind way. Find your balance. And this could happen. Like whatever the biggest consequence repercussion that there would be for them. Maybe it's like losing their kids or something, you know, maybe it's losing their job, maybe it's not having the opportunity to do this, that and the other because it might not be as dramatic as I'm making it, but you know what I mean. And a l letting them know everything, like being very clear about what will happen, how this will affect them, and how devastating this could be for them, right? If we don't, we are enabling them. And sometimes we can tell someone what they are doing is wrong, but not portray the actual gravity of the situation. And it doesn't come across as serious to them or anyone that hears it. So they aren't convinced anything needs to change or that there's a real problem. You're just like, Hey, you know, you're doing that and that's cool, but hey, you know, this could happen and maybe this bad thing will happen. But I just wanted to let you know, just so you're aware, right? Like that doesn't sound convincing at all. That doesn't sound like you are letting them know that this situation is very important, very grave. And it also very sounds fake. Like there's no true compassion and care in there. And so you're kind of just like allowing the and them to be unable to continue because you're not presenting the realness of what needs to be corrected and changed as you should. Not in the most clear, transparent sense that it needs to come across. So you don't wanna induce shame in people or tear them down while you're correcting them, but you also don't wanna enable their behavior by not being serious about it because you're hiding behind your own fears of being able to deliver that honesty, that truth, that correction that needs to be shared, especially if it's appropriately needs to be done by you and not anyone else. Because it would just be inappropriate or weird or not helpful if someone else was telling him these same things. You know what I mean? So speaking words of wisdom and correction, super important, very helpful, has to be gone about a certain way. But one of the, one, a rarely good way for us to use our words. And that is all you guys, that is the five that I wanted to share with you on the best ways to use your words so that they are life giving and not tearing people down and not promoting this like deathly behavior. So I want you to take some time to really think about these and and share them with someone else that you think would really benefit from hearing this. And believe me, I am a sarcastic queen, but I have to really examine the things that I say and decide should I really say that? Is that really gonna help? Ooh, is this the right moment? You know, timing is everything as well. So thank you so much for listening to The Real Positive Girl podcast again with me, Sabrina. I encourage, check the show notes below, say hi to me on socials, sign up for the newsletter, check all the things out. Also, we do have videos going up on the YouTube channel, like slowly but surely, and we're gonna get current really soon. So check those out if you want the video version of the podcast and oh yeah, rate the podcast if you have a chance on Spotify and Apple. I would greatly appreciate that and share it with a friend. But until next time, have a good one and I will see y'all next time.<laugh>. Bye friends.