early edition tarot trump - The Magician
The Sun has moved on to Cancer now but the Moon is still in Gemini until she meets the Sun tomorrow opposite Pluto – the planet of destruction and regeneration – a perfect time to discuss the power of our words.
As Mamas we all realise that what’s said to children sticks. Personally, I’ve experienced some long-forgotten relative telling me, at age three, that at night the wolves come out to eat little girls’ ears – and for years I couldn’t sleep without a blanket covering my head, even in summer. If there ever was an ear-eating wolf it was that man who spoke those words.
My father once told me that a large red mark on his back was ‘a war wound’ and that my grandfather had lost his four severed fingers ’shaving’ so that I grew up thinking my nerdy, bespectacled Dad had been a soldier and that my Poppa was idiotically clumsy. The moment it dawned upon me that these things weren’t true (not to mention being completely implausible) didn’t come until I was an adult and almost a parent myself – and in that moment my ideas about a whole lot of things crumbled.
Oh yes, words can be permanent in the mind of a child. Little ears can be punished and little minds convinced that the obvious is untrue and the ridiculous is real.
We Mamas, on the other hand, have an ongoing challenge to be heard (especially when it comes to mundane and repetitive matters such as picking up socks and brushing teeth). It may sometimes feel a bit like the same day being lived over and over. We may be so darn bored or frustrated by certain routines that we’re tempted to shake it up occasionally – in not so constructive ways. We threaten, we cajole, we ‘encourage’ and we Lay Down the Law. Then we go through it all again next time.
After a year of, lets say, mediating between siblings fighting over the front seat of the car, or a month of morning squabbles about bathroom rights, or certain people’s (not mentioning any names kid!) ongoing tendency toward just sitting down doing nothing (yes, right when the whole household has to be somewhere on time) we begin to suspect that the right words need to be found or we should just shut up about it.
Then there’s the issue of unconscious self-talk. We all know how that goes – we’ve heard it from the mouths of our friends and neighbours. That baby-boomer aunt who for years complains that everything ‘gives her the shits’ and then later mysteriously finds herself battling bowel cancer (but not healing it); the lonely forty-something divorcee who cannot stop himself from bellyaching about his ex-wife’s drinking problems (while swilling chardonnay) and terrible parenting (while his son listens, heartbroken, from the other room) and alienates everyone he knows. There’s the friend who tells you constantly ‘one day I’ll get there’ and struggles on and on, never quite ‘making it’. And there’s always the poor woman who is heard daily saying ‘we don’t have enough money for that’ and ‘we can’t afford it’ and well, stays the poor woman you know who goes without.
Without putting too much of a fine point on it, we need to practice listening to ourselves and paying attention to our words. Our words are more important than we were raised to believe, and children are not the only ones influenced by ill-thought talk (or well-thought talk!). We all are. In every area of our lives there are ’speakings about’ and ’speakings around’ – in other words we speak our selves into being. More than that, our words create our experiences – they attract to us more of what we speak of.
So if we repeatedly say ‘Kid, pick up your socks!’ (or shout it, as the case may sometimes be) then what we’ll find is that we’ll keep on having to say it, we’ll keep on seeing that socks need to be picked up. The day we stop noticing the socks, and start noticing that the kid is busy eating his Wheaties (which we want, right?) or tying his little brother’s shoe laces (even better!) is the day we break the pattern. Socks will still need to be picked up, of course, but it won’t be such a big deal. Maybe we’ll pick ‘em up and smile that our kid was so busy doing his adorable kid thing that he forgot about the socks, and so did we.
The same goes for the Self-talk (and I’m not talking about other people’s self-talk – I’m talking about yours). Are you listening to yourself? Do you really hear what you’re saying?? Do you ever catch yourself saying something which you know isn’t positive, isn’t good for you to say or for others’ to hear? What are your words affirming in your life? Now is a good time to do an audit, and perhaps uncover something important about where you’re life is heading – and discover how you can creatively improve things.
So, here’s the gist of minding your words -
- resolve to pay attention to your speech for 24 hours – you’re looking for repetition, ‘catch phrases’, ‘cliches’ you use often, ‘puns’ and parts of language you find funny or disturbing.
- list all of the words, phrases, and regular points of conflict (eg the socks) you observe without judging yourself (this isn’t about feeling bad remember!)
- work with this list in your journalling – ask yourself about your words
- look up the etymology of commonly used words in your lexicon – the origins of language are very telling
- practice the affirmation “my word is my wand, I wield it to create_______, under Grace and in perfect ways” (insert your goals, ideals and wishes)
- practice speaking the word for what you would like to see in your life. Want more abundance – speak it. “I’d LOVE more good stuff in my life”, “I always have everything I need” (these two have very little unconscious resistance attached to them – try them and see how true they feel).
- Make a conscious effort to say little or nothing for part of your day – knowing when to be silent and when to speak is a required for Mama Magic.
- Consider your words with care – love your words.
Abracadabra Mamas xx
