Intention
is the Music Under the Words:
Speak
Lovingly to Heal
by
Judith Simon Prager, Ph.D.
|
Words and thoughts are things. They are as real as the chair on which you sit, although their vibration is different, so we don’t see them as material. Love is real, too, and you know it, and yet, because we cannot put it in a box or on display under glass, we don’t assign it to the same category as cars and houses.
Scientists tell us that, smaller than atoms, more elusive than waves and particles, under everything there is nothing but vibrating strings. That is the “string theory” of the universe (otherwise known as the “Theory of Everything”) and it suggests that how something vibrates is how it manifests to us.
Everything, according to this theory, has vibration.
Sounds, light, matter. Oscilloscopes show the vibrations of sounds, words, music. Matter may look solid, but that is because its vibration is such that we cannot see the intervals between the vibrations. Picture the wheel of a bicycle. When it is still, we can see that it is made mostly of space, with spokes connecting the hub to the wheel. But when it is spinning, it looks solid. In fact, in some ways it is the equivalent of solid, since we cannot put our hands between the spaces.
It is said that, in all that vibration, we are held together by an electro-magnetic field. How differently we would act if we could see the effects of our words on each other’s fields. In some ways, we can. Have you every seen someone “deflated” by a negative or cruel comment? “Hurt” but an angry word? “Bouyed” by a complement? Have you had the experience of driving or walking somewhere, in a peaceful, calm mood, when someone honks a car horn and you are so jarred, you can feel it in your body? Your heart rushes. You are flushed and confused, maybe embarrassed, hurt, angry, and it takes a while to regain your composure. So it is with words. Words can jar or soothe the field holding us together.
Words that float through the air land not just in our ears, but in our hearts, our spirits, our histories, and our futures. How words vibrate determines how they appear to us. And words are carried on the vibration of our intentions. Our intentions are the music that carries them. When our intention is to harm, even nice words can be cutting. When our intention is to heal, even clumsy words can be soothing.
Verbal First Aid is the art of saying the right words in such a way that they calm, provide pain relief, promote healing, and save lives.
When someone is physically injured or in pain or is emotionally troubled, every word sinks even more deeply into the body and spirit. Because people are often in an altered state of consciousness when under great stress or in crisis, every word can directly affect the part of the nervous system that usually works automatically to regulate our breathing, our blood flow, our body temperature, and so much more. Words said at a time of crisis or trauma can actually send commands to that part of the nervous system so that saying something dire can enhance the body’s fear reaction. Saying something hopeful, on the other hand, can produce in the victim a sense of calm that generates chemicals in the body that can begin the inner healing.
This is so in all aspects of our lives. Our child awakens from a nightmare. Our spouse receives a serious prognosis from the doctor. Our elderly parent has a heart attack. What we say and how we say it can make all the difference in the outcome. When a doctor declares that someone has six months to live, that “prescription” sinks deeply into the mind of the ill person and may become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
When you say, “Oh, I know someone who was diagnosed with that eleven years ago and—correct me if I’m wrong—but I think he outlived the doctor!” you are changing the vibration. When you say to a victim of a medical emergency, “I’m right here. I’ve called 911. The worst is over. The ambulance is on the way, so you can begin to breathe a little easier now. I’m right here,” you change the vibration.
Life is full of opportunities, large and small, for using words for healing.
Once you realize that words have such power, you can put them to music: your intention to help, to heal. And then you can go out and make the world a better place. |