The Power of Language and Stories

Hi all,
This is a continuation of ideas related to the previous post on The Power of Choice.

Check out the latest picture of my nephew Jonah (you can click on it to see a bigger picture). Doesn't he look extremely happy?

I showed this picture to a lady at work and she asked me a question that really stayed with me and got me thinking. She said:

"What happens with this kind of happiness when we grow up? "

Her question made me think...so what is different between us and Jonah? What is something we have that he does not have? Answers are many, but I am going to focus on one of the major differences: The Power of Language and Stories. Jonah does not have language or stories yet.

I am reading a book right now called What Happy People Know by Dan Baker, Ph.D. In this book he talks about Six Happiness Tools and Six Happiness Traps.

The Power of Language and Stories is one of the happiness tools and here is what the author says:

"We don't describe the world we see, we see the world we describe. Language, as the single most fundamental force of the human intellect, has the power to alter perception. We think in words and these words have the power to limit us or to set us free; they can frighten us or evoke our courage (...) the stories we tell ourselves about our own life eventually become our lives. We can tell healthy stories or horror stories. The choice is ours."

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So we obviously can't go back to being babies in the physical/intellectual sense, but I think it is possible to recapture some of that lost happiness.

Listening to our own stories of fear of not being enough (The Negative Mind) had the power to bring us to the depths of addiction...I believe the opposite is also true.

Imagine what is possible if we use the power of language and stories to our advantage...

til next time,