Words are powerful. The human brain is powerful. Unconscious, semi-conscious, and conscious—all of these states house hidden omnipotence.
We have learned that it is much more productive to phrase things in the affirmative rather than the negative, especially for self-work. It is better to strive to increase connection and calm than to try to minimize isolation and worry. Identifying items as opportunities rather than problems puts us on second base before ever receiving the first pitch. I like free head-starts and bet you do too.
How often do we use words—either just in self-talk or actually out loud—incorrectly? Use them in a way that is a disservice to us. Could simply changing our understanding of a single definition release an avalanche of healing, joy, and purpose?
One such word for me is “perfect.” A friend (thank you K) mentioned it in sort of a challenging way because she knows how it is a very problematic word for me. She shared that her understanding of the ancient Greek definition of perfect is not what we think. It is not defined to mean “without fault.” It is not, let’s say, “God-like.” It is more akin to “complete,” “mature,” “whole,” or “having reached its end.”
Just think about that for a moment. If we struggle with concepts of perfection because we are reaching for this definitionally impossible goal of being without fault, what if we just made that little switch to thinking about perfection in terms of moving towards completion or wholeness?
Once again, I will be using myself as an example. I have battled mightily the concept of perfection my entire life. It has been an illusory, reported safe destination that I, in theory, could reach with great diligence, hard work, and practice. But I have always known that sticking with the commonly held concept in our society of perfection—reinforced by Photoshopped supermodels, AI-curated social media news streams, and seemingly everything else—I find myself falling short.
But what if what I was really striving to reach was just completeness, wholeness, or “good-enough-ness”? As I mentioned before, I always viewed perfection as a destination that would finally, after years of struggle, allow me to exhale, finally being free. But of course, that place and time can never be reached. I didn’t even bother to challenge the idea of destination instead of journey. I pledge to do better!
I am going to try on the new definition of just being complete, being whole, being mature, because I do a decent job with that in general. What other words do we misuse? Just a few that come to mind are “literally,” “actually,” and “completely.” I guess there are a lot of words that we use in a hyper-exaggerated way: “everything,” “always,” “starving,” “destroyed,” “terrified.” We live in a time of hyperbole, and maybe just by changing some of the words we use and updating what we understand their meaning to be, we can free ourselves a bit.
