“It is through language that we create the world, because it’s nothing until we describe it. And when we describe it, we create distinctions that govern our actions. To put it another way we do not describe the world we see, but we see the world we describe.” Thus wrote Joseph Jaworski, in Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership in which he comments on his discussions with biologist Francisco Varela, a professor of cognitive science and co-author of The Tree of Knowledge. Language provides the means to examine the patterns from which our attitudes and behaviour flow.

“Our language and our nervous system combine to constantly construct our environment,” Jaworski says. “We can only see what we talk about, because we are speaking ‘blind’—beyond language. Language provides another set of eyes and hands for the nervous system, through which we coordinate our actions with others. We exist in language. We exist in a world of distinctions.” By seeing things differently through the words you choose, you also are able to choose your behaviour and to create a desired result. Language has great power to enable or discourage.

Putting Language to Work
Many of us long to alter the context of our lives, to break through and achieve our noblest aspirations. Achieving a new perspective both personally and collectively often begins with language. Words are very powerful. Consider love versus hate. Myra Bookman, Ph. D., professor of language and psychology at the University of Colorado University and Heath Sciences Center at Denver, shared with me her understanding of the issues of hate speech and pornography.

“Both are symbolic kinds of things that are not sticks and stones—they are not concrete, but they are very powerful in terms of race and gender,” she told me. “The idea that you can’t just say whatever you want to someone implies that words can be as wounding as concrete, like throwing a stone. The law, examining the nuances of hate speech, agrees that words can indeed hurt you.” This is a clarifying perspective when we rename our system of language, love and consciousness.

The words you choose to articulate your needs and feelings help to determine your self-image and the quality of your life. The words with which we express ourselves can submerge and even subjugate us into negativity or they can elevate us into love, enthusiasm and joy.

Words are a different vibration from thoughts and feelings. As you learn to listen deeply to other people, you will discover tremendous differences in perception and be able to appreciate the impact that these distinctions have in communication. What type of language do you experience in your work environment and what do you display?

If we hold the assumption that we cannot change things, we will live our lives reacting to others instead of taking action ourselves. By reclaiming a courageous self-image that is full of concrete information, we can bring about positive change and move from resignation to the excitement of making self-rewarding choices.

A workshop called “The Language in Action” refined my understanding of the significance of the words we choose to describe our world. The program brochure read, “When we communicate effectively, we are able to intervene in and reshape the world in which we live.” The coordinator told us we would learn basic distinctions between words, and that these distinctions would enable us to communicate more effectively and produce the results we were seeking at work and in our personal lives.

Our instructor, international linguistic coach Julio Olalla of the Newfield Group, played different styles of music—classical, country, rock, jazz, and rhythm and blues—to reveal how our speaking is affected by our emotions. Different kinds of music evoke different emotions with which we perceive our world such as victimhood or continual suffering (found many times in the form of complaining—the opposite of courage).

Fixation on Suffering
Ask yourself: Is my suffering a private issue or am I making a “case” for suffering? Your language will guide you to the truth.

Dr. Caroline Myss, in Anatomy of the Spirit, writes that many people “have redefined their lives around their wounds and the process of accepting them. They are not working to get beyond their wounds.” Some of you may have heard of a tool used extensively in a variety of industries called the Enneagram (a typology of nine distinct personalities with different patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting).

This personality insight helps individuals discover their form of suffering or “unhealthy side.” Once you self-identify your personality number you can assess where you reside on a scale of one to ten (ten is unhealthy, five average and one healthy), and then note the language used to identity that spectrum. Any tool you choose to become more self-aware about your worldview
can be used to transcend the “wounded attachment” we all carry.

Many times we have to be jolted by a shocking experience before we initiate this type of introspection. For example, a tax and estate director of a private accounting firm knew he was going to be eliminated when the firm merged with another CPA firm. Even though he had been with the firm for over twenty years his intuition told him what was going to happen, and it did!

Mustering the courage to go out on his own he began to reflect on his thinking process and the language he was using to describe this period of uncertainty. Was he committed to movement or would he become paralysed? Unless we take time to review the power of language we become stuck in one place and we give ourselves labels. We say to ourselves, “I will fail alone or I’m incapable.” Handicaps are common and some beliefs may be unconscious. Some are just more visible than others.

There is a huge distinction between cowering and courage. Language is a tool that can be used to release us from our fixation on suffering.

Language Is Action
During my eleven years of interviewing women and men for my work on courage leadership, conducting inter-personal skills training and courage coaching, I became aware of the importance of language and how we human beings interact with the world using language to describe our domain. Our descriptions govern our actions and certain word meanings are deeply imprinted in our psyches. The words we choose to use in conversation can be likened to the music you like to listen to. Our words, body language and emotions form a triangle through which we interpret the world around us. If we change the interpretation, we can shift the resulting behaviour and the effect it has on our spirit and on our peers such as saying “thank you” more often.

Consider the distinction between these three simple words: discourage, courage and encourage. Webster defines discourage as being deprived of courage, hope or confidence; dispirit. Encourage means to inspire with courage, spirit or confidence; to promote; foster. The definition of courage comes from the word corage, meaning “heart and spirit.” In using these three words, moving in and out of the feelings of these words, we may be unaware of the profound influence of our interpretations on our behaviour . Shift in interpretation yields shift in behaviour .

Your words create your reality. When you speak, you are “acting.” Linguists technically call the process “performative acts”—a word or words, sentences or utterances are performances—meaning they make something happen.

Promises, declarations or words to persuade are performances that provoke action, as is hate speech. The “action” provoked can be either physical or verbal. Dr. Bookman continues: “The notion of words being actions or performing acts is very important, even now in linguistic studies.”

The book How We Do Things with Words, J. L. Austin reveals how we automatically use words as a means to get people to do things for us, to endear ourselves to people, to make people like us, to buy our products, or countless other motivations—with both positive and negative results.

When Your “Automatic” Breaks Down
Your actions are most effective when they are automatic and “transparent.” Transparency means you are able to perform without having to reflect on the performance, such as when you drive your car. Driving has become automatic and you are able to do it without thinking. While you are driving, you are in action, but not necessarily reflecting on the action. A “breakdown” occurs if you are suddenly jolted out of your “automatic” action—for instance, when you have a flat tire. At this moment, we all tend to have the same response.

A breakdown is an occurrence that requires you to assess your circumstances in that moment. The breakdown offers a place for you to reflect and discover the cause of the incident. This “breakdown” of your automatic, effortless driving takes you out of the transparency mode. When an action is transparent, you are able to act without thinking. You are your actions. A breakdown is a call to action—an opportunity to design your behaviour instead of leaving it on automatic pilot. Any habitual response is automatic and falls into consistent, unconscious patterns such as resorting to a conversation around old stories that keep you in the past.

Implementing courage offers an opportunity to choose a different action in the face of these interrupting “breakdowns.” Most people will resort to old unconscious patterns of past personal judgments. They ask themselves, “Why do things like this always happen to me?” “Why am I cursed with such rotten luck?” These comments are the critical and judgmental comments to keep things the way they are instead of initiating new possibilities to move to the “healthy” spectrum of your personality. Conjuring up new promises leads to a sudden change in human behaviour . Breakdowns create breakthroughs. Are you willing to make a new promise about how you speak at work?

Knee-jerk responses make up the majority of our conversations, and they will anesthetize you. While we want to understand why something happened, such assessments are mostly useless and from the past. But analysis of them is necessary as we seek to establish new language patterns. Why? They are a past declaration of who we are and they are a strong force in keeping you the way you are, blocking future growth.

In the language training session Julio said, “Assessments make up almost ninety percent of our speaking and are a key part of living together. But, assessments never have evidence. They are mostly useless and from the past. They are not binding although they may be entertaining, such as ‘Look at her dress!’ becomes a grounded assessment about how someone dresses. You do not question or ask, ‘Why do you say what you say’?”

Avoiding Language-Induced Breakdowns
Breakdowns become less frequent when you design conversations that coordinate action, such as requesting someone to stop using words that put you down causing shame, blame and diminishing self-esteem like when someone is trying to overpower you. In the moments of a language-induced “breakdown,” you will notice how your mood and emotions have changed—something fundamental has happened to you. With a breakdown come the old beliefs—the bigger the breakdown, the more overpowering the beliefs such as “See, I always knew I wasn’t very good”.

During times of breakdowns, I have trouble asking for help. I have asked myself why I feel that way. My fear stems from ungrounded assessments I have come to accept about myself. For example, I feel I would be viewed as less independent if I asked for help. Without asking for help I delay productivity, growth or living in love. If I am to achieve a different outcome in my life, I must be willing and motivated to change this behaviour and my language. I can only enjoy a different outcome by choosing to be vulnerable, and that takes courage!

New Language Habits Lead to Emotional Health
The action of speaking up makes something new happen. Speaking up and reaching out requires the virtue of courage. Virtues define strength of character and healthy habits.

Do you stay resentful toward your boss, telling others of his/her abuse or will you take a stand in courage and make a declaration to him? Our relationships are defined by the conversations we have or do not have with the people in our lives and you can determine the quality of your relationships by analysing the conversation. Ask yourself: Am I using courage to declare my feelings?

How do I create my conversation (dance) with someone? Do I blame my boss and fail to generate a new context for our relationship? (Casting blame on circumstances is strong in today’s America.) Or do I take responsibility to speak up to air the revealing truth?

The key behaviour is to seek a place for “wonder” about what the behaviour may be and listen for concerns. The idea that there is only one way to listen loses respect for listening.

Speaking Up Is Taking Action
Using words to clarify your position is taking appropriate action; taking action fills your pool of courage and helps you to further find your voice. Language is the coordinator that brings us together and enables us to live together. Think of problem solving as a dialogue—with yourself or with another person.

Dialogue comes from the Greek terms “dia” and “logos” and translates literally as meaning “moving through.” David Bohm, a physicist who conducted seminars on dialogue says, “The ability to perceive or think differently is more important than the knowledge gained.” Dialogue examines alternative views so the voice we carry within can discover a new view, a fundamental shift in perspective. Changing our perspective creates a distinct and more creative voice.

Jill Mattuck Tarule writes in the essay “Voices in Dialogue: Collaborative Ways of Knowing:” “Out loud or silently, voice animates thinking, produces thought, and enables the thinker to stabilize and expand her thought.”

Encouraging Transformation
Words are a powerful tool for transformation. Consultant W. Edwards Deming stated, “Nothing happens without personal transformation.” Transformations can and do occur as you alter the language that shapes your choices. Life is a continual process of becoming, of altering our being.

Are you willing to recognize and acknowledge that language is action? Your words do create your reality!

Life is essentially a learning experience. The product of learning is the capacity to produce an effective action. New learning involves mustering the courage to do something a different way, perhaps to admit you’ve been wrong in your previous approach, to question your old language patterns.

It is scary to admit you don’t have the answer, and it’s often embarrassing to have to ask questions. (In school we received good grades for good answers, not good questions.) But a good therapist or coach understands the importance of asking questions and invents “gaps” for you to ask bigger questions.

A coach will challenge you to grasp new interpretations by building new distinctions in the words you use. For example, how does your language express your intent in an email with a team member?

It takes conscious choice and effective action to dive into your heart and spirit to confront who you really are. We like to live in certainty. While a few people have learned to live with uncertainty, it is not a comfortable feeling. Moving into a new awareness requires a promise to make necessary changes. A vow to a different approach requires action.

When you feel this energy, you have shifted as an observer of your life, so that the way you are in the world is not the same, and that is the power of language!