Andrea Gardner - Change Your Words, Change Your World

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Andrea Gardner 2012

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or otherwise be copied for public or private use, other than for fair use as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews, without prior written permission of the publisher.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual wellbeing. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-84850-808-8 in print
ISBN 978-1-84850-878-1 in Mobipocket format
ISBN 978-1-84850-879-8 in ePub format

For Seth, Charlotte and Sophie with love.

Words can change your brain, and the right words spoken in the right way can generate mutual rapport with others. The right words can enable cooperation, while the wrong words can generate conflict in less than a second. And if you continue to communicate with negativity, even for a few minutes, you may actually damage your brain. Thats what our latest neuroscientific research has found.

Words generate thoughts, and thoughts change the way you perceive the world. Positive thoughts generate feelings of peacefulness and serenity, whereas negative thoughts generate anxiety, fear and doubt. Recent studies have even shown that gazing at a list of positive words makes you feel better but a list of negative words makes you feel worse. Thus if you want to achieve any degree of success in the world be it in business or in love you have to choose the right words that will inspire your brain to take positive actions in the world.

But heres the problem: most of our thoughts and the words that comprise them are unconscious, and thus were rarely aware of how the negative ones are interfering with our ability to achieve our goals. If we want to improve our lives and the world in which we live, we must learn to listen to the inner stories, which are constantly spinning in our minds and transform the negativity into life-affirming words.

Andrea calls this the incessant internal dialogue, and research shows that this inner speech begins in the first two years of life. By the age of ten it becomes unconscious, but the inner noise continues to shape nearly everything we say and feel and do.

If we dont like the stories we hear, all we have to do is rewrite our inner script, bringing in words of optimism. We can choose words that empower us to take action, we can choose arbitrarily to suppress words that undermine our confidence, and if we keep a list of our positive words and gratitude, our self-esteem and satisfaction with life will soar.

Internal dialogues are constantly racing through our mind at spectacular speeds, and this causes us to talk faster when conversing with others. But if we deliberately slow down our speech, we not only increase the listeners comprehension, we also lower physical tension and stress in both the listener and ourselves. As we relax into our positive words and dialogue, we also interrupt the mechanisms that cause misunderstandings and conflict.

When you speak very slowly, and very briefly, youll begin to hear your own inner speech telling you what you should and should not do. Sometimes it sounds like a nasty parent, and sometimes it just sounds crazy, but thats the nature of everyday consciousness, and it keeps you so caught up inside yourself that it becomes virtually impossible to connect with what anyone else is saying.

By slowing down your inner and outer speech, you can begin to choose your words more wisely. Each one will take on more power, compassion, and meaning, and the process will begin to stimulate inspirational thoughts in the listeners brain. In fact, the other persons brain will begin to mirror what youre feeling. Its a process we call neural resonance and its the most effective way to build mutual understanding and trust. You can even use silence to increase the power of your words, and thus inspire others to become more conscious.

Andreas story will inspire you, but the inspiration comes from your imagination, not from the actual words in this book. Words are just words, symbols that are unique to every person on this planet. Take, for example, the word love. We all know what it means, and yet if you ask someone to define it, everyone comes up with something different. Ill give you a personal example. I really love chocolate. I love deep conversations, I love science, and I really love my family. But each of these loves is fundamentally different. That difference is reflected in the tone of the voice, and in the memories that hold on to those images and feelings of love.

In fact, words are the least important part of the communication process. Andrea and her husband Seth captured this astonishing fact in a film, which runs for less than 90 seconds. It is the foundation on which this book is based, and its one of the most moving videos Ive ever seen. Its so powerful that I now use it in every class I teach. If you havent seen this film, called The Power of Words, go to YouTube right now using this link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzgzim5m7oU

Ive watched it over and over, and each time it brings tears to my eyes. It will touch the same emotional chords in you, bringing up sadness and joy, and if I were to scan your brain while watching it, it would stimulate some of the most important neural circuits involved with social awareness and compassion.

How is that possible? How can a few words, spoken in silence, move your heart, your brain, and your soul? The answer to that question will be found in the pages of this book, but youll have to surrender yourself to the hidden images that are evoked in your own imagination.