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Sticks And Stones - Insulating Yourself From Insults
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"...but words can never harm me." Why do words hurt so much, they're nothing more than puffs or air with a sound wave attached, aren't they?
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Transcript
Auto-generated transcript. Not time-synced to the video.
if someone insults us we often use
extreme words to describe their insult
like they put a knife in my heart
really
a word is no more than a puff of air
with a feeble sound wave attached to it
and yet sometimes
it does indeed feel like a knife in our
heart
how does a puff of air turn into a knife
the answer is that it's we who turn the
insulting words of others into a knife
few things are as precious to us as our
self-esteem and yet for most of us our
sense of value comes from others if
other people ask our advice we feel
smart if they seek our company we feel
likeable if they criticize us we feel
demeaned if they reject us we worry that
perhaps
we're unworthy
insulting words turn into knives because
we allow those words to define us
imagine if one day an ant crawls across
your car windshield and as he passes you
by he turns his head and says loser
after you get over the shock of a
talking ant i don't think this
experience would make much of a dent in
your self-esteem
why would i let an ant define who i am
many feuds that then the perfectly good
relationship are triggered by one single
insult
an insult says more about the person who
said it than the person it said about
either the insulter is frustrated or
thoughtless or never learned the
destructive power of words
all of this is their responsibility to
fix but for us
if we want to live in peace with
ourselves we need to stop the insult in
its tracks on its way towards us we need
to tell ourselves that we will not be
defined by another person's
communication or insensitivity
challenges
but here's the thing
and it's magical
if we don't breathe life into words of
insult they can slide by us as the puffs
of air that they really are
we can remember the lesson of the ant
we can stop letting others define us and
define ourselves
today's challenge
when someone says something you find
hurtful say to yourself
your words don't define me
but my reaction to your words do
[Music]
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