"Sticks and Stones"

Unkind Words

“'Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.' This is a lie. What we say matters. The unkind things we communicate can soil the best of relationships; even with the deepest of regrets...What lingers is the stain of hurt that may fade, but will never truly go away. The wounding words we say are like feathers released in a harsh wind; once said, we will never get them back.”

Jason Versey (A Walk with Prudence)

I don't know about you, but I have said some things in my life that I deeply regret. I have spouted off to people in anger and belittled people who disagreed with me. If I had to make a list of people to whom I owe amends, it would be so long I might never get through it in this lifetime. Most of those harsh words have been spoken out of fear; as defensive weapons against hurt. They were sometimes brutally honest and raw, but that may not be reason enough to speak them. I wonder about you—do you ever use words to wound?

Most of the time when we speak in a way that is intended to hurt another, it's because something has been triggered in us that is scary. An old fear of inferiority, a disappointment, an unrealized expectation. Sometimes, we've been holding resentments over a lifetime, and suddenly something trips the hatch and out they spill like coal from a chute. Often, in the very same moment we think, “I should not have said that,” but there's no taking it back. We will never retrieve those feathers blown by a harsh wind.

Making mistakes and missteps is part of being human. In relationships, we tend to collect trading stamps of small slights and hurtful words, and then cash them in when the book is full to the brim. It would be better to say all along that something hurts, or that we don't agree with something said or done, and thus clear the air, but we rarely do that. We bite our tongues and refuse to allow ourselves to address things that are really problematic for us, because we don't want to hurt the person, harm the relationship, or cause a scene. “It's just better not to confront,” we think. All the while, those stamps are collecting, that book is getting thicker by the minute.

I believe in honesty in relationships, but I'll admit it's hard to put into practice without wounding. It hurts to be criticized, and it feels equally awful to know we've hurt someone we really care about. Once the cat is out of the bag, so to speak, the only thing we can do is say how terribly we sorry we are, and wait for a scar to form. Then we can dig a little deeper into why we may have spoken the way we did, and what caused that rift in our own heart that would make us wound another. If we can get down off our righteous indignation long enough to take an honest inventory of our own souls, we may think twice before flinging those feathers into the wind the next time.

                                                    In the Spirit,

                                                        Jane