I know what it’s like to have a story to tell. To burst with it. To feel its lightness like a secret or heaviness from a long incubation. The problem: you don’t know what “it” is.

Intuitive writing can help you figure this out. It can help you determine if this thing is a short story, kick-ass blog, novel, memoir, poem or something else.

Intuitive writing…

• begins with a spark. Some kind of image, idea, catchy phrase. It continues with a willingness to see where it leads.
• is a voyage, a process of discovery.
• is free from outlines, direction and expectations.
• is writing with velocity. Get it out. Get it down.
• is play. Sure. It might take some discipline to make a commitment and sit down and write this thing…whatever it is…but intuitive writing should feel more like play and less like a chore.
• has no deadlines. Just a commitment to write.
• may require a timer.  While there are no deadlines, it may be helpful to set a time limit on the exploratory writing. It gets the ball rolling by assuring your psyche that you don’t have to write forever.
• can really get cranking the last 10 minutes of your timed writing. I don’t know why. It’s like your brain gets serious about getting whatever it is out.
• is a willingness to lower your standards. You’re not invested in the words, you’re invested in the story. Once you get the story out you can rewrite and rewrite and rewrite if need be.
• may be a straight path – from the beginning, to the middle to the end. But you may also find you start at the end or somewhere in the middle.
• requires trust. What?! There you are writing and out of nowhere grandma grabs a double-barreled shot gun? OK. Go with it. For now. You may be surprised that when the story is completed that it made perfect sense.
• is locking up the inner critic. You can’t create and criticize at the same time.
• is a solitary process. It’s just you and the pen. Or you and the computer. Writing. Writing. Writing. Don’t show your work to your spouse, your best friend, your writer friend, or even your editor until you get the story out.
• Intuitive re-writing needs some distance. Once you’ve got it down, give it some space. Then return to it and tack on that ending you never quite grasped or start the process of rewriting.

Take that seed of an idea and plant it. Like the acorn to the Oak tree, the story knows what it wants to become.

Sometimes you need to step away from the creative project. Sometimes you need to check in with an editor or learn something new before you can finish writing. Sometimes you need to abandon the so-so idea you’re in the middle of to pursue the great idea it fertilized. Rarely, I wrote  in my last blog, is what you write ever a waste.

But sometimes, even with intuitive writing which is a heart-centered grand experiment anyway, you really need to just quit. Stop writing. Stop crafting whatever it is you’re trying to make work.

It’s enormously difficult. Especially for creative thinkers.

Segway scooter inventor Dean Kamen said he stays awake nights wrestling over whether to quit a project that’s going nowhere. Kamen, also successful inventor of health care technologies and the Slingshot water purifier, said knowing when to quit “is the toughest decision there is.”

Of course it is. It’s embarrassing to admit you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. And isn’t quitting an indicator that you may never reach your goal? What about all the spent energy and costs, including time away from family, friends and other creative projects? 

Even with all that, there is a time to quit.

How do you know when?

When…

• It’s not fun anymore. And not just that it’s become challenging — the best work often is — but when writing has become out and out drudgery. If you’ve written yourself into a tight spot, tough it out and find a way to fix what’s broken. But when this creative thing feels you with dread, it’s time to stop.
• You find yourself daydreaming constantly about what else you’d rather be doing than sitting in front of the computer or with a notepad in hand.
• When you have a BETTER idea. I covered this already in my last blog. But how do you know you’re not flitting from one thing to another? Because the better idea, though pursuing it may be tinged with fear, is exciting. By contrast, the existing project isn’t so much scary as it is dull.
• You have stopped creating all together. With intuitive writing you know there is a story in there somewhere but if the thought of returning to this particular story sidelines you fron writing at all then let it go. There very likely IS a story waiting to be told. But this isn’t it. So start writing again and see if the story you’re supposed to tell emerges.

The legends of those that didn’t quit abound. Thomas Edison and his 1,000 attempts to get the light bulb glowing before he finally did. R.K. Rowling as broke, depressed and rejected by publishing houses everywhere before a little series of novels were published. Certainly they persevered and met with mind-blowing success. But sometimes it’s worth considering whether persevering in the same way or on the exact same creative path is worth it.

Consider:

• Oprah Winfrey wanted to be a serious news reporter and was fired. She was devastated but offered a job as a talk show host It was, she says, “like breathing.” The rest is history.
• Aretha Franklin explored various genres from opera to jazz, producing 12 albums with Columbia. But it wasn’t until she left to Atlantic Records that her gospel roots were embraced and she began singing the kind of songs that cemented her moniker as the Queen of Soul.
• Olympic gold medalist Dick Fosbury was a talented high school athlete but try as he might he couldn’t get over the high-jump bar. His coaches told him to try another sport. But Fosbury continued to experiment with various methods of getting over the bar. He created his own jump by throwing himself backwards over the bar. Don’t they all you might be wondering? Not until the invention of the Fosbury flop.

Don’t quit your art. Don’t quit your calling as a creative. But consider quitting — at least for now — this one thing that’s no longer fun, rewarding, or even sufficiently challenging.

In other words, don’t kill your future creative success by failing to quit what’s holding you back now.

Therefore I remember each of the handful of stories that didn’t run for a variety of reasons. I remember because I don’t like the feeling of producing a big, fat nothing.

I loathe wasting effort and creative time. And yet I have a stash of personal creative endeavors that I didn’t finish or the finished product isn’t, in my opinion, any good.

But are those false starts and collection of words that have no clear purpose, ending or finesse really just a big, fat pile of nothing?

No.

And here’s why you need to embrace those big, fat piles as part of the intuitive storytelling process and part of the greater grace of life.

• Intuitive writing, or the process of free writing and discovery, can help you clarify what your piece is about. But, too, it can illuminate what’s lacking. This unrealized piece of writing is telling you that something else needs to occur. More education on a topic. More time to gain perspective. Possibly more sleep.
• In the midst of writing one story you unearthed another one that is more exciting to you. Those early words  were really the bread crumb path that led you to a different, more exciting story. Take that road! 
• You got stuck and that stuckness put you in touch with an editor, with a get-unstuck technique or a new creative work. (I never could have written a collection of children’s fairytales if I hadn’t have become so bored with a novel I was writing and had not sought to write something fun instead.)
• Applaud yourself for NOT playing it safe. Maybe you took a risk at crafting a poem and it sucked. But you tried. You carpet bombed the comfort zone and that’s a celebration, not a defeat.

Intuitive writing is a process of discovery. Not just about what your actual product is going to be about, but about life. Don’t cheat yourself of the wonder of the process by not at least considering what that abandoned or crappy piece of writing brought to your life. Have compassion for the person that tried and got tripped up.

You may just have to accept that you don’t know the reason for the collage of letters and words you had such high hopes for. Maybe you’ll return to that novel, or blog, or perfect tweet later when the timing feels right. But trust it was not for nothing. Writing for many of us is not just what we do, it’s who we are. And who we are is never wrong.

Susan continued to explain and I continued to windshield wiper my arm as if to say no problem.  Because really she need not explain any further why she had not read the piece especially after she said the word, “perfect.”

I got it.

You creative souls know what she’s talking about too, right?

I’ll get to that creative project when I’m…

• Less tired.
• Feeling more inspired.
• Buy that new computer.

I’ll get to that creative project when others…

• Stop needing me at every turn for something.
• Accept what I’m doing.
• Tell me enough that they approve of what I’m going to write, paint, draw, etc…

I’ll get to that creative project when my world…

• Is neat and tidy and all the laundry is done.
• Is quiet.
• Is a little less crazy.

In other words, when things are perfect.

And they never are.

When I first began meditating, I sought to recreate the perfect setting and experiences of which I learned under. Namely: quiet, a soft cushion, and 30 uninterrupted minutes.

In five plus years of daily meditating, that’s never happened since. I meditate twice a day and because of the demands of work and small kids, I meditate most often in my car just before I go into my work building or just outside my house. Of course, I still long for the ideal of having a meditation room in which I am never disturbed and my meditation unfolds like clockwork. But I’m done waiting for that version of perfection because finding a few minutes, even with the shouts of school kids in a park nearby is better — waaay better — than skipping meditation all together.

And almost weekly I struggle when doing a bit of creative writing because I’m waiting for some version of perfect to appear. I’m waiting for the kitchen to be all clean. I’m waiting to feel fully awake and alert. I’m waiting for some inspirational or ethereal nudge.

But I’m learning slowly and surely to apply the lessons I’ve learned from being a journalist for 20-plus years of how to get it done.

1. Start by shrinking the parameters. I might start by thinking I’m going to write a giant expose or three-part series. But more often than not, something needs to get into the newspaper or out into the digital world sooner rather than later. People need information now and they’ll take what they can get in a short story to start with. And people need the information you have to share now too! So start with a blog post if you don’t feel quite ready to tackle the book. Or, if a book is definitely cooking in your creative pot, shrink it from writing a chapter each day to writing a few pages.
2. Then give yourself a deadline. Build in penalties or rewards. A trip to Starbucks always work for me, as does upgrading the massage I receive every six weeks to include aromatherapy.  But that’s me.
3. Start where you’re comfortable. I know writers that begin at the beginning. I know writers that begin at the end. I begin with a line, a scene, a character, or whatever I have that I’m excited about and seems like it might be the spark of something. Even in journalism stories. Sometimes I don’t know where the information holes are until I start writing and the questions pop up.  Just start.
4. Believe in the rewrite. So you begin and you write crap.  Rewrite it and rewrite it until it’s just so.  Or tuck it away and forget about it for now. It’s just a collection of thoughts or information in words, a collection of feelings expressed in a painting etc… It’s not you!

It’s funny that both Susan and I would both suffer from this form of waiting for perfection since we both have journalistic backgrounds and have pounded out story after story under deadline. We’ve written from less than savory places under less than savory conditions. But we got it done and often we did work we could be proud of, or at least not embarrassed of.

Sometimes, in other creative endeavors, we try too hard. We make doing the work matter too much. We try to be perfect when we  should be just trying to be present in any way we can to this creative idea, spark, or thing that needs us.

It was just after Thanksgiving that we got the diagnosis that my dad was dying of a very rare and incurable cancer. He died on Christmas day.  And in every Christmas season since I have lit a white candle in his memory.  These candles, more often than not, are scented of vanilla or gardenia or white cotton. If I truly wanted to be reminded of my father, the candle would smell of motor oil.

My father owned an auto service and towing outfit and as such simply could not drive by when someone was stranded roadside. Though he wasn’t a saint, like a river that smooths a stone’s rough edges, time has smoothed the rough edges of my memories and I’m left with  joyful rememberances.  

Of precarious, crazy Jeep rides all over the sand dunes of southern California.

Of his preference to Christmas shop on Christmas Eve at a car wash for his children. “Yes, but it’s an electronic tire gauge!” he would say.

Of  a laugh that that you could hear coming like a freight train and was as contagious as a yawn.

In the seven years since he died, many a man about his age when he died - 67- has turned to look at me after undoubtedly feeling the heat of my stare.  They have caught me gazing  lovingly and longingly and sending them silent blessings because something about their lined faces or posture or mechanic shop smell reminded me of my dad.

I am reminded now of a recent interview I did with Jill Bolte Taylor. The neuroanatomist suffered a severe hemorrhage in 1996, effectively losing the use of her left brain at the age of 37. Besides being unable to walk, talk, or even sit up she found herself awakened to a state of bliss.  She spoke passionately about this at the Ted Conference. We talked about how she maintains her blissed out state-of-mind  even though she’s made a full, physical recovery.

It’s a two-step process.

First, accept what you’re feeling. “Fear or anger or despair or grief — all the really gripping emotions that most people define as negitive,” Taylor said.  Accept it, experience it and the feelings will pass through.

Second, Taylor said, find the gratitude in the feeling. Even in the inside-twisting experience of grief.

“Even the experience of deep grief,” Taylor said. “It’s an incredible, rich experience when you allow it to take you and you go there. Close your eyes. Let yourself be with it. Then have the gratitude to know that I’m capable of having that experience because I’m alive! I’m alive!”

So as this season’s white candle burns down, the flickering flame has reminded me of the joy I have experienced with my father and that I’m still here. Loving. Living. Grieving.

And accepting this year’s white candle scent of white orchid tea.

Patient.

Dutiful.

Capable.

And my creativity is like such a dog. It’s by my side when needed. On deadline, in particular. It handles changes of direction with ease. It is prepared to take new paths. It is ready to lead me down well-worn roads, even when nothing amazing or useful has ever been found there. It needs only some nuturing, some play and for me to grab hold and say, “Let’s go.”

But I have something to confess. Sometimes I put blinders on my creative guide dog.  It sounds terribly abusive. (Call the PETA folks!) And, I guess, it is.  My meek excuse is that I feel I know best about how to get from point A to point B. So I handicap my creativity. It makes me feel in control. It makes me feel like I’m going somewhere. Not just anywhere…like my creative dog might lead me to a blog idea, or a single perfect sentence, or an idea for a lede on a newspaper story…but someplace, by gosh, that’s important. That IS something. Like a book. Or a movie script that will start a bidding war. Or a new world manifesto.

And in the end, I usually end up at somewhat of a dead end, no where to turn, no clear direction, the map of where I was going now  littering the road of abandoned aspirations. So I return to my creative guide. I remove the blinders and ask once again for it to guide me with often only a little direction.

Directions like…

• I’m thinking of this little girl and a family of quail and it may be some sort of children’s story. Have you ever heard of that place? I ask. My dog/my creative guide knows how to get there.
•  I’d like to go somewhere in my writing that deals with the importance of questions. So many people say they want answers, but I think it’s the questions — our own unique questions —  that are important in leading us where we want to go in life.  Is this an essay? A memoir? A paragraph in a future blog?
• I had a dream about a seeing-eye dog with blinders sitting forlornly by a Dumpster last night. Feels like  it had something to do with my own personal creative quest. What could it mean? I want to explore this.

We really are more partners, my creative guide dog and me. My creative guide’s job is to take my spark of interest and use it to light the way of our creative journey.

And my job in this relationship is to:

Trust.

Trust.

Trust some more.

I am not helpless. But I am often blind at first to where that zap of excitement, that tap on the shoulder to look over there or that sharp pinch of curiousity is taking me.

I see that now.

You immediately notice feelings of fear, nervousness, hopelessness, despair.  And maybe you’re feeling a little bad about those bad feelings. It’s almost a religion that negativity and feeling bad should simply not be tolerated if you’re going to be a successful, creative, prosperous person.

What crap.

As I recently sat judging myself in the Target parking lot just for feeling — Blech! — the reporter in me asked the question, is it really so bad to feel bad? I’ve come to realize that feeling bad can lead to some really good changes and insights. 

Such as…

• Feeling bad can lead to greater self acceptance. So I feel bad. OK.  I am reminded that I don’t have to change a molecule of me, even my feelings, because I am whole and complete  just as I am. I make mistakes, I stumble, but it’ s all OK.
• Feeling bad can deepen self-trust. Just this week I was nervous. Nervous that something was amiss. That nervousness was actually intuition, telling me that if I didn’t leave now I would be late to pick up my daughter for school. This meant leaving 30 minutes earlier than normal. Guess what? A freeway car accident and an empty gas tank translated to a 30-minute delay. Burying uncomfortable feelings before considering whether they are bringing something important to the surface does a disservice to your inner knowing.
• Feeling bad can help you release painful feelings.  Feeling bad, really feeling into the feeling, can ultimately help you release it. (Think crying over a sad song or sad movie. Don’t you feel better after?) Repressing your feelings can dull your response to life in general, giving depression a chance to set in.  
• Feeling bad can more fully connect you with your life path.   Feeling bad tells you that something in your life is out of sync or needs your attention.  The truth is being in touch with your true feelings helps you accept where you are. Say yes to to the feelings that are here and now, be open to what may really be their source and understand that they may be a signal that change is on the horizon.
• Feeling bad can support this change. Sometimes feeling bad and GIVING IT A VOICE can support this change by spurring us to get the help we need. Those bad feelings could be the catalyst we need to ask for help, change our thoughts/behaviors, switch directions, get out, or finally get on board.   
• Feeling bad reminds us we have a choice. For the last few weeks I’d been muttering, ”OK, Mr. Happy Pants,” at my husband’s less than cheerful reaction to our life circumstances. Then I noticed an abrupt turnaround in his demeanor. What gives, I asked him.  “I’m tired of feeling bad,” he said. “So much of it I can’t control. But I can control how I feel about it.”

Feeling bad doesn’t have to define you. It shouldn’t define you. But those bad feelings need our attention.  It’s only when we ignore or try to bury them that like a whack-a-mole they keep popping up.

I’ve taken those bad feelings to a friend, a life coach, to meditation and my journal. I’ve aired ‘em out, examined them closely and then stepped back from them. Ultimately, I aim to accept them. In accepting those bad feelings, I may open myself up just enough to understand the good messages they are trying to deliver.

OK, so the reasons we are told to stay out of judgment are very sound. Here a few wise souls tell us why:

• If you judge people, you have no time to love them. ~ Mother Theresa
•  To sit in judgment of those things which you perceive to be wrong or imperfect is to be one more person who is part of judgment, evil or imperfection. ~Wayne Dyer
• Being caught in anger, judgment, and blame is disempowering; it throws us out of our center; it puts us at the effect of the lovelessness of someone else. ~Marianne Williamson

Judgment is just HEAVY. Letting people, places and things be the way they are is LIGHT. I want to be light.

So probably for all the days of my life I’ll work on judgment. I dare say I’m getting better when it comes to judging other people. I’m no saint. Let’s just say when it comes to being in the same room as some of my ultraconservative relatives and friends, I have discarded the way I want them to be (goodbye: heavy) and can enjoy them as more than their voting record (hello: light.)

 But staying out of judgement when it comes to myself is hard, hard, hard. I bet you can say the same.

And one of the reasons it’s so hard — and it’s a noble reason –is that I am ready to take full  responsibility for my health, finances, creative endeavors and happiness so I can live this heart-centered vision I have for my life.

• So as part of this vision I’ve downsized my work load. This means –at least temporarily — I’ve downsized my income. And what should occur? My checking account becomes overdrawn. Me in judgment: Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! How are you ever going to save up for these vacations and other dreams-with-a-pricetag if you give the bank $35 in overdraft fees?
• So as part of this vision I’m stretching in my creative writing but not sure where it’s going. A friend just got a book deal. Me in judgment: Yeah, and where’s your writing going? Nowhere that I can see.

The problem as I see it  is that I’ve married self- judgment and responsibility. I want to be fully responsible for my life now so I can live that heart-centered vision. Yet I err in believing that judging myself is a particular form of taking responsibility.

It’s not.

Judgment is….

• Reflecting with disdain, dissatisfaction or disgust at your word or deed.
• Wanting, wishing, hoping that people, places or things would change to reflect your desires.
• Comparing. (Why does she have a book deal/baby/big house and I don’t?)
• Punishing.
• Feeling like a victim in some way (Why do I always have to be stuck next to the non-stop talker on a plane?)
• Restrictive. (He is clearly wrong. There is only one way right way to think about this issue.)

Taking responsibility is…

• Accepting things exactly as they are. (I overdrew funds. End of story.)
• Changing your actions. (I’m going to once again start logging my daily purchases so I know exactly how much money I have in my account.)
• Making a worthy commitment. (I will keep writing everyday even though I don’t know where it’s going.) 
• Empowering. (I CAN do something about this, even if it’s only to change the way I view the situation.)
• Setting you on a path to infinite possibilities. Even a baby-step will start you in a different direction than the place of self-judgment you are now. That direction can lead anywhere and everywhere.  

• First, light in the sense that releasing the right/wrong, good/bad can illuminate new paths and new strategies that I otherwise wouldn’t see because my focus was so narrow.
•  Second, light in the sense that releasing  what is heavy can speed me toward that vision I have.  

I’ve been praying in spare moments for clarity.

Who doesn’t want clarity? The very word ushers in feelings of peace and contentment.  If you read my last blog, you know how I feel about the power of words. And clarity is a very powerful word indeed if it enhances well being. 

So there I was praying for clarity and trying to imagine what that would look like in my life, when it occurred to me that the word and the vision I was holding were not in sync. I was praying for clarity, but coveting certainty.

Certainty that selling the house would bring more joy, levity and possibility into my life. 

Certainty about what to call or how to define myself –  a reporter? a spiritual writer? a blogger?

Certainty that the small steps I’m taking now in my writing, in my marriage, in the moments I step out of my comfort zone and make a fool of myself are actually going to lead somewhere.

This is not clarity.

Clarity is…

• found in the moment.  I received very clear, innate direction that calling the real estate agent was the right thing to do. I felt very clear on signing the papers to sell the house. Each step of the way toward selling my house, I was clear that that is what I needed to do.  At that moment. At that point in time. I’m not at all certain where this HUGE decision will find me in a year or two.
• a feeling.  Clarity is heart-centered and intuitive. When I finally decided to sell the house after thinking about it for two long years it was not because an intellectual insight had suddenly occurred. No, it was a “feeling” that told me the time was now. Likewise, when I packed my overnight bag three weeks before my baby’s due date, it was because a “feeling” told me that was the next step. (I gave birth the next day, two months early.)
• an experience. Clarity is fluid and may come and go. You can not lock it down because life is always in motion and thus your circumstances and direction are always changing. Perhaps some people have more moments of clarity then others, but it’s not a state of being as much as an experience.

Whereas Certainty is…

• found in the past.  It’s a certainty that I have become a parent. It’ is not at all certain where this will take me in my own growth or how my children will turn out. It’s not even certain that they will outlive me, but I wish it were so.
• mind/intellect centered.  It’s what our ego and our rational mind crave.  An A + B = C equation. It’s good to have knowledge about how things might turn out or have turned out in the past but even a scientist will tell you that probability does not equal certainty.  
• an attitude. While clarity is an experience, certainty is an attitude. I can say with certainty that I am a writer. Why? Because I have a conviction that this happens to be so.  Today. On other days I may feel like a worthless fraud. It’s all about attitude. 

I long for certainty because I want to reduce a certain amount of chaos in my life. But trying to predict what will happen with any certainty is a fruitless endeavor. Not only that but it closes off the possibility that something even more amazing than I could ever imagine could happen.

How do I reconcile the craving clarity/imagining certainty issue?

I continue to seek clarity. Meditate. Take long walks. Listen, trust and take guided action when I feel a moment of clarity. I trust in the experience.

Then I release an expectation of certainty by loosening up what my vision of my future like will look like and concentrate on what it will feel like. Peaceful. Expansive. Creative.

Ava, then 3, was an empathetic child who seemed to need to be engaged at every waking moment. She wasn’t hyper exactly because she had great powers of concentration when it came to doing puzzles or watching “Clifford.”  But most often she would be jumping (perhaps on furniture), running (perhaps into the wall or others), or mirroring the energy of crying babies or other fussy toddlers (perhaps because she was not well rested.) 

She was acting, well, 3. And then some. Naturally, when you’re caring for other children at the same time this created some added stress.

“Ava,” she told me. “has a lot of energy and is very sensitive. We’re working to keep her busy, be a little more respectful of property and people and to work with her emotions.” (Yeah, the woman my girls call Mama Sheila really is that great.)

I sighed with relief. She did not say Ava was “exhausting,”  or even use the code word for a problematic child — “challenging.”  Both words I had uttered myself at times of exasperation.

Words are oh. so. powerful.

With her carefully chosen words, Mama Sheila managed to convey that any help I could provide – maybe guiding Ava from using the furniture as a trampoline at home or dropping her off after a full night’s sleep — would be appreciated.

So when I spotted a workshop called Wordology is Your Biology as a method to change your life, I didn’t scoff. The workshop promises to reveal how you give your power away with words and how they can affect your health and wealth.

I’m reminded of these words from Abraham Hicks I read this week:   ”We would like you to release the word ‘achieve’ or ‘earn’ from your vocabulary and from your understanding, altogether; and we would like you to replace those words with the word “allow”. You’re wanting to allow your well-being, not achieve it. It’s not something that you need to earn.”

I love the reframing of the words achieve or earn to allow. It’s much more in the flow and less swimming up stream.

Then while reading O, this month, columnist Martha Beck talks about the importance of Vocab Rehab.

She recommends changing a very stressful word in your self-description of your life  to “something more freeing,  relaxing, or exhilarating.”

See if instead of  “I’m nervous,” whether “I’m excited” may also fit. The word “unsure” could be replaced by “open,” she writes.

Changing your words, helps to change your story, which helps to change your life. 

I’ve been mindful of the words I’ve used this week and swapped them out when necessary.

Examples:

“I’m uncomfortable,” to “I’m growing.”

“I’m anxious,” to “I’m expectant.”

“I didn’t do everything I wanted today” to “I did the things that were most important to me today.”

Really, word choice and choosing the right words is about kindness. Showing kindess to others, as my childcare provider did with my daughter and I, and showing kindness to your present state and self.  It doesn’t matter whether the words are written, spoken out loud, or spoken only in your own head. In choosing the words that are most kind, you move away from a state of judgment and comparison to one of appreciation and well-being.

That’s how powerful words are.