LESS EGO / MORE SOUL

My body is a blank canvas.

Language is the paint and my mind is the artist.

Animals, plants and objects may be art but language is not their medium.

They are more like sculptures, as my words have no effect on them.

In contrast, language has the power to influence my own form dramatically.

I am who I think I am (or perhaps even more accurately at times, who I fear I am) as my words and actions manifest my thoughts.

In lieu of this, I’ve been thinking about how my own self-doubt is the only thing that separates me from those who I feel inferior to, or inspired by.

Sadly, I tend to augment my own self-doubt with the language I use to define my perspective.

It has been said that life mimics art just as art mimics life. In every moment, conscious or dreaming, we’re telling ourselves a story, and the stories we tell ourselves develop our character. In short, we’re writing our reality and it all starts with the language we use.

Delving a little deeper, I’ve observed how commonly we refer to ourselves in the third person when speaking of our own thoughts and feelings (I’m doing it right now in fact).

It’s a curious thing…

In NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), psychologists explain the importance of using “I statements” when expressing oneself. That is, using I instead of we. For example, I should say: “I’ve observed how I commonly refer to myself in the third person when speaking of my own thoughts and feelings”.

I statements force the speaker to take responsibility for their own perspective rather than attempting to suppress and disguise it as a collective issue or agreement. This negligence of responsibility inhibits real change in the name of fearless self-development as we program ourselves to think that our issues are not really ours (when they are). After all, change starts with the individual.

Granted, there are collective issues and agreements that pervade our reality, where it is entirely acceptable to speak in third. However, let us consider how speaking in third person limits the human experience.

When I take responsibility for myself through conscious speech (using I statements) I liberate my being as I validate my own personal point of view. In contrast, when speaking in third person, I neglect to own my thoughts and feelings, sending the sub-conscious message that its not really my problem, and, more destructively, that I do not have the right to feel these things as an individual.

Using I statements also prevents the speaker from imposing their reality on to the listener. I’m sure you’ve heard people describing their own unique experiences with travel, yoga, skydiving, Entheogens, or whatever else, as if their experience was definitive. They might say: “You’ll love it, it’s so amazing, when you get there, this happens and then this happens and it feels like this…” etc.

This is my issue with religious fanatics as texts such as the Bible are really just stories of other people’s experiences with source. By passing them on with the seriousness that we do, we prevent one another from being present and experiencing our own sacred stories of life, source and reality.

Sure there is truth and wisdom in each story – but rather than taking them on as gospel, its important to recognise that there is no definitive guide to life’s mystery outside of one’s own mind.

Personally, I think story telling is a good, natural and beautiful aspect of being human. However, to be responsible speakers and storytellers we need to be clear (for our own sake and others) that our personal experiences are uniquely ours. We may find others who have similar experiences, but that is still no cause to attempt to portray them as a definitive example of what it means to be alive and kicking.

Now, I realise I am being somewhat hypocritical with the tense I have written part of this article in. Granted, third person is a hard habit to break and I am still exploring how to incorporate it into my writing. However, “babies learn to crawl before they learn to walk” and so I am still working on it as I invite you to join me.