This morning I was on a train listening to a mother talking to her young son. The mother’s words were unkind and deliberately hurtful, in a way that demonstrated their damage instantaneously.  Yesterday I worked with a couple who came to see me to learn how to communicate better. For an hour, I listened to both of them using their words to criticize and humiliate each other.  Last week I said something to a friend that was not helpful for our relationship and not skillful in terms of expressing myself in a way that she could hear.  Add to all that, I just received an unsupportive email from a family member telling me all the reasons why I was wrong (and he was right) about something we had discussed.

It’s been a week of thinking about words, those spoken as well as those left unspoken. We’ve all had the experience of saying something and wishing we hadn’t.  And, we all know that once we do say something out loud to someone, we can never really take it back.  In Buddhism, there’s an important practice called “Right Speech.”  Right speech is part of the Noble Eightfold Path, the fundamental, eight-part instruction manual for  ending our suffering.  According to the Buddha, our own wellbeing is built upon the practice of not lying, not slandering, not using unkind or abusive language, and not gossiping.  In order to end our own suffering, we’re taught to speak truthfully and use words to promote harmony and understanding, reduce anger, and most of all, be helpful.

Sometimes I read the Buddha’s words on words and think about how radically different our world would be if more people practiced his version of right speech, as a path to happiness.  We’re living in a time when communication is constant and words are cheap; we throw our words around on social media and the like as if they hold no consequences and are without any real or lasting impact on those who receive them, and our world. Because we don’t have to witness or hear the impact of our words online or via text, we’ve forgotten (or are purposing ignoring) the effects of the words we choose to put into our world.

As we age, our relationship with words and speech changes.  When we’re young we tend to believe that what we have to say is extraordinary, original, and right in some overarching, universal way.  We have a strong need to be known and recognized, to establish who we are.  It feels important thus to have our words heard and to use our words to correct any wrongs we encounter.  Our words are representations of our self; without them, we don’t feel we exist.

But as we evolve and hopefully a bit of humility sets in, we often realize how little we actually know, how much less we have to say than we thought.  And, how much has already been said by those before us.  So too, we recognize how many versions of “right” actually exist—in addition to our own. If we’re lucky, we start to lose the sense of awe we have for our own words.  Furthermore, we come to understand how powerful our words actually are, how deeply the words we choose impact our relationships and our own wellbeing.  If we’re paying attention, we assume a greater sense of responsibility for the words we put into the world.

In my own life, I’ve been actively paying attention to and practicing (or doing my best to practice) right speech for some time now.  I do this in many ways but three in particular stand out.

First, I consciously try to use my words to provide support and encouragement.  Before speaking, I think about how my words can point the other person towards something positive in themselves, something they do well or that might feel helpful.  I see my words as having the potential and purpose to remind another person of their own goodness and possibility.

Second, I choose to relieve my words of the burden of having to perfectly and completely capture my actual experience.  Words are powerful and at the same time layers of experience exist that are not conveyable or formulate-able with words. And so, rather than demanding that my words be absolute representations of my experience, and furthermore that I be understood by others, completely, through my words, I now accept that some of what we live internally is simply is not language-able…and that’s okay.  It has to be okay because it is.

Finally, I used to believe that when my partner said something I disagreed with, it was my responsibility to explain why he was wrong.  I felt I had to engage with and correct the wrongs I perceived.

Right or mindful speech, blessedly, has taught me how to say less not more.  I now practice restraint of pen, tongue and thumb.  Not speaking, writing or texting when I feel bothered or perceive a wrong, has in fact been most significant in my practice because of how directly and deeply I feel its results, both in myself and in my relationships.  It turns out that silence, particularly at the times when I most want to use a lot of words, is in fact more powerful than anything I could say.  Saying nothing says a lot.

Practicing right speech, I see that when my partner says something I don’t agree with, remarkably, I don’t have to say anything at all.  I can leave anything and everything just as it is.  I don’t need to change anyone else’s ideas to own my own ideas; my truth does not depend on adjusting anyone else’s truth.  My partner and everyone else can have their experience and I can have my own, simultaneously.  If it’s something that we need to find consensus on, perhaps something about the kids, I can also choose to press the pause button when I hear something that feels very wrong.  I can say nothing in the moment and take time to think about what I want to say, if anything, and how to say it in a way that can be helpful to the situation and that the other person can hear.  I have learned, in fact, that I have all sorts of choices in how to employ the power of speech.

I have discovered that relationships run far more smoothly when I take the path of saying less not more, and even nothing at all sometimes.  And, that the peace I’m trying to create through words, the peace that is always my end goal, is paradoxically maintained through the absence of words.  It feels miraculous every time I say nothing and simply let go without a response or reaction, other than silence.  This, for me, is emotional freedom.  Many moons ago, Mahatma Ghandi beautifully used his words to say this: “Speak only if it improves upon the silence.”  And I would add, before using our words, we can ask, will these words help or harm?

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What then is to be done if we are all speaking different languages despite using the same words? Shall we stop trying to communicate altogether? This is not a viable solution as we still want to reach each other and be known, still want to dialogue and exchange ideas. Because the system is limited does not mean we limit our use of it. Rather, what is important is that we recognize and honor the limitations of language in the face of our desire to know each other, and keep all of this in the front of our consciousness. We must continually remind ourselves that what we mean with our words is probably not what another is hearing. When we receive feedback, in whatever form, that we not immediately react to another based on the assumption that what we said is what the other heard or more importantly, understood. Sometimes the response we are receiving is indeed about what we meant, but so often it is not. We can interrupt a large majority of the conflict that arises in our relationships just by recognizing and staying mindful of the infinite variations in meaning that exist within the very same words.

As a therapist sometimes it is easiest to work with clients from radically different cultures than my own. With someone whose culture is completely unknown for me, I have the luxury of making no assumptions. Because of our obvious differences, I easily accept that I have no way of knowing what they mean when they use a particular word or express a particular concept. I know simply that it is probably not what I mean when I use that word or concept. With clients who have lived an experience that feels familiar, come from a similar culture perhaps, I must remind myself continually that despite our similar history, and the use of similar words, I still cannot and should not assume that I know what they mean when they say what they say. It is incumbent upon me to always investigate further, so that I am not relating to myself, but to them, authentically. Some degree of assumption must occur as we cannot investigate every word, but the more that we can stay mindful of the assumptions that we are making, the less communication misses and hurts we will be forced to endure.

Even with our most intimates, those we feel really know us, we cannot assume that we mean the same things when we use the same words. And while this can feel daunting and isolating, it can also be deeply liberating. With this knowing, the world opens up; communication transforms from the finite to the infinite. How liberating to realize that there is so much more to be discovered in another’s words than what we know and assume—that thank goodness we are not limited to and trapped in just our own understanding and experience. How freeing to discover that what we know is just that…what we know, and that there is so much more to life—that our reality is just one of infinite realities! How incredible to be able to move outside our own box of mind, and return to a state of not knowing and total freedom, to be able to look and really see. So too, how profoundly unburdening it is to realize that we cannot and should not expect ourselves to know what another means when they speak our language, even though technically it is the same language. Why would we imagine that we could know what another means, about anything, without investigation? And even with investigation, can we ever really know? We have all lived different lives and that changes the meaning of all the words we speak. But, beautifully, we can always inquire, and what a rare and extraordinary gift it is to actually ask another human being what they mean when they say “X,” to give them the opportunity to be known, and for us to truly know them. In each word spoken by another, there is a universe to be discovered, if we are curious, if we really want to know another—not through our lens but through theirs. To remove our translation and listen freshly, how lovely! Like thoughts that go on in our own private mind theatres, the meanings for words and concepts are also part of our own private universe. When we are mindful and respectful of this, freed up from of our own private languages, what an adventure life can be!

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