The only language that you know.
How was I upsetting my mother in law? Well, other than marrying her daughter (just kidding Mom), I was using a language foreign to her, and one that she didn’t particularly appreciate.
We both used the English language, and it wasn’t that I was using dialogue that she found particularly offensive, or vulgar. The words we were using were the same, but I arranged them in a way that made her uncomfortable.
Because that way of speaking was the only dialect I knew, while she preferred a more compassionate expression.
She’s kind of wonderful like that.
When I came here from England, I spoke the tongue of sarcasm, and unnecessary bluntness. I could tell it bothered her, but that was the way that I was raised. I used to joke that sarcasm was currency where I grew up, but like most jokes, there was a truth underlying it that wasn’t necessarily funny.
Where I grew up, if somebody gave you a compliment, you waited for the denigrating joke that would inevitably follow.
My sarcasm was interpreted by my sweet mother in law as cruelty, when in reality, it was the way that I had been conditioned to seek connection, through the sharing of gentle, and sometimes not so gentle insults.
Subconsciously, a sarcastic insult is a way to tell someone that you have noticed them, and are connecting with them, but in a way that sets limitations on the depth of your interaction by creating a deprecating aspect that warns that depth and emotional intimacy are not welcome.
As I have grown older, and hopefully somewhat wiser, I have tried to learn a new language. Instead of a caustic criticism, I try to substitute compassion and tenderness.
When faced with the desire to denigrate, I try to uplift and ennoble. Thankfully over the last 20+ years, I have made some significant progress, but most of that came after a terrifying realization.
Because the language that I was taught as a child, consisting of sarcasm, negativity, judgment and scorn was the very same language in which I spoke to myself.
It is said that the words we say to our children become the voices in their heads, but I would say that it is not just the words, but the intention and emotion of the words that becomes the colors in which we paint both the outer world, and the one within.
Learning to speak more kindly to the people around me (even though my intention wasn’t to be cruel), I began also to speak to myself in a dialogue more likely to open an intimacy with my soul.
As words of comfort and connection flowed inwards, I began to listen more closely to the struggling within with compassion, rather than disdain, and to offer counsel in place of condemnation.
And it has made such a difference.
Because if the only language that you know is one of conflict, how can you create peace? If you only speak derision, how can you lift others. If your words create isolation, how can you develop intimacy.
I invite you to listen to yourself today, and see if there is another way to express the thoughts deep in your soul, and choose a language of kindness.
For the words you speak are heard by your own ears, and are inscribed upon your soul.
Choose wisely, and may you find a greater peace.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings