The Power of Words
“You failed!” she screamed at me. “You completely and totally failed; you got it all so wrong! How could you be so stupid!” At that point, she felt like there was no fixing it, no making it right, and no redemption to be found. She felt so utterly broken, angry, and hopeless because she had gotten the one thing she had worked so hard to make sure she would never, ever get wrong — the most important thing of all — her life. And she blamed me for it. She blamed me for all the choices she made that led her to that point, and she blamed me for being so naïve and blind. “I’ll never forgive you,” she said.
Today, she realizes and understands so much more than she did then, and she has learned to forgive me because of that. She realizes and understands that I was guiding her with nothing but pure love and trust and goodness in my heart, that I always wanted the best that life has to offer for her, and that I only always wanted, and still do, for her to be happy. She knows that now. She also now realizes how powerful words are, how influential and defining the meaning we give those words can be on and in our lives, and she realizes now that was such a big part of why we both made the choices we did.
The meaning we both gave to words like success, failure, love, trust, truth, and even a word as seemingly boring, commonplace, and unexciting as work played such a huge role in who she learned to become and the life she created around that role. It was only after so much of that life came crashing down, right at that moment when she blamed me and hated me so much for getting it all wrong, that she started to understand the significant role all those meanings played in building the life she had created that was now tumbling down; and in far more subtle ways than either one of us could have imagined.
Yes, even the meaning she attributed to the word work played a role. Because while her definition of what “work” meant was never as rigid as it was for some of the people around her and in her life, she realizes now that it was rigid nonetheless, even if that rigidity was of a different kind. For her, work was never simply a thing you do because you have to, without question and without passion. It was never the — you’re born, you work, you die mentality — that was common in some of the older generations before her. For her, work was always about dreaming big, realizing those dreams, and doing what you love. But, what she didn’t realize until much later was that even in her definition, there were certain things that counted as “real work”, others that didn’t, and if success wasn’t a part of it, then it didn’t matter either way.
She grew up, like so many of us do, in a world where burnout, hustle, and grind are worn like badges of honor. A world where success or failure in work not only delineates who you are, but also determines your success or failure in life. A world where the classification of what counts as “real work” and what doesn’t is very clear, as is the hierarchy of achievement and accomplishment within it. The level of achievement, accomplishment, recognition, status, and of course the be-all-end-all mothership — how much money you make — determine your place on the ladder of success, in life and in work, that everyone is so desperately trying to climb.
“People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to find, once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.” — Thomas Merton
For her, and for a long time, the most poignant and most important of those benchmarks on the ladder of success were the notches of achievement, accomplishment, status, and recognition. She may not have consciously admitted it, but she now realizes how much those rankings drove her. Looking back now, it’s easy for her to understand why those metrics of achievement and recognition mattered more to her than any other. It made sense and fit perfectly with another one of her most deeply rooted false beliefs at that point in her life- her belief in the requisite need for outside validation, approval, and sanction by others over her. It’s one of the reasons why she always put her best foot forward, cultivated her discipline, and tried to excel at whatever it was she was doing, in work and in life. To earn that sanction.
She had grown up as an actress and she loved the entirety of that world of theatre and tv and movies, and directors, and writers, and musicians, dancers, and artists that she was a part of. Growing up, it wasn’t a separate and disconnected work-part of her life; it was a part of her, and who she was, and what she loved. So while she shifted her target roles over time from actress, to writer/director, to talent agent, to film and tv entertainment lawyer, something deep within her fought hard not to completely let go of the connection she felt with that world. She cherished that connection, and she knew that I did too.
She realizes now though, that the shifting of those roles was based solely on her subconscious but ever-present and ever-important belief in the paramount importance of her scorecard of achievement, and the definition of success that she had. And that was a central piece of why she did in fact start to disconnect from that world that she loved so much; and without her really noticing it. She became so focused on her scorecard of achievement that she woke up one day and the meaning of “work” was a separate and detached component of her life; no longer an integrated part of who she was and what she loved. She also realizes now that was a huge part of when and why she started to lose the most important connection of all — the one she had with herself.
She now recognizes that she became so consumed by the notion of achievement that she lost the fulfillment in it. Today, she understands that though achievement and fulfillment often do go hand in hand, they don’t always. She knows that setting specific, clear-set, tangible goals and then achieving them can be extremely rewarding and fulfilling. She even recognizes that sometimes, the process alone of working and progressing towards something, even before she’s actually achieved it, can be fulfilling in and of itself. But, she now also knows that there were times in her life when she achieved all sorts of goals and milestones, but she felt disconnected and unfulfilled nonetheless.
She also understands now that there is no shame in that. Feeling unfulfilled despite her achievements didn’t make her ungrateful, and it also didn’t mean that she wasn’t proud of all that she had achieved. It simply meant that she is human. After all, it’s a universal, age-old existential human condition to yearn for a greater sense of meaning, purpose, passion, and fulfillment in our life, regardless of how much or what we may or may not have already achieved. She now also understands that it wasn’t about throwing away her goals, or no longer wanting or striving to achieve more; it was about recognizing the wholeness of who she is, and allowing herself to slow down sometimes and to give herself the space and time she needed when she needed it.
It was about remembering to focus on, and act on, not only her goals and achievements, but also on the parts of her — the interests, the activities, the people, the ideas and ideals — that were truly connecting, for her. All the things that help her feel present, engaged, and true. All the things that light up her soul, and bring joy and peace to her heart. All the things that feel good and right — even when those things have nothing to do with any specific end goal or “achievement.” It was about doing, being, and working on all the things that helped her come alive, come back home to herself, and live her truth.
Looking back, she realizes that she started to slowly leave the home within herself because of what she then understood the words “work” and “success” to mean; and because of all the classifications and rankings she put on those definitions and meanings. It was only after she redefined for herself what the word “work” means to her, what “success” means to her, what “love” means to her, and what a great many other words mean to her — not what they meant to others nor what others’ expectations of what they should mean to her were — that she started coming back home to herself, and to me, again.
“Words. So powerful. They can crush a heart, or heal it. They can shame a soul or liberate it. They can shatter dreams or energize them. They can obstruct connection or invite it. They can create defenses, or melt them. We have to use our words wisely.” — Jeff Brown
Ironically, it was during the height of her dark night of the soul that she started understanding, for herself, new meanings for critical words in her life. New meanings, for her and by her, of words like success, failure, love, and work. It was precisely when her entire house-of-cards-life came crashing down, and her along with it, that she started to redefine those words and articulate what they meant to her, and for her life. It was when she was grieving all the losses and betrayals she had endured and all the mistakes she had made, when she felt like the biggest failure of all, and like she was worth nothing, had accomplished nothing, and had achieved nothing — including in the category of work that the world gives such a persona-defining meaning to– that was when she started to understand her power to give new transformational meanings to those words. Meanings that were grounded in her truth, not anybody else’s. And that is when she came back home to me.
One of the biggest of those changes in meaning came in how she defined work. As she started to pick up the pieces of everything that had crumbled in her life and around her, and as she stood in the wreckage that was left at her feet from it, she began to face and process and subsequently heal her hurt, her anger, her losses, and all of her wounds and traumas. And in those moments, she suddenly realized that she was not only doing the hardest work of her life, but the most important work of her life too. Healing her pain, tending to herself, understanding herself, learning to love herself again, reclaiming her power and passion and hope and inspiration, and coming back home to herself to live her truth — that was really hard work! And it was incredibly significant and meaningful work. And that was when she started to forgive herself too; to forgive me.
Real work, whether recognized by the masses as “real work” or not, takes strength, courage, and resilience. It takes humility, patience, and perseverance. And the only way to tap into the unlimited amounts of strength, courage, resilience, humility, patience, and perseverance that none of us think we have, but we all do, is to define for ourselves what that work — whatever it may be — means to us. To define it for ourselves in a way that is meaningful, valuable, purposeful, fulfilling, and true to us.
For her, the meaning of the word work defined so much of her life and the paths she took; and then, the new meanings she learned to attribute to that word, and to so many other words, opened up so much for her. She now understands that no matter what type of work she’s doing, whether it’s the hard work of being the best mother, friend, sister, daughter, partner, person, and higher Self she can be, or whether it’s any other “real work” role — she decides what meaning it has for her and what success in that role looks like for her; no one else. And, she will forever remain dedicated to never again losing the connection between what work and success mean to her on one hand, and what doing what she loves, being who she loves, living her truth, and staying in her home with her Self, with me, mean on the other.
I am her, and she is me. Words are powerful.
