3567: [Part 1] The Power of Words - 3 Phrases That Will Destroy Your Happiness by Sabrina of Budding Optimist

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[00:00:25] So press play on Good Sleep tonight because a good tomorrow starts with a good night's sleep. Just search for Good Sleep in your podcast app and be sure to pick the one from Optimal Living Daily. This is Optimal Living Daily, The Power of Words, 3 Phrases That Will Destroy Your Happiness, Part 1 by Sabrina of BuddingOptimist.com. And I'm Justin Malik reading to you every day of the year, but sometimes longer posts that I split up into two. That's the case today.

[00:00:55] So for now, let's get right to part one as we optimize your life. The Power of Words, 3 Phrases That Will Destroy Your Happiness, Part 1 by Sabrina of BuddingOptimist.com. Quote, Language exerts hidden power, like the moon on the tides. Rita Mae Brown I have long been fascinated by the power of words.

[00:01:24] Words have this inexplicable ability to make our lips curl up in a smile, our hearts quicken with adrenaline, and our eyes blurry with tears of both joy and sorrow. Words can comfort, energize, and encourage. They can also provoke, stifle, and frustrate. Words can hurt as much as they can heal. If words are so powerful, do the words we use affect how happy we feel? Absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:01:52] In their book titled Words Can Change Your Brain, Dr. Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman use science to show us how positive words like love and peace can improve our thinking abilities and encourage motivation, while negative words like hate and anger can produce stress and hinder our reasoning processes. But today, rather than talking about the words and phrases that we can easily identify as being negative,

[00:02:18] I want to share with you three phrases that are not so obviously negative, and yet their effect on our happiness is no less destructive. They may be hiding in your vocabulary, slowly gnawing away at your happiness without you knowing. The three phrases are, Why me? If only. And, Not now. Number one. Why me? For a long time after I was diagnosed with leukemia for the first time,

[00:02:46] I searched high and low for a reason as to why I was struck by this disease. I was young, healthy, and watched what I ate, save for the occasional burger and soda. I'd always been nice, responsible, and said my please and thank yous. Wasn't all this enough? What had I done wrong? And the answer, as I came to realize, was nothing. Like what the doctor said, it was just one of those sporadic cases that occurred without a clear cause.

[00:03:16] It had nothing to do with my family history, lifestyle, or the lie that I had conjured up to my grade 10 physical education teacher to get out of class. So then, why me? After a period of struggling for an answer, I finally came face to face with the fact that there was no answer. You know that saying, everything happens for a reason? I wish everything in life was as simple as that, but as I learned from meeting other cancer patients like myself,

[00:03:43] a lot of times bad things, terrible things, unbelievably horrendous things, happen to good people for no apparent reason at all. And we have to accept that as a fact of life. When I was diagnosed with bronchiolitis obliterans, a rare lung disease that can affect certain post-bone marrow transplant patients seven years after my transplant, I didn't even bother asking, why me, this time? I could have if I really wanted to.

[00:04:12] I was not the typical transplant survivor who would get this disease. Again, like the leukemia, the doctors couldn't explain the cause of this disease. To this day, no one knows why I would get bronchiolitis obliterans while other transplant survivors who are more at risk for developing the condition manage to escape from it. As much as I would like a straightforward answer, I now accept the fact that bad things just happen in life and they can and do happen to good people.

[00:04:41] People who are kind, loving, and honest for the most part. People who do all the things we know we're supposed to do, like exercising, cutting sugar, and staying away from tobacco and hard liquor. This acceptance is not a white flag, don't get me wrong. I'm not throwing in the towel just because life may not always seem like a fair referee. It's just that instead of struggling against this fact of life, I choose to accept it as the rule of the game and play my best within it.

[00:05:11] So don't ask, why me? It is an unanswerable question. Instead, learn to accept that things can go sideways or even completely fall off the railings when we've done nothing wrong. It's a hard pill to swallow indeed, but it is the pill that does the most healing. Number two, if only. If only I were taller. If only I were smarter. If only.

[00:05:36] The biggest problem with the phrase if only is that it describes a scenario that does not exist. It creates an illusion of a desired reality, which makes our current reality pale in comparison. When we use the phrase if only, we remind ourselves that there is a gap between that desired reality and our current reality. If there is something we can do to close the gap, for example, investing in personal development can take us closer to if only I were smarter, then it's not so bad.

[00:06:05] In fact, it might even motivate us to achieve a worthy goal. But a lot of times, we can't fill the gap no matter what we do. And we end up feeling dejected and hopeless. To be continued. You just listened to part one of the post titled, The Power of Words, Three Phrases That Will Destroy Your Happiness, by Sabrina of buddingoptimist.com. And I'll be right back with my commentary.

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[00:07:31] Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash old. Go to shopify.com slash OLD. Shopify.com slash old. And thank you to Sabrina. I'll finish the rest for you in tomorrow's episode. So far, what these two things remind me of, why me and if only, they're kind of the external locus of control mindset.

[00:07:59] That is, why did these external things happen to me? And if only this thing happened to me that wasn't in my control, like being taller. Personally, I like to keep those things out of my mind. The things that I can't control or can't change. As she said, things are going to happen out of our control all the time. Good, bad, and everything in between. And focusing or dwelling on the things outside of our control instead of actions we can take that are within our control,

[00:08:28] to me, is a recipe for a miserable life. But we'll see where this goes tomorrow. So with that, thank you for being here and listening every day. And I'll be back tomorrow to finish up this post, where optimal life awaits.