“Handle them carefully for words have more power than atom bombs.”                                                                            ~ Pearl Strachan 

“Watch your thoughts for they become words.  Watch your words for they become action.”                                                        ~ Anonymous

Words are powerful. Remember the old saying “Stick and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me.”  Well, it’s just not true!  Words can hurt you.  But remember that words can make you happy, too.

John and I took yoga for several years with a teacher named Suzanne.  She always stressed that it was our response to life that can give us stress or not.  She got stressed out by her teenage daughter, traffic and the Christmas season.  She would laugh as she told us stories of locking herself in the bathroom while her teenage daughter was outside (instead of the other way around).  In traffic she would breath deeply before she had a bad thought for the other driver.

You know what stresses us out at Christmas?  It’s the lines at the post office and the stores, Christmas cards, relatives who want you everywhere at once and parties. Suzanne said that we could use our language to relieve our stress at this time of the year. She said that there are two words that you can’t help but smile when you say them:  Sparkle and Twinkle. 

sparkle - to be brilliant, lively, or vivacious.                                                                                               twinkle - to shine with a flickering or sparkling light

Sparkle and Twinkle are such Christmas words.  These two words conjure up such wonderful images.  Sparkle is something new, a little bell, a Christmas ornament, or someone’s smile.  Twinkle can be the look in someone’s eye (maybe Santa), a star,  or lights across a lake.  I see a little elf with a silver, sparkling ornament behind it.  John sees Tinkerbell sprinkling pixie dust everywhere.

Suzanne would have us breath in a deep breath through our nose and breath out thinking sparkle twinkle.  But the real power is in saying them out loud.  Try it.....sparkle, twinkle.  I tried it with my kids when they were little.  It especially worked with my middle child who really felt the stress of school.  He still remembers it today at 16.  He tried a few days ago to say them without smiling and still couldn’t.

Other happy words to think of:

jolly

cheerful

aglow

anticipation

joy

bliss

tickle

euphoric

exuberant

amaze

thrill

merry

glitter

dazzle

Even though you still have all those Christmas chores to get done, say these words, sparkle, twinkle, out loud.  Maybe it will change your attitude.  You’ll smile and tell your brain to be happy.  Your brain will release endorphins and seratonin and then you really will become happy.  Good luck!  And have fun!!

"All that we are is the result of what we have thought."

~ Buddha

"All that we are is the result of what we have said out loud."

~ the Zen Mama