Recovery, in essence, is a process of moving from one state of being to another, and usually from feeling broken, hurt or wounded, to a state of wholeness and wellness. Healing is the process of mending the wounds and allowing a change to occur. 

As we heal, we need to adapt, to recover ourselves, find our alignment and discover our new way and place of being in life. We become different throughout the process. This could be in subtle, dramatic, or drastic ways at times, depending on our wounds and the healing required. 

For example, we might be moving from being a distant, avoidant alcoholic to a successful business owner and caring father. A childhood abuse victim to a capable, healthy and well woman. These are radically different realities we are choosing to embody. 

These transitions take time, and they also require a process of letting go and reforming our identity, potentially many times along the way. 

Evolving our identity is paramount in recovery. Often, why people get stuck and struggle enough to stay in the same situations or fail to reach their goals in life, is because they can’t, won’t or don’t feel safe or ready to do this. 

We explore this dynamic in many blog posts here at Love School Blog, for you to benefit from. I recommend browsing the Identity category of our blog to find out more.

One of the ways we create our reality is through our identity, how we see ourselves, speak about ourselves, and relate to ourselves. How we act in response to that and the ideas we form around that, it is reflected in what we expect from ourselves and what others expect from us. The choices we make, the places we go, the people we are around, and how we present to the world all connect with the identity construct we create. It is all part of constructing and maintaining our reality, the paradigm we live in and experience every day. 

So when it comes to change, recovery and living in new ways, there is incredible power in shifting how we speak about ourselves and the language we choose to use. 

At times, this can be instant; we might suddenly decide or suddenly notice a change. Other times, it might happen gradually, and we realise that we have moved into a new way of being naturally or intentionally by taking steps towards something new over a period of time. It can be a combination of both an active and sudden choice, combined with a practice and international choice to align with that decision. 

However we get through, or to this change, it is reinforced and grounded in reality by the physical energy we utilise and create here. 

The words we use to refer to our experience play a part in forming and maintaining our identity. For example, someone strong speaks and uses phrases from the perspective of someone strong; it is natural to them. Someone well educated uses language that displays their education, and their choice of words reflects their knowledge base and perspective. So it is often the case that someone who feels weakened uses language that reflects that weakness, if it feels natural to them. Or someone uneducated will use words and language available to them, so they may have a limited vocabulary, which reflects that.  

The words we use begin to form and present our way of being to others as we express ourselves. 

When we hear someone speaking with a different accent, for example, we begin to form a picture of them based on aspects of their identity, such as where they are from or assume they have lived in a certain place. We pick up on cultural cues that shape how we perceive them. 

Our words also reinforce who we are and how we see ourselves, since we are the ones always speaking and hearing the things we say. 

So when we choose to use words, language or adapt how we speak, we will see ourselves in a new way, and our response to ourselves will change. The same is true for others; as we present ourselves differently through language, they will begin to perceive us differently.

[We cover this dynamic in detail on our free Affirmations for Healing Course, which I highly recommend for all explorers of healing and recovery.]

To do this, we can align our words to our reality before making a change, while we are changing or after the decision is made. This powerful choice anchors who we are becoming into our present tense. 

After years of exploring energy and understanding spiritual concepts, it rings true to me that truth is the foundation of solid integrity and wellness, so it is important that we don’t lie. This will cause a misalignment for us. But the more we can embrace truth, while steering towards wellness and bettering if required, the more wellness we experience and the better we feel. 

Our alignment and integrity steer our health through both physical reflection and mental and emotional clarity. 

Finding alignment with our words can be tricky at first, if we have gotten used to speaking poorly about ourselves or especially if we don’t understand the power of the present moment and are holding on to or feeding narratives of our past. 

When we are present and observe our current reality, even at this moment, we have a choice of how we align and how we see ourselves. 

There is no point in saying we are well if we are struggling with deep emotions, processing an experience, or are in pain. It is more beneficial to sit with those experiences, and allow that process to occur, being honest about it “I feel pain” is more powerful than denying what is occurring for us. While being aware that saying “I am in pain” reinforces more of what we are experiencing as an ongoing truth, using the verb “feel” allows that state to be fluid. 

However, when we can connect with our presence and the observer beyond the experience, when we can, even for a moment, find peace, and in that moment acknowledge that it is true that we are well, and we declare “I am well”, we anchor a powerful force for our reality. 

We just changed the experience we are having, even if only for a fleeting moment of awareness or realisation and affirmed it in our experience. 

Our masterclass Energetic Alignment For Recovery explains this concept in more detail. 

When we use words or phrases such as:

• “I am” we are declaring what we are, we are defining ourselves as something specific, fixed and tangible.

• “I have” we are declaring what we have with us, a burden or a resource that can aid or ail us. 

• “I can” or “I can’t” we are defining our capacity, capability and willingness to do something. 

These are very direct messages we are telling ourselves (our body, mind and energy) and others about ourselves. Those instructions shape and change how we act, perceive ourselves or are perceived and how life responds to us. 

Our body responds differently when we tell ourselves “I am strong” than when we declare “I am struggling”; it can tap us into strength that was otherwise unavailable to us, even if it is only for an additional moment or two initially. We are the commanders of our body; our words tell each cell and system how to respond. In theory, if we leave our body alone, with no words at all, it would simply operate following its natural way. But we don’t, and as any obedient system operates, when the commander declares something, the system cooperates! 

When we say phrases such as “I am mentally ill, I have PTSD, and I can’t help my racing thoughts”, even as an explanation, we confirm to ourselves and others a state of unwellness, a condition of our body and mind and a limited capacity to change or improve. 

It may feel or even be true (in that reality or paradigm you are in), but usually, it is not ideal. We would prefer not to be unwell or be struggling with that way of being. The words have more power if they are energetically charged with strong emotions, whether positive or negative. The energy fuels the affirmation of the truth of that moment. 

So consider that a well person does not speak about themselves in the same way.  They never have, and never do. So to be like a well person, we have to be as they are. We would have to stop being the unwell person and therefore stop being the person who affirms, defines and declares their unwellness and start embracing or affirming the well version of ourselves.  A version of ourselves that energaticlly already can exist (we have the potential for this to be true) and can be aspired toward.

This is not being delusional, avoidant or denying our reality; it is choosing our trajectory. Making it possible for us, we can find truth in both realities in the present moment.

Let’s consider the difference in this phrase, “I am recovering from past trauma and am learning how to manage my intrusive thoughts”

The second phrase still stands in truth and admits a vulnerability or current condition or experience and is honest about the challenge we are facing, but it also directs our alignment and potential toward something better. 

It shifts the power dynamic from one of helplessness and damage to one of healing and growth. This is the power of our words. 

Especially when we repeat phrases, these become more relevant, part of our identity. Form a pattern and create cycles and habits, ways of being that reinforce our current reality and therefore keep us doing more and more of the same. 

As we explore new ways of speaking about ourselves or our reality, we take back control of our world and move ourselves towards new possibilities and potential. This is how we recover, heal and evolve. 

Alongside the words we use, the trends of using diagnoses and acronyms to describe us can be limiting and harmful. What the words mean has power when their meaning energetically aligns with us (how we identify). Whether we are saying the full phrase or not. 

So every time we use a diagnosis to describe ourselves, “I am ADHD” or “I have PTSD”, we are also declaring we are or have a disorder (are not ordered) or a deficit (we are somehow dysfunctional or lacking in some way). 

Even if we feel that is the case in the past or at times in some moments, the condition is reinforced by our lack of change or growth away from wellness, reinforced by these ideas. Few conditions are ever present in our lives, at all moments and at all times, but when we declare them as something we are, we create a continuum of the experience present with and as part of us. 

Even if we decide “ADHD is not a disorder” and that it means something different to us, but we still use the acronym and apply it to ourselves, we are still affirming “I have/am an attention, deficit, hyperactivity disorder”. Regardless of what we might try to convince ourselves it means, the letters represent what they were intended to represent, and the words mean what they are designed to mean. 

Those letters, the phrase and how we are using it create a meaning that we are broken or lacking and damaged or lesser in some way. They have meaning to others that they then assign to us. The diagnosis and disorder label create a comparison and put us in a lesser state of being, automatically. 

We would be better off, even if we are presenting currently with symptoms associated with the condition, to simply avoid using the language altogether or even using a phrase such as “I am managing symptoms associated with ADHD”, which avoids declaring ourselves or identifying with the condition (and the state of lacking or disorder). 

This shift in words, the suggestion even might feel challenging, especially in the current trends of language use, labelling culture and the cognitive fight of who is right and more socially just! There may be a lot of pain, struggle or meaning behind the words we use and the diagnosis we have, but understanding that all that additional weight and meaning of the word adds to the power of the word use. 

Even the collective uses all add to the energetic construct the word represents.  Regardless of any pondering of rightness, the energetics of the language remain the same and remain powerful. 

We can choose to remove power from words by using them in new ways and changing their dynamics. But this takes skill and awareness. Consider the power of words such as nazi, cunt, or nigger (which I would not be allowed to use in many cases publicly or online), all words that would elicit a response in many rooms and amongst many people, regardless of how they were used or the intention behind them. 

These words show us the power of ideas and the meaning or history behind the language that words can have. 

We could remove their power, as I have attempted here, by using it, intentionally, out of any context where it has power to cause harm, but in the wrong circumstances, this can be used against us or others to cause damage. Potentially damaging that can cause personal or professional wounding and last for many years, even a lifetime in some cases. 

That is how powerful words can be. 

Once I truly understood this, as I let go of all the language and disengaged from the power of the diagnosis that troubles me, my health and well-being improves, time and time again, condition by condition. 

It was not that I didn’t have the condition or the symptoms to overcome; it was that the language was keeping me trapped and stuck in it. Because I was using my power, my voice and energy to align with that condition paradigm and state of being, instead of aligning with the wellness, the improved version of me that didn’t struggle or suffer with them. I was using words that affirmed my illness rather than my health and wellness, and once I changed that, my body, mind and energy responded, and my health began to change.

If words can have the power to damage, so can other words have the power to heal. To be called beautiful, impressive or loved can have a significant impact on our mood or energy, so why not use this power to our advantage when healing? 

Choosing our words can align us; stopping the use of words can release us. Both practices can be helpful through different phases of healing and recovery and can help us to heal, evolve and grow. 

It often takes time and practice to change our language. Be aware of our words and the phrases we use about ourselves that command our body, feed our mind and dictate to others how they can perceive us 

But as we become more aware and make changes, new opportunities for healing and recovery become possible. As we become more careful about the words we use (even though it can be challenging at times), the more we align with what we want to experience, and the sooner we can affirm a new path rooted in healing, recovery and aligning with wellness. 

Additional Support

If you found this blog post helpful,  recommend browsing the Identity category of our blog to find out more. 

The Daily Wellness Flow offers a process of self-care with guided, practical steps daily that allow you to follow a life design process. We connect with nature, pay attention to yourself as you nurture, meet needs, and we focus on good habits, better health and overall, holistic well-being for a more stable, balanced lifestyle.

The process is specially designed for beginners and is an introduction to natural, holistic recovery.

We cover more about the power of words and how they support healing in detail on our free Affirmations for Healing Course.

Our masterclass Energetic Alignment For Recovery explains how to use words as part of our energetic alignment with wellness and describes the integration process and this concept in more detail. 

To fully explore how energy can fully support a healing and recovery journey, our Building Energetic Power Course explains the deeper concepts of energy alignment and building capacity for wellness.