“Don’t be afraid.”

“There’s nothing to be anxious about, hey?”

“Just stop being depressed.”

“Don’t be sad.”

“Enjoy life!”

“There’s absolutely nothing to worry about.”

“Don’t compete.”

“Don’t judge.”

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Ever heard words and statements expressed in this manner? Maybe to you, maybe to someone else who was struggling with an experience inside themselves or their life in general?

Not really applicable

Such statements aren’t really supportive, are they? I mean, they are well meant. They are meant to support us. But… They aren’t really doing that a lot of times… So the question is, why? My answer to that is: They lack practicality! The support shared through such words is not tangible. It lacks substance. It’s not very easily, if at all, replicable in that state the support, the words are shared.

I’ve observed an interesting thing that just hit me, while I was watching something on television: We negate a lot of things. Meaning, that we say things such as “Don’t do this” and “Don’t be (like) this” a lot. Instead of negativing most of the time when it comes to giving ourselves, or others advice and support with a personal challenge or experience in life we are better of using use supportive words; using our language and words much more constructively to express a lot more detail and specificity to ourselves or someone to help/support them with something.

For a quick contextual reference, this is the definition of negating something I am talking about in this writing:

negate

/nɪˈɡeɪt/

[LOGIC, GRAMMAR]

• make (a clause, sentence, or proposition) negative in meaning.

Let’s look at an example here

Instead of saying:

Don’t be afraid of making mistakes.

We can say:

Embrace mistakes. Embrace the journey of creating something. Mistakes are a natural part of every creational process. Everyone makes mistakes everywhere. Mostly people are very good covering it up, veiling it from the eyes of other because of the same reason of fear. Embrace mistakes and use it as learning lessons to improve yourself in whatever area you are creating yourself in.

Comparison

Negating Example

See, The first instance of negating our fears, telling someone they just shouldn’t be afraid of making mistakes is impractical. It doesn’t hold any substance, any real value. Why? Because it’s not tangible. What does it mean to not be afraid of making mistakes? If you were afraid of making mistakes and someone comes along and tells you to not be afraid or depressed, do you know what to do? Does that statement make it possible for you to suddenly realize the unnecessity of fear and the consequential self-destruction of depression? Are you all of a sudden having your enlightening realization that allows you to drop your fears and depression and you are all of a sudden changed? Nope. Not really. You don't really know what to do practically to be get to or be at that space and place inside you of ‘not fearing’ or ‘not being depressed’. The words spoken become empty and leave you as quick as they entered you.

Use of constructive and alive words Example

On the other hand, the second instance, where we suggest to rather embrace the mistake, is much more practical. It’s tangible. It is words spoken from personal experience. Words expressed through personal living. We lived it this way and it impacted us in how we process and direct our fears of mistakes. Now we are sharing a core realization we had with someone else. Giving them much more practical information and context about fear. We approach the ‘don’t be afraid of mistakes’ core-message in a practical light. We don’t simply negate; we use our words and sentences constructively to convey as much practical information in as short and to-the-point sentences as possible to another without overthrowing them with data and information. Applies also to how and when we support ourselves.

Conclusion

Let’s be much more considerate, constructive, creative and above all practical when it comes to how we try to support another or even ourselves with something we are going through, or existing in. As was used here, the example of being afraid of making mistakes. To rather than negating the problem by saying “Oh, don’t be afraid. There’s nothing to be afraid of in making mistakes. It’s alright”, be more practical and give more tangible, substantial and replicable support by using supportive words (words that we can live in place of our fear of making mistakes), where the supportive and practical way of support could be something in the lines of:

Embrace mistakes. Embrace the journey of creating something. Mistakes are a natural part of every creational process. Everyone makes mistakes everywhere. Mostly people are very good covering it up, veiling it from the eyes of other because of the same reason of fear. Embrace mistakes and use it as learning lessons to improve yourself in whatever area you are creating yourself in.

Much more practical. It’s tangible. It’s applicable. It’s replicable. It’s, in a sense, much more alive. Let’s be alive in how we use words to support ourselves and others through personal and life’s challenges, ups and downs! :)

Thank you humbly for supporting yourself and others to become a better person!

Steem-On,
Nebi :)