Have you ever wished you could go back in time to prevent yourself from saying something that was said during the heat of a moment? In those situations, were the words that came out of your mouth downright nasty and unloving towards someone, maybe even towards someone you care about?
It’s so very easy to react to someone we love with a tongue that can spit fire when we’re at the height of an argument and our anger gets the best of us. I’m sure you’ve had at least one of those moments where your ego was feeling backed into a corner. It’s usually in those moments where the only thing to do seems to be the drawing of a dagger through extremely hurtful words where they’re aimed at this person’s heart. Everyone usually has at least one thing they could say in those heated moments that they know will stop the other person from cornering them, but yet they also know deep down it will truly hurt not only that person, but also themselves. In the long run, when the dust settles from that argument and those awful words have had some time to linger in the air, the damage is done and they can’t be taken back.
Some say that those words which are thrown like daggers in any heated argument are really the truth on how someone feels inside. Based upon my own experiences in life when I’ve said those kind of words that I’ve wished I could take back, I’d have to agree. A good example of this was with my ex partner. He and I had so many arguments while we owned and ran a bed and breakfast where the both of us found the deepest of ways to always wound each other with our words. The biggest dagger I always threw at him was about his financial instability as he had declared bankruptcy years earlier. When much of our business started to go belly up, I used that data from his past to blame him for what was happening, so sadly, this was my truth back then to how I felt inside about him. And usually, I had regret after each time I said it because I saw the pain in his eyes it caused. The truth was that my spiritual place in life was so low back then and I had no resistance to my ego’s process of lashing out.
The sad part about allowing one’s tongue, like my own once did, to spit fire is that sometimes it has such a damaging effect, that it can end a relationship for good with whoever they were directed at. Other times, while they might not permanently sever the connection with that loved one, they leave a scar behind that is often revisited down the road in another heated argument. With my ex partner and I, eventually there were so many scars that all we could see when we looked at each other was total ugliness and it was then that our relationship ended. But the unfortunate reality was that the true ugliness we were seeing in each other was actually within ourselves.
When words are spit with that fire from our tongues, where the only intention in saying them is to inflict major damage and wound someone else, it really shows just how ugly our insides have become. What comes out of our mouths is a great representation of what exists within us. When a person throws hate towards another during any heated conversation, it’s because they are filled with so much hate inside towards their own self. When I threw all those daggers day in and day out at my ex partner, I really hated myself. I hated who I had become. I hated what I was doing with my life. And I hated that I had become so unspiritual, unloving, and selfish. Thus, the words that flew out of my mouth in all those heated moments where really just a representation of all the hate that lived within me. And the more that I said them, the more I filled myself with hate. And the more I filled myself with hate, the more I became even more unspiritual, unloving, and selfish. It wasn’t until I met several more people down the road after that relationship who were filled with as much hate as I was, that I figured this out.
I went through several years of being close with those people who were great mirrors for myself. During those relationships, they threw out many hateful, spiteful, and damaging words in my direction and each landed with a gash to my heart and tears to my eyes only to get suppressed by my own hatred, anger, and rage. It was then that I began to see that no one wins when words like that are said. The person saying them loses out because they become filled with more and more hate as they say them. And the person receiving them loses out as well because they get wounded, then they start to despise those people saying them, which then turns into more hate from within.
The bottom line is that any dagger based words that are said in heated moments are only a reflection of the insides of the person saying them. They do nothing more than create more hate in this world both inside and around that person saying them. Unfortunately, there are no time machines that can take someone back a few minutes to prevent them from being said, but there is this thing called grace that my Higher Power helped me to develop which has helped in the total prevention of this behavior. Because of that, I’m no longer filled with hate inside nor do I have any desire to ever inflict again that kind of damage to any of the souls on this planet.
Maybe the next time when you are backed into a corner, you might try to take a moment, breathe, and ask your Higher Power for spiritual help in the situation. Realize that anything you are about to say in that heat of the moment could have potentially long lasting or permanent damage to a person who has a soul just like you. Whether they are someone you are close to or not shouldn’t matter. What does matter is that if you want this world to be filled with a lot more love and a lot less hate, then you can do your part by asking your Higher Power to guide you away from spitting that fire from your own tongue ever again.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
Your post reminds me about the part in the 10th step that says ” nothing pays off like restraint of tung and pen” abd it also says when we are wrong promply admit it. I have learned that if I snap on someone. My spiritual axium is off and saying something hurtful to someone is wrong and if I don’t make amends and clear the air resentment can eat away at me and clearing my side of the street is very helpful in this kind of situation.