Here’s a non exhaustive list of disempowering, dualistic, oversimplified language and words to start paying attention to and to stop using over time as you release the underlying fears, beliefs, judgments, and expectations that lead us to use them in the first place:

Always/ Never/ Forever

Everything/ Nothing

All/ None

Should/ Shouldn’t

Have to / Must/ Need

Can/ Could

Can’t/ Couldn’t

Will/ Won’t

Right/ Wrong

Good/ Bad

True / False

But

Makes me

 

1. When you use those words, which part of you is talking?
2. What’s the underlying fear, belief, expectation or judgment driving the use of those words?
3. Is it helpful?
4. Can you trace each time you use any of these words back to a fear and release it so that, over time, you can start using those words less and less, and thus be less and less influenced into reacting to them in disempowering ways?