Careless Words: The Destructive Power of Words

Words can build us up. They can also shake us to the core, tearing us to the ground. There are many times that we are hurt by the careless words of the people that we love.

Negative Verbal Impact

We all have been affected by words that left us broken. Often, the most hurtful words come from people that we love and trust. When your heart is open to someone, anything they say, whether it is positive or negative, will impact you. The most painful words tend to come from either our romantic relationships or our relationships with our family.

Romance Killers

We all have ideas of what our romantic relationships should be like. Most of the time, the reality of our relationships falls far short of the idealized image in our minds. There can be a very intense passion between two people, but the wrong words can tear the relationship apart.

In the heat of an argument, people often say things that they don’t mean to say. This doesn’t mean that they don’t actually feel those things or have those ideas in their heads. But people sometimes say things in the heat of the moment that they would normally not let out.

Unfiltered comments during an argument can be devastating. Regardless of whether you mean them or not, once those words have come out, you can’t take them back, and you cannot undo any harm that they have done. And without healthy communication, compassion, and forgiveness, careless words can eventually cause a relationship to crumble.

Breaking Family Ties

Sometimes, the relationships that we are born into result in words that tear us apart. Our families are supposed to build us up, but oftentimes they can be just as detrimental to us. The careless words of a family member can sometimes make us question everything that we thought we knew.

Growing up, for most of us, our closest relatives are our parents. If the most powerful memories that you have of them are of them verbally tearing you or each other down, that likely spoke a curse into your life. The words spoken to you in your youth that you carry through adulthood have a great effect on your life and how you view yourself and others. If all you are carrying is the weight of negativity, you will have a lower sense of self-worth as an adult.

Sometimes, even the words that our parents say to us as adults can break us, especially if the relationship was tenuous already. And even those relationships can sometimes become damaged and broken because of careless words.

Picking Up the Pieces

Moving forward after our lives have been shattered by careless words can be hard. Eventually, we all pick up the pieces of our lives. The real question is, what do you do with those pieces? It is best for our souls to forgive, but I think we also need to learn from the experience. Because these experiences help us learn who the people around us really are. And from that, I think we should decide where our relationships need to go.

Teaser: On a more positive note, next time we’ll take a look at how words can build us up.