Watch What You Say
Photo provided by Unsplash.
When you think of the last words you spoke over yourself, were they positive and uplifting? Or were they self-deprecating and dismissive?
What the Bleep Do We Know!? is a documentary that explores the often-overlooked relationship between God and science through the lens of quantum physics. One particular vignette highlights an experiment conducted by Japanese scientist Masaru Emoto where he wanted to investigate how water responded to positive and negative energies in the form of words.
In the experiment, he put water droplets into two separate jars. To one jar, he spoke positive words such as “love” and “thank you.” To the other jar, he directed negative phrases, such as “you make me sick” and “I will kill you.”
The results were astonishing: The water droplets exposed to positive words formed beautiful shapes, while the droplets exposed to negative words morphed into distorted, chaotic configurations. “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” voiced the narrator. “If thoughts can do that to water, imagine what our thoughts can do to us.”
This experiment points to a profound truth: Our lives respond to what we believe about ourselves in what I call self-imposed prophecy.
Research shows that while people typically speak out loud at a rate of about 150 to 200 words per minute, our internal dialogue races at a staggering 1,300 words per minute. We are constantly engaged in rapid monologue, perpetually self-prophesying our beliefs into our reality.
I witnessed the power of this principle first hand at a community level about 30 years ago in West Orange, New Jersey, where I live and pastor The Life Christian Church. At the time, West Orange was in a troubling state of decline. Property values were plummeting, the town’s reputation was being battered by negative publicity, and there was a pervasive sense of dissatisfaction with taxes, crime rates, and the education system. The general outlook of the community was bleak, and the negativity felt almost inescapable.
In response, the town council decided to create a public relations committee to tackle the growing issues. I was honored to be appointed a member of this strategic commission, led by the CEO of what was the largest advertising firm in New Jersey at the time. Our charge was to assess both the real and perceived negative issues confronting West Orange, explore what was right about our community, and craft an effective strategy to reinvent our public image.
After much research, we determined that perhaps the main reason for our town’s plight was its self-perception.
Despite the very real setbacks West Orange had suffered, we discovered there was so much to celebrate about our community. Many of our residents, however, lived in a perpetual cycle of negative thinking. And thus, the town underwent its own version of self-imposed prophecy: West Orange residents thought the town was “going down,” and as a result, West Orange was, in fact, going down!
Armed with this understanding, we launched a public relations campaign to shift the narrative. Our goal? To market West Orange to … West Orange. Thus, we introduced the WOW campaign — West Orange Wonderful. We encouraged residents to talk about all the reasons they loved their community, highlighting the the strengths and beauty of our town.
This campaign, coupled with the election of a new mayor, sparked a renewed positive energy in West Orange. Property values soared, families who considered leaving decided to stay, and a reinvestment in the school system led to our district being ranked in the top 1% nationally by The Washington Post.
I genuinely believe the turnaround in West Orange was fueled by a change in how the community thought and spoke about itself. This is the power of self-imposed prophecy. When we changed our collective mindset, we changed our reality.
So, consider this: What are you prophesying over your own life? What do you believe about yourself? What do you say to yourself? Are your thoughts and words filled with faith, hope, and positivity? Or are you caught in a cycle of negativity, cynicism, and self-doubt?