This VAW was created by Christopher von Spitzer. www.christophervonspitzer.com X: @letsaskqqs https://linktr.ee/cvspitzer
A metamorphosist: Someone with the awareness and agency to creatively decide when to transform disempowering habitual language patterns to more empowering choices.
Meaning:
The meaning we're focused on with "being tested" is revealing your resiliency in dire straits—pushing beyond your comfort zone when life throws you a curveball.
Challenge:
One challenge with using the word "afraid" repeatedly is that it can cause us to focus only on the terrible things that can happen. It gives us and others no power, because our attention is fixed on a negative expectation.
Advantage:
One advantage of using the phrase "being tested" more often is that it focuses us on growth from the experience. Because our attention is focused on a positive expectation, it gives us and others power. When you focus on overcoming the test in order to grow from it, the test becomes a milestone.
Questions:
Afraid:
It can be useful at times to focus on what can go wrong in order to anticipate problems, but when that becomes your primary lens for seeing life, how much fun is life then?
Being Tested:
What if, instead of focusing on the fear and being immobilized by it, you focused on the energy that fear gives you—because you are "being tested" to see whether you can withstand it as you step outside what is easy?
Context:
There are times when "being tested" doesn't feel right; it seems too rigid or academic, or there is genuine fear telling you something for emergency or safety reasons. The focus here is on how our habitual language patterns affect our perceptions and feelings, and on committing to having more agency in our decisions. In other words: Am I "being tested" so I can grow and give at a higher level, or is "afraid" the most appropriate word to use right now?
Your Creativity:
Maybe you don't like using "being tested" to replace "afraid" in your particular context. What language pattern (choice of habitual word or phrase) might you use instead?
Warning:
The intention is not to devalue an experience someone has gone through (or is going through) that has caused (or is causing) bottled-up negative emotions.
Since *research shows that language can affect our emotional state, the real outcome is to give you creative choices.
In other words, to replace an English word or phrase you habitually use that gets you into a disempowering emotional state (because of the particular experience/memory/context) with a word or phrase that helps you get into an empowering emotional state (utilizing the power of perception), thus interrupting the negative emotional pattern and giving you more agency to decide how you will move forward.
-Christopher
*Brooks, J. A., Shablack, H., Gendron, M., et al. (2017). The role of language in the experience and perception of emotion: A neuroimaging meta-analysis. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 12(2), 169–183. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsw121
Meaning:
The meaning we're focused on with "being tested" is revealing your resiliency in dire straits—pushing beyond your comfort zone when life throws you a curveball.
Challenge:
One challenge with using the word "afraid" repeatedly is that it can cause us to focus only on the terrible things that can happen. It gives us and others no power, because our attention is fixed on a negative expectation.
Advantage:
One advantage of using the phrase "being tested" more often is that it focuses us on growth from the experience. Because our attention is focused on a positive expectation, it gives us and others power. When you focus on overcoming the test in order to grow from it, the test becomes a milestone.
Questions:
Afraid:
It can be useful at times to focus on what can go wrong in order to anticipate problems, but when that becomes your primary lens for seeing life, how much fun is life then?
Being Tested:
What if, instead of focusing on the fear and being immobilized by it, you focused on the energy that fear gives you—because you are "being tested" to see whether you can withstand it as you step outside what is easy?
Context:
There are times when "being tested" doesn't feel right; it seems too rigid or academic, or there is genuine fear telling you something for emergency or safety reasons. The focus here is on how our habitual language patterns affect our perceptions and feelings, and on committing to having more agency in our decisions. In other words: Am I "being tested" so I can grow and give at a higher level, or is "afraid" the most appropriate word to use right now?
Your Creativity:
Maybe you don't like using "being tested" to replace "afraid" in your particular context. What language pattern (choice of habitual word or phrase) might you use instead?
Warning:
The intention is not to devalue an experience someone has gone through (or is going through) that has caused (or is causing) bottled-up negative emotions.
Since *research shows that language can affect our emotional state, the real outcome is to give you creative choices.
In other words, to replace an English word or phrase you habitually use that gets you into a disempowering emotional state (because of the particular experience/memory/context) with a word or phrase that helps you get into an empowering emotional state (utilizing the power of perception), thus interrupting the negative emotional pattern and giving you more agency to decide how you will move forward.
-Christopher
*Brooks, J. A., Shablack, H., Gendron, M., et al. (2017). The role of language in the experience and perception of emotion: A neuroimaging meta-analysis. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 12(2), 169–183. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsw121
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