The words of the tongue should have three gatekeepers: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?

- Arabian Proverb 

The words that we speak ripple forward into the world creating waves of impact.  How many of us are consciously aware of the nature of the waves our speech creates?  Do our words generate peace, understanding, communication, respect, approval, and kindness?  Or do they engender defensiveness, hostility, judgment, criticism, distance, and distrust?

Every time we speak we have the opportunity to promote either goodness or negativity.  And when we are in a calm and/or positive state of mind it is fairly easy to choose the high road.  But what about those moments of tension, stress, overwhelm, frustration, disappointment, and anger?  How conscious are we in those moments about the words we send out into the world?  For most of us the answer is: not very conscious.

The antidote to spewing negativity in 'the heat of the moment' is to s-l-o-w  it down.  The more emotionally charged a moment is, the less access we have to our normal reasoning faculties.  Malcolm Caldwell, in his international bestseller Blink says, "Arousal leaves us mind-blind."  The best choice in these moments is to slow everything down: slow our breathing (which will slow our racing heart), slow our thinking, slow our response time.

Why?  Because these moments are the opportunity to create the world we really want to live in: a world of peace, kindness and connection.  And in order to seize that opportunity we need to ask ourselves some important questions.  The first one is 'What do I truly want?'  Do I want to walk away from this situation being 'right'? Or do I want to create connection and understanding?

It is very enticing, in the moment, to want to be right.  But it is a short lived and shallow thrill.   Rightness is merely a matter of perspective anyway (another subject for another time).  Being right makes someone else wrong.  How good do you feel when someone makes you wrong?  There are other choices: understanding, acceptance, compromise, forgiveness.  These choices promote what we all want and need: connection and respect.

Every communication we send forth into the world has effects.  Each of us has a choice in every moment about what type of ripples we want to generate.  And in our 'heated' moments the stakes are raised.  These are the moments that we can truly manifest change in the world by choosing wisely.  These are the moments to move slowly and choose consciously to promote peace, understanding, respect and connection.