Secret Power of Words

that is. You are totally involved with language; words direct your whole life.
     Someone calls you a "stupid fool." You react emotion­ally, and through that reaction you come to believe you are a fool. In your emotional bonding, words are the same as the thing they stand for, so you have no resistance against what they imply.
     You feel inferior simply because you have reacted in an inferior way. It is the compulsion to react that lowers you, and now the words fit the condition that the wicked spirit behind the words wanted to create. So you compensate; you try to prove that you are not a fool. You labor to hear words of praise. You try to make people undo with compliments the hurt that degrading words have inflicted on you.
     You've spent a lot of time seeking praise and approval to make people take their words back, to "eat" their words. But what happens if you succeed in making others praise you or tell you how wonderful you are? You will just be believing words again-lies-because you are not wonderful. You stopped being wonderful when you stopped listening to and believing what is right deep down in your heart, and all the praise in the world cannot put Humpty-Dumpty to­gether again.
     The problem, again, is very simple. You tend to believe in words more than in your true original self If you resent the implications of words, the trauma of doing so turns you into what you resent. React and believe that you are stupid, and you are stupid. You're stupid for believing that you're stupid! Believing is a thing of compulsion-of faith or of sin. It is the sin state of believing that we need to be

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