Words that heal: how to use them to change

Words influence us emotionally but also physically: The latest scientific findings show that language is capable of modifying our brain to heal the past and be able to face life with a new and better attitude.

the power of words

I read a while ago I no longer remember where, that in certain African tribes they believe that if the shaman points to someone with a human bone and utters an obscure word in a shrill voice, he can cause death.

The most interesting thing is that this kind of spell is selective. When the person who is attacked by the shaman is a member of his own tribe, he vanishes instantly and can, in effect, die. On the other hand, if the victim is someone foreign to the culture of the tribe, he does not suffer any harm.

Although it must not be very pleasant to have a femur pointed at you while yelling at you in a threatening tone! Definitely, the spell has no effect if you don’t believe in it. These natives have this belief because they have learned it from others who believed so and, therefore, they interpret the situation in the light of “what they know.”

When they see the shaman point the bone at them, they think: “I’m going to die!”. A single sentence triggers a whole series of biological responses that can be very harmful. One more proof of the power of words over the human being.

Something similar, although on a smaller scale, happens to those who suffer from panic attacks. In general, these attacks begin when the person perceives “something unusual” in their body (a palpitation or a slight agitation), and since they are previously anxious or distressed for other reasons or because something in their history has taught them so, they interpret perceived as a threat and It is said: “Something is wrong with me.”

This idea increases anxiety, which leads to more palpitations. or greater agitation and thus reinforces the first interpretation: “Yes, something is very wrong… I’m going to have a heart attack… I’ll run out of breath… I’ll go crazy…”.

Thus, the cycle feeds itself until he checks that the feared consequence does not occur and gradually calms down.

Unlike what happened in the example of the African tribes, in a panic attack it is impossible for anxiety to produce consequences that go beyond the extremely unpleasant sensations of the moment.

Descartes’ mistake

In recent years, the discovery of many other phenomena, such as that of the shaman, has called into question a concept that the Portuguese neurologist Antonio Damasio has come to call “Descartes’ error”a name that has become very popular, to the discredit of the French philosopher.

Descartes’ mistake It consists in considering that the mind and the body are separate instances. That the world of words and beliefs, and the world of facts and biology are independent spheres that are not connected to each other. We know today that this is false:

Everything that happens in the psychic and emotional sphere has a manifestation at the physical level and everything that happens at the physical level has it in our thoughts and emotions.

As exposed by the neuropsychiatrist and ethologist Boris Cyrulnikin his book of body and soul (Ed. Gedisa), regardless of whether the origin of an experience is material (produced by a chemical substance) or affective (a loss, an achievement), suffering or joy are experienced in the body in the same way.

This may seem like a no-brainer today, but for a long time biology seemed to support Descartes’s idea.

It was known that the brain was the organ on which thoughts and sensations are based, but it was believed that neurons – the cells in charge of transmitting and relating information – did not reproduce: they multiplied in childhood to decrease, more and more quickly, with the passing of the years.

Discover brain plasticity

How then to explain learning, the development of new skills, the dynamism of our mind? It seemed that we were returning to the idea of ​​a separate mind and body. However, two very important scientific discoveries were made.

In the first place, it was verified that, in certain areas of the brain, new neurons are generated. And it is no coincidence that these areas are the ones that process emotions and memory, and those that are more related to managing our behavior in relation to the environment and our fellow human beings.Second, it was discovered that the connections between neurons are constantly changing. Throughout our brain, new ones are created, those that are not used are “pruned”, some are strengthened and others are weakened… Throughout our brain the connections between neurons are constantly changing and new ones are created.

This is what turns the brain into a plastic organ that can be molded, adapted, changed, but also susceptible to misuse.

And that is precisely why these discoveries are so important, because they lead us to understand that our brain changes according to how we use it.

Going back to the example from the beginning, Every time I hear the story of how the shaman can kill me, I strengthen the connection between that image and a mortal danger, to the point that if it were in front of me, I would react as if I were facing the “real” threat. In fact, at that time, for me it will be.

Building another reality is possible

The experiences we go through, the stimuli we receive, The stories that we tell ourselves or that are told to us, are shaping the circuits that make us perceive, think and feel in a certain way.

Sometimes, the reality that we build ourselves becomes a dead end. We feel stuck, always acting in the same way, repeating over and over again an attempt at a solution that we have tried countless times without success.

We might think that we have been trapped in the same circuit: we see things in the same way, we feel the same, we reach the same conclusions and that’s why we act in a stereotyped way.

The situation is not desperate, because although it is true that the circuit has been strengthened by what happened to us and by the decisions we made up to that moment, we are not doomed: the brain is not forged like steel.

How to establish new connections

The brain has a plasticity that allows us to model it to open new paths of thought, new ways of understanding our problems, new feelings in the face of the same event.

And then, how can you model a brain? There are several ways and each of them entails a different therapeutic approach, more appropriate than another depending on the situation.

It is possible to strengthen neural connections through drugs when the connections are very deteriorated, as in the case of the depression.It is also possible to modify circuits through the repetition of certain behaviors and the avoidance of others, which supports behavioral therapies.It is possible to model the brain through the word. Everything that happens to us and everything we do builds our reality.

Conversations that heal us

It has been shown that simply recounting a traumatic event You can activate some alternative circuits that would unlock the situation.

The effect of verbalizing experiences, putting words to events, it is especially effective when there is someone who dialogues with us. Because?

If we talk to someone, that someone can look back at us, help us to stray from the habitual paths of our thought.

I think that from several very different therapeutic lines, the following can be agreed upon:

A successful therapy is one that can propose an alternative reading of the facts that the patient explains, a different reading from the current fossilized reading.

Only from that moment on can they begin to find exits that remained hidden previously for the person who suffers.

However, to find this new perspective on reality The intervention of a therapist is not always necessary.

Sometimes a chat with a good friend or reading a story or a novel with which we feel identified can have a similar effect.

The words –our own and those of others– are a privileged way that we have to build our own way of understanding the world around us and find better and healthier ways to be in it.