all that is gold does not glitter / / the power of words

Let me tell you a story. This is something that happened to me not too long ago and it completely broke my confidence.

I suppose that you'll need some more background information. I'm pretty confident when it comes to violin. I don't think that I'm the best, but I am confident in my abilities and proud of my accomplishments. The same goes for school. I get good grades and I enjoy it. With my body, I'm not as confident (but then again, who is?) but I am usually really content with myself.

Something that I have low confidence in is ballet. I'm not horrible, but I'm not amazing either. I'd call myself middling What is really holding me back is flexibility. I am the least flexible person in my classes and the rest of the girls are a lot better. It doesn't bother me, but like I said, I'm not really confident and am probably most out of my element there.

Now on to the story.

Our recital was about a month ago. This was a few days before that. We were trying costumes on again to make sure that everything fit and that my teacher didn't have to do anything else. Well, we were all trying these costumes on, but mine weren't fitting.

They had fit before, and now they were not.

And they weren't fitting around the waist.

You can imagine my horror. Like I said, I'm not terribly confident with my body image and for this to happen somewhere where I felt like the worst one.

Now before I go on, I have to explain something. My dance teacher really does care about us. Recital time is always a really stressful time for her because she is the only teacher at the studio and she does almost everything on her own. And I really do love her because she is great. But that does not excuse this next part.

So my teacher is trying to hook my costume and it isn't fitting. She is barely able to hook it and then huffs and says

"Well, just no snacking until after recital"

Let me tell you no words have crushed me like those did. From someone I looked up to in a teacher position in an activity where I knew that I wasn't where I was supposed to be able something so sensitive as my body image, I felt awful.

And maybe if it had been us two alone and she said that I would have been able to shake it off easier. But we weren't alone. Someone was there and they laughed.

I always struggled to fit in with the girls in my studio, and yeah. That made it worse.

So there you have it. Possibly the worst moment in my life.

Now, why am I sharing this? Because I want pity? No, I have gotten past it with the help of my mom and some of my dear friends.

I want to tell you all this as a warning.

 A warning so that you'll watch your words. Maybe my teacher didn't know that those words, which could have seemed as harmless to her, really broke me. Maybe to her, they seemed almost funny.

The whole thing with body image is something for another day, my point today is words.

Words are so powerful. And as writers, we know that probably better than most. But written words can not hurt as much as spoken words can. The message of a book cannot hurt a person as much as a teacher can hurt a student with a few words.

Words have the power to lift someone up.

Which means they have the power to tear someone down.

Unless someone tells us, we don't know how much our words impact another person. Do we really want to be the reason why someone goes home and cries for several hours? Or do we want to be the reason that someone goes home and stops crying?

I feel like in today's society, words aren't given enough importance. People throw words around like they mean nothing. People say things behind hands not caring if someone else hears.

Please. Please. Please.

Watch your words.

Once you say something, you can never take it back. Like my mom says, tacking on an "I'm just kidding" at the end doesn't mean that whatever hurt you caused is magically gone away.

Measure your words. For they have great power.

We can inspire the world through our words.

But then again, we can tear it down. Think of Hitler. What was one of his greatest weapons?

His words.

Think of Christ. What did He use?

His words.

So I'm begging you, please watch your words. Don't say anything that could crush someone for no reason. Lift people up.

So I hope this post was inspiring in some way lol. Funny story with the costume though, it turns out that I was putting on my duet partners costume instead of mine (they were one the wrong hangers). But how have words impacted your life? In a negative way? A positive way?