Sticks & Stones

Harsh words include: belittling someone's character, actions, or behavior; calling people names; and overall making someone feel bad, especially during a confrontation. 

People may speak harshly when others do things differently, when a mistake is made, or when they feel threatened. None of these reasons are valid enough to hurt someone with words.

Everyone has their own methods of how they approach a task or situation.

Different doesn't equal wrong. 

We all make mistakes and when we own up to them we are recognizing our error. The least helpful thing to do when someone owns up to a mistake is to make them feel worse. Even if we are the ones who noticed the error, we should practice patience and kindness rather than being harsh, judgmental, and critical. No one deserves to be spoken to like this.

It's time to eradicate the saying "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." We have learned and evolved more to understand that words ARE really impactful. 

When we are the ones receiving the harsh words, they do hurt and are hard to forget. 

When we are the ones saying the harsh words, it is important to become aware of this and change our ways. Understand how you would feel if somebody else said that to you. Maybe we said it in the heat of the moment, maybe we feel it was something justified. Is it though? Why does anyone have a right to make somebody else feel bad about themselves?

Let’s do better. Lead with love. Lead with kindness. The world would be better place.