Become mindful of the words we use and recognize how our own use of language associates words with feelings, responses and outcomes. Here are a few examples: I am heartbroken; I have a gut feeling; This job is killing me; That person makes me sick; What a pain in the neck. These words and the feelings associated with them can actually lead to ill health. A classic example is the woman suffering from rectal cancer who had always referred to her husband as a "pain in the ass." Are you using your own words against yourself?

Try to identify situations in your own life where words have elicited pain. Some examples might be: You will never amount to anything; Why can't you be more (fill in the blank) like your brother/sister?; You will never be the man your father was; You are so (lazy, stupid, fat, irresponsible, etc). What kind of feeling or behavior did that evoke for you?{relatedarticles}

Notice if you have in the past or are currently using language that may inflict pain on someone else. Often we may not even recognize the things that have hurt us in the past or that we may be repeating words from our own past.