Before you call yourself, your child, your spouse, your neighbor, your friend, your co-worker fat. . .think about what you are doing.
If you really care about yourself--or them--and want to see change; shaming or insulting isn't going to bring about change. In fact, just the opposite will happen.
You'll get bigger. They'll get bigger.
Verbally abusing yourself or others never benefits anyone—even if it’s just in teasing or behind their backs!
My husband grew up in a verbally abusive home. Name-calling was everyday normal behavior to him.
So, when I put on a few pounds after we were married, verbal abuse was his default setting. What was normal to him--totally destroyed me.
Dr. Martin Teicher, director of the Developmental Biopsychiatry Research Program at McLean Hospital and associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and his team researched the effects of verbal abuse on brains.
They found that verbal abuse had as great an effect as physical and sexual abuse--and even more lasting consequences than other forms of abuse, because it's often more continuous.
People don't change and heal in an environment of verbal and emotional abuse.
If you are shaming yourself, cursing yourself, calling yourself derogatory names, stop it.
If you are shaming, cursing, or name-calling others, stop it.
The verbal abuse has to stop if you--and others--are going to get healthy and heal.
You can only love yourself and others into healing.
Stop verbal abuse and live!
"Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well." (3 John 1:2)
Emily Boller, wife, mother, artist, and author is on a mission to create expressive works of art in her lifetime; and to bring awareness to the potentially harmful traps of diet-wellness culture.
In her free time, she loves to chase sunrises, grow flowers and vegetables, and can homemade soups.