Hello Reader,

Welcome to the conversation.

There was a woman in a coffee shop line who apologized before she even knew what she's sorry for.

She was still deciding what she wanted, still in the sacred, ordinary act of choosing, and someone walked in behind her, and she folded. Sorry. Sorry. I'm sorry.

I watched her and thought: what is she praying for?

Because I've been thinking about this lately. The idea that our words are not just communication...they are invocation. They are the thing we are calling in. And most of us are so fluent in a language we never chose to learn.

“ Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear and you will produce weeds. Water them with faith and encouragement and you will produce flowers." — Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

From My Chair to Yours

I'll be honest with you. I'm climbing out of a tender season right now.

For those of you new to the newsletter, there's been a disappointment in my business. The kind that wants to mean something large and sweeping about who I am and what my word is worth. And I've been careful not to let it finish that sentence for me.

Because when we're depleted, we reach for narrative the way we reach for a blanket. And sometimes the story we grab is the one that was already waiting....I knew it. This is what I am. This is what happens to me.

So I'm sitting here instead. Watching. Noticing the words. The woman apologizing in line before she'd done anything wrong. The woman who forgot our coffee date, apologizing so many times it sounded like something she'd been practicing for years. The woman I worked with in my previous career that passed away.

Words are prayers. I keep coming back to that. Not in a precious way, but in a practical, architectural way. What we say, especially when we're soft and uncertain, becomes the structure we live inside.

This is not an invitation to be hard on ourselves for that. It's just an invitation to notice. To be slower before we let a hard season hand us a definition of ourselves we didn't write and don't have to keep. Or worse, giving up when we still have our Light to shine in the world.

The Lens

What if the words you use most automatically, the sorry, the I always, the this is just how I am, are not descriptions?

What if they are directions?

Language doesn't just report reality. It participates in it. When we say I'm not good at this (or something like it) enough times, we are not being honest. We are being loyal. Loyal to a story that someone, somewhere (maybe us, maybe not) decided was true.

The prayer is not always formal. It doesn't require intention. It just requires repetition.

And the quiet, uncomfortable question is: what have you been repeating?

Reflection

This week, I'd like to share a gentle noticing. Not a fixing. Just witnessing.

• What words do you reach for when something goes wrong? Not the curated ones. The ones that arrive first.
• Is there a phrase you use to describe yourself that you've never examined? Something repeated so often it feels like fact.
• If your most repeated words were a prayer, what would you be asking for?
• What would it sound like to speak yourself more kindly, not falsely, but with the grace you'd offer someone you love?
• What's one word you could reach for differently this week?

You don't have to rewrite everything. You just have to notice that you're the one holding the pen.

Until we see each other again, I hope you have a powerful day.

-Joanna

Joanna Douglas
Conscious Leadership Coach, Speaker, Teacher Founder of Enneagram Ensight