Do you say what you really mean?

My son ran into our bedroom yesterday morning with a very important announcement.

The llamas are coming.

A volcano had appeared and was about to erupt any minute now, spewing llama everywhere. 

He had just woken up and I assume he’d been dreaming. But llama coming out of a volcano is a pretty regular occurrence in our day time playing too. 

I can’t bring myself to correct him, he tells the story so dramatically and it’s just too cute.

But it did make me think about how important the subtleties of our language are.

For example, when you say, I don’t have time. Is that really what you mean? What if a herd of llamas appeared? 🦙 Surely you would have time to take a pic and share it with your disbelieving friends? 

How about if you rephrased it as ‘That is not a priority for me right now’ or ‘I’m not going to make time for that’. Because that is really what you mean. Everything is a choice, although that’s often not how it feels. When your day becomes filled with things that you ‘should’ or ‘have’ to do, it’s likely to lead to frustration and possibly even resentment.

Try reframing it and asking yourself why you want to do that thing or how it ties in with your values or turn it into a gift to yourself. 

For example, I don’t really have time but I should go for a run becomes I choose to prioritise moving my body and getting some fresh air because I deserve time to myself getting rejuvenated.

As an experiment, next time you catch yourself saying ‘I don’t have time’ have a quick check in to see if your priorities are looking the way you want them to look and let me know what you discover.