Words Are Your Second Language. Your First Language Is Presence.

In my clinical work I, thankfully, get to rely often on the healing power of really being present with someone.

Most of us kind of know it helps to have someone near, just silent and present. But I have had to really find out just how much I believe in it and how powerful it can be.

I have decided that presence is more powerful than I am, more powerful than my words are. That last part was a hard one for me. I mean, I love words. They fascinate me.

I actually remember in fourth grade when I was introduced to diagramming sentences. I can still see Miss Foy up there at the chalkboard drawing the diagrams and labeling the parts of speech. I wanted to say, “Hey, is everyone seeing this? It is amazing!” I am a little surprised I did not say that out loud to the whole class.

It would not have been out of character for the little fourth grade me who started kindergarten probably a year before I should have, giving my blessed mother a break from me for a few hours. My word skills were all I had to stay afloat in the sea of other kids, who had the benefit of another whole trip around the sun. They were older, bigger, and seemed to know more about this whole school thing than I did.

But every now and then, I had something to say, something I could squeeze in while the teacher was taking a breath. There was only time for six to eight words, more if I talked quickly. I had to be good at just the right words, at just the right time. And I had to get them all out before anyone had time not to pay attention.

I got good at words.

But words have had to move down a little in the pecking order, down to their rightful place, behind presence.

Words are our second language. Our first is nonverbal, the language of presence. That is how we first, in utero, communicated with our mother and how she communicated with us. Even after birth, those words were a long time coming, but we had the language of presence, the subtle feel of another person’s nervous system tracking with ours.

Sometimes being present is all we have to give. And at those times, it is enough. To others, or ourselves.

When there are injuries we need to recover from, one of our underappreciated resources is the catalog of those things we once knew. We need them to be close at hand. It is not enough that they are “in there somewhere.”

We may have people present in our lives, but we are the only one who knows things from that unique perspective that comes from somewhere behind our eyes. When we cannot get at those things, that vault of knowledge, it is like losing a part of ourselves, a vital part that we need to keep close.

We lose the comfort of our own presence.

And as helpful as self-talk can be, if it is made up of words, it is not speaking our first language. So if any of you have found the benefit of improving your verbal self-talk, good. That is valuable. It can help you turn around a bad mood, stop you from catastrophizing, or keep you from taking actions you should not take.

But if you want to take your self-talk to the next level, revert to your first language when you talk to yourself.

Stop and let yourself catch up with yourself.

Wait for your presence.

Let yourself show up in the stillness and silence.

Feel what you feel.

Feel what you feel toward the part of you that feels it.

Notice as your nervous system first peaks a little from the excitement of meeting and being in your own presence, and then watch as it starts to spin down, to settle in next to yourself.

Enjoy the comfort of your own presence, maybe for the first time.