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Article:
Refugee v. Evacuee: Languaging the Hurricane Disaster by: Susan Dunn, MA, The EQ Coach Language is a behavior potentially under our control, and a powerful loop: it's how we act upon the world, and how the world acts upon us. It's how we express our thoughts and feelings, and it also influences our thoughts and feelings. It is probably not possible to have a feeling without a thought, and that thought is framed in words ' coming from within our heads, or from the words of others. Barring physical force, language is how we get what we want, influence, motivate, inspire, forbid, gain sympathy or support, incite, value or devalue, and make it happen ' in other words, how we move the world, and ourselves. Having a word for something allows us to 'know' it and gives us a sense of power over it. It allows us to know 'it' from 'something else,' and to choose strategies for dealing with it. Language is the power of 'naming,' and this is the power of the secret, or the name of Yahweh. Something must be very powerful not to have a name, and we must be very unpowerful not to know it, or not to be able to use it. Who gets to say it, i.e., who gets to 'know' it, is dictated by the powers that be. It's a great moment in a baby's life when he learns the word 'no.' Instead of pushing the thing away, averting his eyes, screaming, crying, or hitting, he can utter the word 'NO' and -- at least some of the time -- the thing of offense will go away. That's power. The power of language. And when we can name that our anger is coming from fear (instead of just a mish mash or feelings or pounding temples), then we can deal with it and move forward, empowered. Anger, as they say, is a good way of knowing what we want, though not a good way of getting it. Those of us who have lived through the 'sexist' revolution in the US (in terms of 'all men are created equal,' and '[s]he') know the power of language and how it both influences and is influenced by feelings, attitudes and values. You may also have experienced this if you decided, after assertiveness training in the 70s, to quit using the word 'but' and to substitute 'and' in each instance. It may have taken you a full year to quit thinking 'but' automatically, but chances are you noticed a difference in your thinking and behavior after you became mindful of a habit, and changed it. LANGUAGE AND HURRICANE KATRINA Consider how you and those around you are talking about the events around Hurricane Katrina. What happened is this: Hurricane Katrina is the third most intense hurricane to make landall in the US. Early in the morning of August 29. '2005
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