Tongues Of Crushing Force

“Stitches or no stitches?” is what the doctor had asked them. That was the question asked of a young married couple as they agonizingly watched their innocent five year old son lying in the hospital after he had jumped off of his father’s two door maroon truck, face first, into the coarse and gritty asphalt below. The five year olds teeth had penetrated his cheek on one side and was wounded in such a way where each tooth that was peeking through look like an eyeball – the split areas on each side of the tooth imitating the slants. Thank God he did not break his neck, if he had, I’m sure the doctor would have been asking a different question.

A frightening event took place, the scared couple, though in a bit of a panic, acted fast to make sure their son was taken care of. The ambulance arrived in good time, the boy was taken care of, and all precautionary actions were made – cautions of possible spinal damage. Several hours later, after the initial “descent back to earth,” the doctor was surprised to see how quickly the boy was healing; stitches were now no longer needed. The following morning the young child was released, he had only spent a day and a half in the hospital. But not all the wounds had been treated, and it would not be found until later that evening.

Shouting could be heard throughout the apartment complex. Each “mature” adult blaming the other for not watching their only child. “Why weren’t you paying attention?” asks one, while the other is yelling back the same question. Thankfully the neighbors were on vacation, but the child, scared and still in pain, could hear very well. Lying in his room, with his eyes full of tears that ran down his face, he could only think thoughts of self-blame and anguished over the events that had unfolded.

Quick to blame and pointed fingers are not character traits people look for in relationships, but sadly a lot of us act on “knee-jerk” reactions, and end up hurting the ones we love most. We’ll jump down the throat of another even before realizing what we are doing. One will shout saying, “It’s not my fault! It’s yours!”, and the other will echo, “You should have known better!” These habitual and learned traits are a defensive front, often leaned at a young age, which gets etched in our minds the more we use it. Even if it was a byproduct of the environment we grew up in, we are still held responsible for our actions. Let’s learn to be responsible and grow well.

How can this be achieved? Well, you can take the easy route and attempt to find a facility to “brainwash” these bad habits out of you, or begin to start looking at yourself and evaluating who you are with who you really want to be. If you think you are perfect and need no other changes in your life, then you can stop reading now. But if you realize that there are things about you that have the potential to be improved and “upgraded”, you are reading the right article.

Recognizing the need for a change to be made in your life is a step in the right direction, you are learning to self-evaluate. This is not just crucial for relationships with family, friends, and lovers, but also beneficial for your relationships at work as well. At this point you will have to teach yourself to learn to not speak. Learn to not say one word when you feel the urge to blame your wife, or your husband, when an unfavorable event occurs. Basically “shut-up!” Even if you find yourself duck-tapping your mouth to prevent it from babbling on, do it! I’m serious. Remember that each of us has one mouth and two ears, not two mouths and one ear (though some of us talk like we have three mouths and no ears). This should tell us that we need to listen twice as much as we need to talk.

Our “jerky-lerky” mouths are going to want to start yapping away, so be conscious of what you are doing. To help, we need to daily make the choice to not shout out our first thoughts when one of these situations arises. If you think that you are one of those who are really stubborn, then choose to remind yourself every hour.

After you have successfully stopped the “babbling brook” from over flowing, rethink what it was you were going to say. For example: If your wife makes a mistake and you were going to say, “You always do that! Every single time it’s the same old thing!” Rephrase and reword it to something more like, “Don’t worry about it. I make mistakes too. Let’s work together on this so we both can grow away from doing that the next time.” Before you blame someone or make them feel small, look in the mirror first and yell at yourself, because you too are not perfect. The idea is to not condemn them, or shrink their self-esteem, but to encourage them to grow and blossom.

The first step was to stop your tongue, the second step is to reword what you were going to say to encourage them to grow, and the last step is this – repeat all three steps. Just as you have habitually learned to blame and shoot off your mouth, you must change the old habit with a new habit. The choice is yours, but it has to be made if you desire vibrant relationships with those around you.

By: Ikaika Mossman

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My passion is writing and helping others with their relational struggles and difficulties. For additional help with relationships this dating and relationship online page will be of some help.