The Touch

 

If I can touch you, I can inflict levels of pain you have never experienced.  I taught martial arts for a long time and used that comment often when teaching joint and nerve attacks.  The pressure points in martial arts are mostly the same points used by massage therapists, or acupuncturist but with different angles of attack and stronger pressure. We all have hundreds of points all over the body that can be manipulated to cause pain and submission.  We can also make people feel great or inflict levels of pain without spending 30+ years training in martial arts. In fact, this technique requires no training and zero physical touch.  Care to guess what can bring pleasure or pain so easily? Your words.

Words have so much potential power behind them, and along with inflection and tone, they can make all the difference in the world.  “I love you” can bring such joy and peace to another when said with sincerity and caring inflection.  “How could you not know I love you” can be as hurtful as there is an implication the receiving party is dense for not knowing you love them. We have all seen it, heard it, or experienced it.

There is also a big difference between words and the touch.  If I am applying a joint or nerve attack, the pain can go away when I let go.  That’s not the case with words. The pain from word attacks can linger for minutes or an entire lifetime.  For that very reason, I consider words a far more powerful.  The next time your ego feels the need to fire a word attack, put it on stand-down for five seconds.  Is five seconds too much to ask as opposed to the potential life-long injury your words can cause?  Think I am over-dramatizing?  Take this quick little test.  I bet you can remember at least one very hurtful thing that was said at some point in your life.  Whatever the situation, those words touched you in a less than positive way.  Like the old quote, with great power comes great responsibility.  Use your power wisely.  Use your words wisely.  You may never know when you are changing a life with the touch of your words.