OWNING MY COMMUNICATION: A SEMANTIC TASK

PURPOSE:

To demonstrate responsibility for one's own words.
To demonstrate how language helps us distort things.
To demonstrate how language influences thought.

PROCEDURE:

Read the following word/phrase substitutions and attempt to use them in your everyday language.

REPLACE

WITH

A. Got to/Have to

I Choose/I want

Objective:

To denote and reinforce that I am choosing
B. Can't I won't/I choose not
Objective: To declare I am making a free choice
C. Must Have I want/I am choosing
Objective: To Claim responsibility of my free choice
D. One/We/You/They I/My
Objective: I own my voice, take responsibility for myself and speak
E. Is I think/I believe/It looks like me
Objective: To remind me that nothing is anything
F. Every Some/Many/Most/A few
Objective: To remind me that "ALL" is not possible to perceive and to create alternatives
G. Try Will/Wont' you choose
Objective: To remind us that it's our choice.  We are capable of completing what we choose.

DISCUSSION:

  1. Are the suggested replacements more realistic?
  2. Can you see how language helps you distort things?
  3. Do these semantic replacements allow you to think more realistically?

I can get more directly at what I am really feeling if I think "I" instead of "you" and stop talking to myself in the third person