Episode 54: When You Can Name a Thing, You Gain Power Over It

What in life deserves our time and attention, and what things don't? I hope that as we consider that question, along with other topics on this show, that we can all learn to live our lives just a little more intentionally. This is Seth Roberts. Thanks for joining me on Skipping Stones - "When You Can Name a Thing, You Gain Power Over It."

The reason words matter is because when we cannot accurately name or describe a thing, we are powerless to take action. How could we? Without a name for that which we are experiencing or seeing, we do not even know the thing that needs to be acted upon. When we are afraid, if we can learn the source of this fear and put a name to it, that fear often goes away, or at the very least, it's weakened.

Likewise, when we have a poor understanding of what is going on inside ourselves, our more basic emotions can more easily take control of us. Think for example of a person that is really hungry. But doesn't realize it. They're probably on a short fuse and may be snapping at the people around them. And in that moment, they think that they're angry because somebody sneezed the wrong way.

When actually, they're just hungry. In the past, I've brought up one of my favorite films, Spirited Away, which is a famous Japanese anime. There's a witch in that story that runs a bathhouse for spirits. When someone comes to her asking for work, she makes him sign a contract. Once the contract is signed, she takes ownership of their name and gives them another name.

Once they have forgotten what their actual name was, they fall under her control. Now, I can only guess where the creator of that film, Hayao Miyazaki, was intending to take his metaphor, but I feel there's a depth to it.  There are a few different ways you can interpret it, but one of the things I was thinking about was that when we do not know the name of that which we are being affected by, we are powerless to it.

When we know its name, we gain power over it. A person that understands themselves can do so much more to promote their own well-being than a person that does not. When we don't know or understand ourselves, we are not prepared to face the inevitable challenges of life that are going to come. It is as if when we do not know ourselves, we become slaves to our emotions because we cannot name or describe them.

The witch, in my mind, represents those blunt, primal reactions such as fear or confusion. that distract us from the truth or keep us from recognizing what the source of those reactions are. If you find yourself getting irritated at the people around you but are unable to know for what reason, you will remain in that state most likely.

If you are able to recognize that your irritation is actually a symptom of a situation at work or some other problem, you gain the power to transfer that negative energy away from places it doesn't belong and move it to places it does. When we watch an action film, the protagonists are frequently in physical danger from other people and or monsters trying to kill them.

Yet, we are not typically scared by that. In a horror film, there is likewise a person or a monster trying to kill the protagonist. But the difference being is that we usually do not know where the bad guy is. Or how they are going to try and kill the protagonist. The protagonists are frequently put into situations where their vision is limited.

Whether they're in the dark or in a facility with lots of physical obstacles to hide behind. In the first example, I think I could say that the protagonists are able to name their enemy. Their chances of survival may be 100 to 1, but they know what they are facing. In the second example, they know almost nothing.

They often do not even know who the killer or killers are. They cannot name. What they are facing. We are never going to be angry just because we are. There's always a reason. In the moment, it might be easy to think we're angry because the person next to us is being annoyingly cheerful or because they looked at us wrong, but the true name of what we are experiencing may be as simple as stress at work, a fight with a spouse, hunger, or maybe we took the wrong medicine.

We may think we're uncomfortable at a party, but the true name of our distress may be that we don't feel like we are good enough to be there, or it may be that we don't know the social rules that are needed to thrive in that particular scenario. Maybe you have gone through life thinking you are not meant for great things, but truly the name of your limits is that you are afraid of injuring your pride by trying.

In so doing, you trapped yourself into a prison of your own making. It's possible that you think you hate the place you are living, but maybe the real name of your problem is that you hate that you haven't made any meaningful connections and missed the familiarity of home. Or maybe you're discontent with where you're at comes from feeling left behind by your friends that have left.

Something I have always found kind of interesting about politics is that depending on who the president is, and depending on which news platform you're listening to, when something good happens, it is because of the president, and when something bad happens, it It's because of the president. Sometimes, the answer has nothing to do with the person sitting in the White House.

Or maybe it has something to do with 20 different things that happened all at once. We are all too often tempted to give something an oversimplified name. Like, that guy is angry because he's a jerk. When maybe he's angry for a much more nuanced reason than that. Maybe the reason you can't stand that new hire in the office has nothing to do with their unbearable personality.

It's possible that their personality is unbearable to you because you are actually feeling jealous of them. Maybe your anxiety in life is less a matter of hormonal imbalance and more so a consequence of constantly staying up late, or possibly because your life is actually in shambles, and you have every right to feel anxious.

It could be that your actions and your beliefs are not aligned and it's ripping you apart. Maybe the reason you can't get yourself to do the things you know you have to do in order to reach your aspirations is not because you are lazy, but because you don't actually want the lifestyle that your goals are going to require of you.

Or possibly, you're just afraid of facing the inevitable discomfort of changing your habits. When we learn the true name of a thing, we can become its master. Look to know the true name of your fear, of your anxiety, and of your anger, and you will become the master of your own universe. This is Skipping Stones - "When You Can Name a Thing, You Gain Power Over It."

You can find this Podcast anywhere you choose to listen to podcasts for more information about me. Feel free to visit skippingstonessr.com. And if you enjoyed the show, please like, or subscribe. If there is a topic you would like me to speak on, please feel free to email me at info@skippingstonessr.com. New episodes will be released weekly, every Monday.