I get so much from inspirational quotes. I love to read the quotes that other bloggers share and I also enjoy sharing quotes that have helped me through difficult times with my readers.

During this difficult period of my life, I have come to find a new respect for the power that words hold, both in a negative and a positive sense. Just like words have the potential to hurt, tear down and deflate us, they also have the potential to heal, build up and encourage.

What I find so amazing, is that a single sentence, placed in the right context, can ignite hope in someones heart and can enable them to feel that they have the potential to face the difficult circumstances they are facing. This is the power of words at their most wonderful.

In equal measure, a single sentence can ruin peoples lives, steal their confidence and rob them of their peace. Words can be used to cultivate fear, and scare us. They can be used to hurt us and tear us down. Spoken words, written words, words on social media, words we may only tell ourselves. All can break us just as easily as they can build us up.

Today, it seems there are so many, chuck away buzz words and phrases that have emerged and circulated. Phrases that revolve around our lifestyles and how we present them to others. Words that feed our aspirational “instafabulous” identities and not necessarily our souls.

What I want to focus on, however, are the words that have the power to truly inspire us and stir our souls.

These are words that we absorb in a very different way from the buzz words and phrases. Inspirational words are often born of struggle, of hardship, challenge and self discovery. They can galvanise our self belief, our inner strength and our potential.

I believe that when we read something that impacts us in this way, there are three elements within us, as readers, that combined stir something up in us.

1. We can relate to it.
2. It makes us feel empowered.
3. It ignites hope in us.

The words that often have the most impact, are the ones that we truly relate to, the ones that reflect our trials and our heartbreaks. As humans, we long to be understood and to feel that we are not alone in what we face.  When we read a quote that speaks to us in a personal way, a connection is made and that connecting factor is the shared experience of life itself.

We often share these quotes, passages, messages and words with others to let them know that they too are not alone and in doing so we extend the connection further.

At times, these words can feel like oxygen to a drowning soul. They can pierce the fog of lies we tell ourselves or that others impose on us and encourage us to connect to our real identity.

At a time in our life when everything seems out of control, and so fearful, they can force us to dig deeper, to conjure up the fighting spirit deep within. That spirit to get back up, dust ourselves off and carry on. Words can empower us, make us see that we are capable of so much more than what the world often makes us feel we are. Words can reveal the beauty of life once again.

Reading the words of those who have faced the most extreme challenges of life, things which others would believe insurmountable. Words from those who have experienced life and survived, truly serves to inspire us even more. Words allow us to plug into the lives of others and their legacy tells us, if they can endure, if they overcome, then maybe I can too.

In a world where so much is disposable, words bring us something deeper. At their best words feed the soul and ignite the human spirit. When the world around us feels precarious, ever changing or even shallow, words can offer something deeper. An anchor we can cling to, keeping the human spirit afloat.

Quite simply, we want to be inspired.

Inspired to survive, to overcome, to become what we know deep inside we were born to be.

You may wonder, why I have written a post all about words.

I had many words thrown at me throughout the loss of my marriage, words that held so much negativity and cruelness. I’ve had words said to me that will never leave me. I was told I wasn’t enough, made to believe I was a failure, that there was something wrong with me.

Words.

There are words that make us and there are words that break us.

I believe words should be constructed and consumed for their goodness. I believe words should be used to form positive ideas and connections, not to breed negativity and break people down.

Words can touch people in a profound way and I have chosen to feed on the positivity that they can inspire within myself. The nourishment they can bring. That’s what I want this blog to be, positive words that spread goodness out of the bad that I experienced.

I would really love to hear from you with some of the words that have inspired you and helped you through.