Language Shapes Our Reality

Something that was explicitly talked about in my graduate program to become a therapist was about how language shapes our reality. Like Frederick Sommer describes, "Life itself is not the reality. We are the ones who put life into stones and pebbles." We create meaning with the thoughts and perspectives we project onto the world around us. It’s powerful. That’s where internal bias is formed, because if we never notice that something is there, because we’ve only ever been taught to see something one way, we don’t recognize how our point of view was even shaped. I like to bring attention to how even the definitions of colors vary from region to region. Take for example the ‘green’ we see at the bottom of a streetlight. In Japan, they call that color blue, whereas we say it is green. It isn’t different colors being used, it is just our defined lens of what is blue versus green is different. This is why going to a therapist and talking through something can be helpful, because you both are observing your line of thinking, and aiding you in recognizing alternate possible perspectives that you wouldn’t have been able to consider otherwise. When you recognize that other ways to see a situation is possible, it gives you power to shape the world as you want it to be.

"Life itself is not the reality. We are the ones who put life into stones and pebbles."

~ Frederick Sommer