What can be done with a don't?

Lately in my journals, I've been challenging myself to write using affirmatives.

That means avoiding words like "don't", "can't", "isn't"" and the likes.

Why?

Because negatives only tell me what I'm avoiding. They're abstract, phantoms, vague, and literally tell me nothing.

That's what negatives do. They say what's not there, what's not available.

That's playing a game to not lose instead of playing to win.

It's living to survive instead of living to live.

It's being afraid to fail instead of seeing what happens when you try.

Those concepts may feel disconnected, but they come from the same node.

Avoidance.

Language is powerful. We all know words have meaning and how dictionaries work. But what about the relationship we have to the words and phrases themselves?

If I asked you to describe love, you'd have something very different to say than the next person. If I asked you what respect was, you'd also have something different to say.

Well, what are you saying if you are telling me how you didn't feel? What you don't want?

I can fill in the affirmative (what you do want) is literally anything. I'll fill it with whatever my assumptions say to fill it with.

I'm sure you can understand why this is important when it comes to communication with other people. What about with yourself?

When you hide what you are saying under what aren't, you conceal the truth from yourself too. "I didn't like that she said that" could be hiding "that hurt my feelings and I feel ashamed".

When you remove the negation language, you are forced to take ownership over your words (and that includes the relationship you have to them).

Really, this is a practice in extracting what's honest and finding words for what still needs a name.