“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.”
It’s a phrase we hear all the time, but it makes me wonder if it's actually true. For some people, words like “crazy”, “ugly” or “stupid” might not mean a lot. To others, it can leave a really negative impact on their self-esteem.
If you’re someone who has ever felt the detrimental effects of these negative words, you know what I mean.
But guess what — water feels that way too!
How A Scientist Proved Water Has Feelings Too
Okay, I know, I know… Water doesn’t have feelings, right? Actually, Dr. Masaru Emoto says otherwise.
Dr. Emoto theorizes that human consciousness actually has an effect on the molecular structure of water. In other words, water reacts to positive and negative words accordingly.
In 1994, Dr. Emoto conducted a study which included exposing different samples of water to different words for a period of time. Some samples were exposed to the word “love”, some to the words “thank you”, and others to the phrase, “I hate you”. Then, he would freeze the water to observe the effects.
Here’s what he found:
These results are pretty amazing on their own, but it gets even more amazing when we consider that our bodies are made up of anywhere between 50% and 75% water.
If words impact a single droplet of water so drastically, can you imagine how much they affect the human body? Can you imagine how much they can affect you and me?
Interested in Writing a Children's Book?
Of course, Dr. Emoto’s findings drummed up a lot of skepticism, and if I’m honest, I was one of the skeptics. That’s why, a few years ago I decided to conduct my own research with the help of my kids.
How We Used Rice to Test the Power of Words
We filled three jars with cooked rice and assigned each jar to a category of words. The first jar was labelled “love”, which meant we had to say kind and encouraging words to this jar every day.
The second jar was labelled “hate”, which meant we had to say mean and discouraging words to this jar every day.
The last jar remained unlabelled. We ignored this jar all together.
After 21 days, here’s what we found:
We were completely blown away by the results. The jar exposed to kind words flourished, while the jar exposed to mean words didn’t fare as well, and the jar we completely ignored turned out to be the mouldiest of all.
It really makes me wonder how important it is to give attention and love to ourselves (and how detrimental it can be if we don’t).
Honestly, I think Mother Theresa said it best:
“Spiteful words can hurt your feelings but silence breaks your heart.”