Toxic Words / Secure Words: How Your Words Shape Your Dating Experience
What are toxic words? Toxic words are those that sound innocent or even positive, but they can carry a subtle negativity or a sense of powerlessness.
The words we use in self-talk create an emotional landscape where our romantic connections can flourish and grow. Our words can either build sanctuaries of security or dwellings of doubt. And this often happens without our conscious awareness.
If you think about it, there are certain words in dating that can carry subtle energy that can undermine our sense of who we are and our personal sense of empowerment within our relationships. And these are words like "should" or "wish" or "need" or "can't." They might seem really harmless, but I believe that language has a lot of power. And these words often contain an unspoken complaint or a feeling of powerlessness.
When we say something like, "I wish that they would text back faster," we're not just expressing hope; we're reinforcing a sense of scarcity, a sense of lack. Or if we say, "I need them to show me that they care," this places our emotional well-being outside of ourselves. It puts our emotional well-being in their hands. They get to decide if we feel good or not. If they show that they care, then we'll feel good.
Consider how it sounds if you say, "I need to figure out where we stand." How does that differ versus if you say, "Oh, I get to explore this connection"? The first one sounds heavy—oh, I got to figure this out. I need to figure out what's happening. Versus the second one where it's oh, I get to just explore. I get to have fun. I get to know this person. I get to learn more about them. It's great. There's a subtle distinction there that can shape our entire experience of dating. It can also reveal where we've placed our locus of control.
Locus of control is about whether we have the power to affect events. Do we have some say in what happens, or are we just at the whims of fate with everything happening to us? And that can be a very philosophical conversation.
Beyond Individual Words: Patterns of Speech
Beyond individual words, there are certain patterns of speech that create a certain feeling in our dating lives.
Absolute thinking involves words like "always" and "never." When we say things like "always" and "never," it's creating a very rigid story about ourselves and about other people. For example: "I always ruin good things" or "they never follow through." It makes it sound like nothing can possibly change—this is the way it is, carved in stone, and nothing is going to change.
Conditional language involves the word "but" that negates what comes before it. "They said they care about me, but..." and then we're waiting for the other shoe to drop in the sentence. It discounts all of that caring that happened in the first part. "They said they care about me, but they didn't buy me flowers..." And so clearly they don't care. It's training our focus to focus on problems rather than solutions, and it really doesn't help our relationship.
Then there's words like "try," which imply doubt and low confidence. "I'll try to be less anxious." If someone said "I'll try to come to your party," do you think they would show up to your party?
External authority involves words like "supposed to" or "ought to." When we put our trust in external authority, "I'm supposed to feel secure by now," there's some magistry somewhere that tells us when we're going to be secure. We have these invisible expectations and then we feel guilty because we haven't met them.
The Relational Impact in Dating
The language that we use internally in our own self-talk can profoundly affect how we feel in our dating life. These subtle shifts in wording can tell our subconscious whether we should be stressed out or relaxed. It's very important to really focus on our language and what we're saying to ourselves—how we're programming our own subconscious mind with the words that we choose.
When we constantly use words that express complaining or words that are disempowering of ourselves, we're training ourselves to see dating and relationships as stressful rather than places where we might have really beautiful authentic connection. We start to approach relationships from a place of lack and scarcity rather than a natural place of abundance. Instead of feeling empowered, we're putting all of our control or handing it to another person and saying, "Here, you help me feel better." And we don't want to do that. We want to be able to help ourselves feel better. We want to feel empowered in our lives.
The Physical Impact of Our Words
What we might not realize is how our words create actual physical sensations in the body. If we think, "I need them to tell me where we stand" or "I need to know how they feel about this relationship," how does that physically affect the body? If you say something like "I need to," do you notice a difference in how your stomach feels or how your breathing is as you say that?
Check in with those little subtle things and notice how you feel in your body somatically versus if you say something like, "I choose how I am going to perceive what they say" or "I can create my own sense of security." Notice how that statement feels as you say it out loud. Notice how that statement feels in your body. Do your shoulders feel a little bit more relaxed? Does your breath feel a little bit deeper? Do you feel a little bit more malleable, a little bit softer?
It's really interesting because our nervous system responds to the energetic quality of our thoughts before we've even processed them consciously. A lot of times people with anxious attachment style don't feel like they're enough, yet ironically also feel like they're too much. It's a paradox. How can someone be too much and not enough? Somehow we pull it off.
When we use this language of powerlessness, we're training our mind to believe these things. We might not even say fully, "I am not enough" to ourselves. And yet, it's so fast. Those neurons have repeated themselves and run those same processes so many times that instantly that thought is there, the body is responding to that thought, and we've just created another iteration of the same pattern over and over and over. This is how we get trapped in negative cycles of limiting beliefs.
That's why it's very important to do the body scan, notice how your body is responding to the words that you use, and then just give yourself permission to use empowering, self-believing language.
Shifting Your Locus of Control
Our locus of control—where we believe that power resides—really does shape how we experience dating. If we put our emotional well-being in somebody else's hands, we're creating this perpetual state of waiting and uncertainty: "I need them to text back more often" or "if only they were more communicative." That is an external locus of control—waiting for them to change so that you feel okay.
The most empowering shift that we can make in dating is recognizing what is beyond our sphere of influence and what is within our sphere of influence. While we can't control whether or not someone texts back in a timely manner, we can control how we spend our time while we wait. We can't control other people's feelings, but we can control our own sense of security inside of ourselves.
Language is really important. The words that we use internally in our own self-talk aren't just affecting our experience; they're affecting how we show up in relationships, how we speak to ourselves with empowerment. And that naturally creates more security in our connections. Our body language is going to be more open, our energy is going to be more open and inviting, our presence is going to feel more grounded and settled.
When we use the language of powerlessness, we're unconsciously creating the very dynamics that we fear. The thought that "I'm too much for people" might cause us to withdraw or to become overly accommodating, overly people-pleasing. And that in itself can create a kind of distance between people. If we have the belief "they always leave," that might cause us to act in ways that check the relationship and look to make sure it's okay, make sure it's stable, and that can create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Creating New Patterns
Awareness is the first step. As in so many things in life, becoming aware of your self-talk is super important. And then noticing the ways that we use words without judgment creates a space where we can make new patterns emerge and grow something amazing.
Consider how changing "need to" to "want to" or "get to" can make an obligation into a choice. For example, if you say something like, "I need to go grocery shopping" versus "I want to go grocery shopping" or "I get to go grocery shopping." Just notice how that feels so much better.
The most powerful shifts often come from small consistent changes. Each time we choose language that affirms our capability and worth, we are literally rewiring our brain towards greater security in relationships. This is just choosing language that accurately reflects what's going on internally for us and creating a new place where things feel even better, and ultimately we feel more empowered, we feel more cheerful, we feel more happy.
If this was helpful and you'd like more support working through dating and attachment, you might enjoy my updated Secure Attachment Rewire program for Anxious Attachment Style. To find out if this program is right for you, please book a call here.
