Letting Go of “Just”

Words are inadequate to express the full depth and breadth of our experiences. Yet words also have power. And one of those powers is to provide us with insights into our own “stuff.”

I’ve learned to pay close attention to my word choices — perhaps more than most people, because I have been a writer, editor and poet all my life.

One of the words I am actively purging from my vocabulary right now is just, as in “I was just being me” or “I just wanted to say…”

Now, I’m not saying that the word just is bad. There are plenty of instances when it’s powerful, such as when it refers to justice (e.g., what’s right and just) or to purity (e.g., just juice from organic apples and nothing else).

But the use of the word just with phrases like I am, I want or I need has a very different effect. It diminishes whatever comes after it. It makes whatever I’m saying sound needy, or desperate, or in need of justification. In other words, using the word just in this way does me a disservice because it subtly broadcasts to the listener that’s it’s OK to dismiss whatever comes next.

Clearly, that’s NOT what I intend with my communication.

As you can tell, this endeavor is about more than “just” removing a word from my vocabulary. It’s a valuable opportunity to explore my inner self more deeply. By noticing when I use the word just, I have the opportunity to discover “threads” of self-sabotage, insecurity, doubt and fear.

So even as I purge the word just from my vocabulary, I recognize that I also must bless it and honor it for the gifts of self-seeing and self-healing that it’s bringing me. I can bless it and honor it for the priceless opportunity to discover and bring love to one of these scared and lonely parts of myself, “just” the way it is.

By loving each of these forgotten or forsaken or “cut off” parts of myself more, I am able to restore myself more and more to wholeness, authenticity and full power.