It’s a cozy morning. I’m supposed to work late today for an event, so that means I don’t go into work until noon. I set my alarm for 8:12 – just as a safeguard in case I slept in uncommonly late, but woke up long before it was set to go off.

I’d turned my heater off during the night because I was nice and toasty, so I awoke to a 32 degree home. Since I didn’t need to rush to work I curled up under a warm blanket with hot coffee and my Bible, journal, and a couple of nonfiction books. It was delightful.

Eventually, I transitioned to my computer where I watched part of a Youtube video about how much a certain vlogger spends each week (I’m currently exceedingly fascinated by budgeting) while eating breakfast. And now I’m getting some computer work done which is something I’ve been sadly remiss in during the last six months.

One of the books I was reading this morning is Switch on Your Brain by Dr. Caroline Leaf. I’ve heard about her research a lot from my family and decided that it was time for me to read her book for myself.

Beginning in my early twenties I began to really focus on my thoughts and words – especially in speaking life, both out loud and to myself. Some seasons of life I do better than others. Recently I’ve been realizing that although I have been doing a good job in speaking life out loud, I’m not always consistent with keeping my mindset focused on the good when it comes to other people – particularly those who annoy me.

But, that’s one of the neat things about speaking life – when I cut off the negative thoughts that I think about others and instead choose to dwell on their positive attributes, it actually changes the way I think about them. This is for a variety of reasons, but the main one is that when I’m focusing on the good, then I am looking for good, and you can generally find what you’re looking for.

When you’re around people who aren’t familiar with the principle of speaking life, it’s so easy to get caught up in the spirit of negativity – no matter if it’s real negativity or else joking negativity. But what I’ve discovered is that even joking negativity can affect people.

Because of that, I’m working on not speaking negativity – even in jest. You can be funny, joke around, and enter into the banter of the workplace while still doing it in a life-giving way. It sometimes makes me have to think harder to make jokes while still building people up, but that’s okay – it’s a good brain exercise.

Today I’m going to work on only speaking life in my mind, even when I get annoyed. And, if I can’t think of anything positive about someone, then my fallback is to remind myself that despite how they’re acting, they’re made in the image of God, and therefore, they’re important, special, blessed, and deserve me to treat them with respect.

Are you familiar with the concept of speaking life? There’s so much in the Bible about it, and I’d be delighted to write a blog post about it someday if anyone is interested.