Casting Spells with your Words

How writers alchemise feelings and emotions

I’m delighted to welcome

Teri Leigh 💜

to The Mindful Writer today with her wonderful guest post about the ways in which our words affect people. Teri Leigh writes many Substacks (four in total!) but the one that first connected me to her is The MindfulSense Mentor, where she shares inspiring posts about making the best we can of this often messy human life. When we had a Zoom chat recently she spoke of how she sees the impact that words have on the human body and this seemed so aligned with the messages I share about using our words to create positive human connection, that I invited her to write for us about it. I hope you enjoy it as much I do.

Do let us know in the comments what you think about the ways our words alchemise our feelings and emotions.💙

“MAH-HA-HAAAAAH!!!” Lucy bellowed as she demonstrated the next yoga move.

I feel like a fool - but I’ll try anything once.

“ma-ha-ha,” I muttered in a breathy voice as I folded my upper body forward into ragdoll pose. My attempt at mimicking Lucy was pitiful.

“I love you, and I know you can do better. Just trust me, fake it to feel it!”

MAH-HA-HAAAAAAH! She bellowed again, tumbling her body forward. Everyone in class stared at her, frozen. But, I saw something they didn’t see. 

Her aura bubbled. As she dangled in ragdoll pose, she continued ha-ha-ha-ing, and debris shook off of her with every HA, like she was literally laughing off all the stuff she didn’t need anymore..

What the heck, I’ll try it.

“MAH-HA-HAAAAAH!!!” I tumbled my body forward, flopping my head around once I got down there. My “ha-ha-has” turned into uncontrollable laughter, bubbles spilling out of me too. 

Those bubbles grew legs scurried over to tickle the feet of the other six students in class, and the energy became contagious. Everyone else started MAH-HA-HA-ing and the class exploded in laughter as if we were toddlers playing with a bubble machine.

I invite you to try it. Mah-ha-ha.MOV

Over the next hour, Lucy taught the power of three specific vowel sounds on the human body.

• OO - the long ū sound, as in “trūth”, has a grounding effect. Your body anchors to the earth. Energies go downward. 

• AH - the open up and say aaaah sound as in “ha-ha-ha”, has an opening effect. Your body wants to open up, let go, so you can be available to receive something new, and your lungs want to breathe deeper.

• EE - the long ē sound as in “tree”, has a lengthening effect. Your body wants to grow and extend itself, reaching to greater lengths and heights.

To be fair, I’ve always seen these kinds of energies while taking or teaching yoga classes, but Lucy’s class was the first time I was offered any kind of practical explanation for what I experienced. Evidently, the ancient yoga sages had known this about sound for centuries.

Because of a number of neurological conditions (aka super powers that some might call “neurodivergent”), I experience words and language through a very unique lens. Which explains why my experience in Lucy’s yoga class was so profound.

• I see auras & chakras - the electromagnetic energy field of atoms and molecules that emanate from living beings. I see that as colors, textures, and vibrations coming off your body. 

• I have hyperacusis - I have super-hearing ability. I hear more than just what you say, but how you say it and what lives in the space between your thoughts.

• I have synesthesia - My sense of hearing and my sense of sight often work together as one sense. In other words, I often see sounds as colors, and I can hear visions and images as sounds. Synesthesia is a neurological condition that affects 2-4 percent of the population. 

Using these “gifts” (which are often overwhelming), I’ve spent decades analyzing how sounds, words, and phrases impact the human body and spiritual energy of a person, not just in yoga class, but in writing as well.

For example, Maya Angelou’s poem Phenomenal Woman repeats the f, m, and n sounds emphasizing the profound power of the divine feminine. These soft voluptuous sounds evoke the sensation of being held close to a mother’s breast, and the soft humps in shape of the letters create the visual image of breasts throughout the poem.  In the poem And Still I Rise, Angelou uses the climbing variations of the letter I - the short ǐ in “still”, followed by the long ī in “I”, and the lengthened ī in “rise” to make her listeners stand up taller.

When I first met Amanda Saint, her tone and voice patterns and diction created an aura of an ocean just before a storm. Deep teals, greens, and blues swirled around me, enveloping me in an embrace you can only feel while bobbing gently in the ocean’s lilting waves. Her enthusiasm and passion for her craft projected pastel oranges, pinks, and fluffs of purple in the atmosphere around me in a way that made me want to breathe in deeper so that I might ingest some of that juice. And yet, in all that motion, the steady pace and rhythm of her language evoked a grounded current, that I knew, if I just trusted her and let go, I could get swept up into an adventure.

To be a writer, you aren’t just a wordsmith. You are a spell-caster. A charm-maker. A sound magician. If you hone your craft in use of sound as energy, you have the power to alchemize human feelings and emotions on multiple levels.

If you are interested in an energetic read of your writing, or would like me to tell you what I see in your aura and chakras, Let’s Talk. 

Thanks so much, Teri Leigh. I’ve long believed that creative writing is a magical process and experience and now I know I have been right all along!

A reminder that for the month of October, I am donating 50% of all new annual and founding memberships to St Mungo’s - a UK homeless charity - and today is the last day to sign up for that! If you’re already a monthly member if you change to annual then I am donating 50% of these too.

As a paid member you get a Mindful Writing ebook I’ve written and monthly Mindful Writing Marathons.