Feed: How Verbal First Aid™ Can Help Heal The Wounds of - AggScore: 10.2

Words Are Medicine

Any 2 people could meet for the first time and within thirty seconds and the exchange of one or two words, may be made to cry, giggle or reach for their blood pressure medication. It's no different to assert that with 30 seconds and a few words, we can help one another to lower our blood pressure, relieve pain, and calm a nervous heart. This healing use of words is known as verbal First Aid™.

While Verbal First Aid™ started with protocols for rescue employees and emergency medical staff, it's become much more than that. And it is particularly helpful-and important-with children, who are by their very natures more compliant with authority and more susceptible to idea.

While it is particularly useful in the terrible scenarios that emergency responders face, it's also vital for every one of us to know that what we say-and hear-affects us at the deepest physical levels. Our words talk not only to the human heart metaphorically. They speak to the body. Directly. And the body listens.

Verbal First Aid Children - The Fundamentals of Verbal First Aid™ for Parents

If the body is listening-and it is-then we would like to be more privy to the way we speak to our children when they are experiencing discomfort or afraid, for those are the times they're the most suggestible. What you say to them in those moments after they've taken a surprising tumble or they have been frightened by a nightmare can literally change their body chemistry.

Think of what you want to hear and who you wish to talk with when you are hurt. When you need to heal you start by speaking to someone-your pastor, clergyman, rabbi, friend, your relative. Why do we select that person? What makes it a healing experience? What about them draws us to them when we are in pain? There are often two fundamental reasons.

1. 
   
2. How that person listens: They have respect for us, faith in us and confidence in themselves. They pace our feelings and share their empathic presence in both verbal and non-verbal techniques. They're actually, actively listening.
   
3. How that person talks: Firmly, kindly, convincingly, empathically, subtly, non-judgmentally, lovingly, prayerfully. They let the light of God shine through them. They have authority, credibility. We know without question that they are on the same side as us They want our wellness and our success. That doesn't mean, of course, that we mostly hear what we like. But due to the coalition, due to the harmoniousness, because of the intention-we CAN hear it.
   

Verbal First Aid Children

Rapport--the understanding that connects 2 people--is especially critical when one of them is in crisis. In my workshops, I give it tremendous importance because without it, Verbal First Aid™ is little more than a list of strategies.

Please keep in mind this protocol is not "therapy." It's a method to be therapeutic. It's about connectedness.

To demonstrate this idea when I teach paramedics, I ask them: "What's the most horrible thing you can say to your better half or spouse when he or she is angry?"

To their credit, they're usually spot on with the answer: "Relax!"

This is as the aim under the word in that circumstance is generally dismissal and what we are truly attempting to say is "Be quiet!" or "Cut it out!" or "Leave me alone!" that's quite different from, for instance: "You can relax. I promise you, I have got it."

In the first eventuality ("Relax!"), what we often get is increased agitation. The fight goes on or the hurt is unresolved or the patient remains frightened and non-compliant. In the 2nd ("You can relax, now...") we get a calm cooperation that permits us to lead the person who is either physically or emotionally wounded to healing.

Verbal First Aid Children

Verbal First Aid™ is based on a simple principle-that our words impact others on every level-but it has shocking results. With a clear target and one or two one-syllable words, we will be able to see wonderful things happen-bleeding that stops, headaches that vanish, blood pressure that drops back to basics, and broken hearts that may be able to receive and return love again.