A Place You Won't Be Hurt
Read the story first: A Place You Won't Be Hurt.
Opening
When I began writing this book, I was carrying the weight of rumors spoken about me. Those words spread, and I could never gather them back. As this book developed, I began to see something else. We don’t just spread rumors with our words—we can quietly plant them in our own minds about the people closest to us. Small moments, small frustrations, things that may have already been apologized for… but they stay. Over time, we revisit them, replay them, and give them more attention than they deserve. We water them. We grow them. Before long, we are no longer responding to the person in front of us, but to the story we have built about them. These feathers represent both.
Mission: The Feather
This mission will help you understand how gossip spreads and why it is so difficult to take back. You will need a small pile of feathers (not just two or three, but a few to make the picture clear), a hairdryer or small fan, and a table or flat surface. Place the feathers in a small pile on the table and take a moment to look at them. They are contained and doing no harm. Each feather represents a word spoken about someone else.
Turn on the hairdryer and direct the air toward the feathers. Watch what happens. Then turn it off and try to retrieve the feathers. They are no longer where you placed them. They have spread.
Now gather the feathers and place them back into a pile. This time, they represent your thoughts. Each time you hold onto a negative thought, it is like adding another feather to the pile. Over time, that pile becomes resentment.
Your Mission This Week
When a negative thought comes to your mind, do not hold onto it. Do not replay it. Do not add to the pile. Replace it with something positive. If you cannot do that at this point, then begin thinking about how to cure what is causing the negative thought.
At the end of the week, gently sit down together and talk about what you experienced.
Questions
1. Have you ever been hurt by gossip or judgment from others?
2. Have you ever experienced a place where you felt accepted and understood?
3. What is one positive thing you can focus on about the other person this week?
Final Thought
Words do not stay where you put them. Whether spoken out loud or repeated in your mind, they grow and spread. Learning to control them is the beginning of changing how you see and treat each other.