Thoughts on the Power of What We Think

I went to the podiatrist today on a follow up visit after the hammer toe surgery of early August. It has been seven weeks since the original surgery. I had a pin through the toe for four weeks and I’ve been wearing what I refer to as my “toe bondage device” – basically a sort of sling-for-toes that held the toe in place – for the last three weeks. The toe bondage device was inconvenient but not uncomfortable, with the exception of one day when I managed to get it twisted around and strangled my toe.

Today, I got a clean bill of health. The toe looks good, it is laying back down flat, alongside the other toes. It isn’t perfect and the podiatrist stated that if it is not flat enough, we can have a second, follow on, minor surgery to lay it down flatter. It may not be perfect but it is probably 95% better than it was before, when it was scrunched up and hammered. When I stand flat footed it is slightly higher then the other toes on that foot. Inside a shoe I don’t even notice it. I have one more follow up in about a month, but essentially this excursion into the world of corrective surgery is complete.

Though the elapsed time between me walking into the office, the doctor examining the toe, and me walking out of the office was about thirty minutes. Yet, walking out, I felt significantly better. Sitting here at home the toe feels significantly better. There is probably no real change, physically, between yesterday and tonight – but, in my mind, in that wonderful realm of psychology, I am suddenly no longer carrying the weight of the toe. Now, it is just a toe. A toe with a clean bill of health.

Words are incredibly powerful things. Today, T.R. got a bit of good news of her own, one card that, when turned, fell one way and not the other, in this vast game that is life. When she relayed it to me mid-morning I felt the weight of that lift as well, though I am sure what I carried was a fraction of the weight she was carrying. Words are astounding things. The weight they carry. The weight they can release.

It leads us, I think, to consider carefully the words we utter – good, bad, and indifferent. Whether it is the weight of a life or the weight of a toe, all wrapped up in words. What we think is a powerful thing and the role the words we think and hear and say play in that powerful thing is pretty amazing. I guess today I am moving through life pretty amazed, with a lighter heart and a lighter toe and perhaps a lighter soul. All due to the power of words.