Just.
It's just a word.
But it's a word that I hear doing lots of damage.
I hear us using it to understate and minimise the good, and sometimes exceptional, things that we do: "Oh. It's just something I whipped up." "Oh. This. It's just what I always do." "Oh. That. It's just what anyone would have done."
On the other hand, I also hear it used to minimise bad behaviour: "Oh. It wasn't much. It was just a push." "Oh. I just had a bit to drink." "Oh. I was just checking a text."
Why don't we tune our ears in to what we, and others, are saying? My feeling is that whenever it's used, "just" is damaging someone. We either use it to quietly run ourselves down, or we use it to try and weasel our way out of something unacceptable, or even poisonous, that we've done.
I see that "Just" acts as a sneaky thief that steals away our awareness of the truth about how things really are.
What do you notice when you tune your ears in?
