Keep on speaking blessing into people's lives...

Do you remember those folded origami fortune-teller paper devices that you used to make as a child? The snap-open-and-shut paper shape is labelled with colours and numbers that serve as options for a player to choose from, and on the inside are eight flaps, each concealing a message.

What I mostly remember about them at primary school, is that girls used them as a devious way to be mean to each other. A girl would ask you for a colour and then a number and you couldn’t refuse to answer, even when you knew what was going to happen, because you came under pressure to join in. However, you knew that what they were going to read out was going to be nasty or unkind. And afterwards they would throw back their heads and laugh at you, and you would have to pretend not to care.

When I was working at the therapeutic community for children, the girls there also used to make these things. One day, one of the girls came come up to me and asked me to fill in her hidden answers. She couldn’t seem to think of anything to write for herself. Mostly, we were absolutely passionate about the kids, we really loved them. But this girl was really hard to be fond of because she seemed like a formless, characterless, lump. A kind of absence of being. And when she spoke it was generally in the form of a whiney complaint. It seemed as though she had no zest for life at all. Not even in a kicking back at it kind of way.

I sat down and really struggled to find eight nice things to say about her to write under the flaps. But finally it was ready and she gave me the colour to spell out and the number she wanted me to look in.

I opened out the flap. “You will have a good life,” I read out.

She stared at me in utter shock. Completely frozen.

I looked her straight in the eye. “I know it seems that your life is utter crap right now,” I said, “but this isn’t going to last forever. You’re going to grow up, leave here, take control of your life and make right decisions for yourself, and you will have a good life.”

From the taken aback look on her face, I realised that no-one had ever made such a suggestion to her before.

Psychologists say that people need nine positive statements to wipe out every negative word spoken into their life. Negative words have a habit of barbing themselves in and are hard to dig out again. So every time we speak a positive word into someone’s life, we’re helping to launch them into a new and more spacious psychological and emotional place.