Words matter

Yesterday in yoga the teacher told us to flirt with our edge, this while we were in a difficult part of the flow. And I was thinking about the word flirt. It's a playful word. And I loved its unexpected appearance when talking about difficult fitness work.

I've always loved words. I'm told I was reading when I was three years old, but I think that's just parental love talking. I do know that I was a voracious reader and had to be sternly told "you will go outside and play!" as an elementary school bookworm kid. Before our kids were born we decided we would talk to them like reasonable people, no matter how small they were. This may have something to do with their excellent vocabularies today. And I find satisfaction with coming up with the perfect word, whether in conversation or in writing. (But now I'm all worried that these words I'm typing need improvement. The peril of a word nerd.)

So back to the topic at hand. I believe words matter, and I'm a huge fan of choosing playful lighthearted words. Some examples:

• I often say Tim is my boyfriend rather than calling him my husband. Boyfriend just has such a playful flirty kind of feel. I'm a fan of long-term marriage (we're a week away from 24 years!) and think one of the keys to success is infusing fun into the mix any way you can.
• I've already written about this in a previous post but writing "beauty juice" on a pitcher filled with water was the magical key to getting me to drink more water. I was a huge Diet Pepsi fan and hated the taste of water. But "beauty juice" trumps soda any day!
• The actual word play can make such a difference regarding exercise. Fartlek (which sounds like "fart lick" and makes me laugh) is a Swedish word meaning "speed play." Using that idea, sometimes I do park play. Or hill play (so much better than hill repeats, right?). 
• Borrowing from school lingo, any new experience is a field trip to me. I've gone on field trips by myself to new yoga studios. My kids and I took their guinea pig on a field trip to Starbucks, cage and all. The word adventure would also work, but as the daughter of two teachers, field trip is my choice.

If you have special words you use to add more fun, I'd love to hear them.