The Life-Changing Power of a Kind Word

Imagine what our real neighbors would be like if each of us offered, as a matter of course, just one kind word to another person. There have been so many stories about the lack of courtesy, the impatience of today’s world, road rage and even restaurant rage. Sometimes, all it takes is one kind word to nourish another person. Think of the ripple effect that can be created when we nourish someone. One kind empathetic word has a wonderful way of turning into many.
— Fred Rogers

I think it’s easy to feel powerless in the face of such big problems in the world. It’s easy to feel like you don’t have what the world needs—or you don’t have the solutions that these big situations require. But we forget how much power we do have. We forget that we have the power to help other people feel and experience their gifts, their light—what makes them them and why it’s wonderful they are who they are. We forget we have this power, and we forget how much of a difference that power can make. How long lasting it is. How much it provides ballast in hard times and energy for difficult transitions. How it helps people persist when they feel like quitting or helps them show up one more time when self-doubt has taken over.

I’ve had a file in my filing cabinet since the early 90’s labeled the “smile file.” Inside are farewell cards from programs and hospital units I have worked on, notes from kids and students, student evaluations and letters of recommendation. I have some of my old papers where the professor wrote a note at the bottom. It’s the flotsam and jetsam from the very beginning of my work life in residential treatment through graduate school to my current work in consulting. There are birthday cards and post-it notes. Any note that someone gave me that made me smile and made me feel hopeful about the work I was doing or my future.

Some of the notes or letters were ones that were required by the organization or an aspect of my training—year-end reviews or letters of recommendation for the internships or my post-doc. But most of what is in the file is just pure generosity. They are notes no one had to write—they were just kind words—the most simple and beautiful gifts.

One of my professors in my master’s program, Rick, wrote encouraging notes on my papers. And through the years that I was working to get into a doctoral program, while I endured disappointment after disappointment, I read and re-read those notes to give me the hope to persist in my goal. Four sentences scrawled on the bottom of a 2-page paper was literally a dream-saving life raft of sustenance during those years. Four sentences. Such simple, huge power they had in my life.

More kind words. One of my supervisors early in my training, Sharon, wrote an unsolicited letter of recommendation that was really just a letter for me as I already had my placement for the following year. The unit had gone through a crazy transition a week after I had arrived: the hospital and psychologists on the unit wouldn’t sign the new contract, so they all left and the unit I was on reverted to a different hospital system. Week 2 of my second clinical placement as a student and I was suddenly the senior psychologist on the unit, and I would be for the next 6 months. Sharon captured the work I did that year, and the way I managed through that situation- but what had me read and re-read that letter over the years, especially on my worst days—was her hope and conviction in my strengths and what they meant for my future. At every big moment where I had to do something I didn’t think I could do, or when I felt like I had totally failed—I read and re-read that letter—and borrowed her certainty about my bright future.

A card from my therapist when I was in an awful stuck place and thought it would be best for both of us if I quit, and her kind reminder that I would feel better in the long run if I hung in there, and that it was her plan to stick with me through that stuck place.  And a card from my mother-in-law on a really bad day, and a card from a dear friend who sat at my desk and reflected her joy at seeing my workspace and all the things I might do in it. Cards from nieces and nephews. Get-well cards and pictures from great-nieces and nephews.

It's hard even to say how powerful some of these words were. Because they aren’t just words: they are an energy source. They are something that helps you feel connected—to the people who wrote them—yes, but also to a future version of you. To a you that you can’t yet see. To a you that needs you to persist. To a you that is trying to break through the soil and needs a bit more time to grow. A little more water. A little more light.

I think we sometimes think of kind words as just being nice. And what I am trying to say is that a couple kind words can be the reason you know you exist. The reason you know you matter. You have this power. We all have this power. To share a note.  A card. A couple of kind words. A few sentences. To bolster hope. Help people see in themselves the spark that we see in them. Your throwaway line. Your 15-minute card. Your thoughtful letter. Your text letting them know you are rooting for them on their big day. Your kind words can literally be the fuel of someone’s future.

© 2023/2025 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD

Joy/Breaching the Surface

I was reminded this week while I was working on this poem that in all of the discussions about trauma it can seem that the only learning or unconscious resources we have are the result of difficulty—or that only the hardest things are etched into memory. But this week, as I have struggled with something, I am aware more than ever that moments of joy and love are also etched into our memory and hearts and learning. These moment of joy and love live in us as nourishment, as a deep well or spring.  If trauma gives us flashbacks, then joy can also give us lovebeams or joysparks. They can be gossamer warp and weft threads which are just as enduring as our negative experiences. It’s not an either/or. It’s an all-of-it experience. We are the sum total of all of it. And this is what gives me hope. We cannot always control the hard things we experience—but we can infuse our lives with attention and devotion to moments of love and joy. We can bring these things to ourselves. And we can bring these things to others. We can bring even the smallest joys back from memory. We can find them wherever we nourish our hearts and relationships. And we can rest knowing that they are a part of us too.

 Joy/Breach

We always wait not knowing

What may surprise us

or break our hearts.

 

Nightmares were the only

dreams I knew— seeking

refuge in morning light

 

until one night in a dream

I stood alone

on a high rocky cliff

 

looking out to the ocean

wide and dark—

 

suddenly a whale breached

 

broad, blue, electric

arched white belly—

the water shining.

 

Whether it was from love

or reunion I cannot say

but a pure joy

 

filled me so full I could not

contain it all.

I passed out—

 

falling, falling, falling

for a long time

to the beach below.

 

Slow and stiff I awoke

sandy and sleepy—

 

my whale was gone

 

but the joy that

broke through the surface

held me with love.

 

© 2025 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD

 

Between Here and There

Between Here and There

I don’t know the name of

that space between one

life and another—

between here and there.

When the leaves of your life

have fallen and you wait

for the spring bulbs

to emerge from the

crack in the soil

or your heart.

 

The night calls it twilight,

and the day calls it dawn,

that precious space

that means not yet—

 

Is there a name for the space

before the tide turns and

the dark circles mark the beach?

Or before the curtain falls and

the bright lights show our tears?

 

What do we call the

part of us that continues

reaching—

to pull ourselves up

to standing, again

and again?

 

Does it have a name?

Like kindness, or daybreak

or God?

© 2025 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD

Just One Word

I have had so many transitions in the past few months and so little down time—but last week after a lovely afternoon with my niece I went for a long walk around a nearby lake. Part way into the walk I began to ponder what I was going to make for dinner but then my thoughts picked up speed, as they often do, careening downhill, gathering momentum from the simple thought of “I could get dinner” to “I could make dinner for the whole week—in fact I could make meatloaves and meatballs and sauce and then not only could I have dinner for the week but I’d also have enough to give my friends for dinner…” I imagined going to the nearby farm store and picking up beautiful ingredients and meal prepping for me and everyone I loved. My mind sped ahead to begin thinking of ingredients and a shopping list.

Lucky for me –the sun was setting and the light on the lake caught my attention, and I stopped to look at the lake and the colors of the clouds. Observing the lake prompted me to observe my thoughts and I started to laugh at myself.

I seem to complicate every idea I have. I get obsessed with what I have come to call my ‘triple word score’ mentality. In the game of Scrabble --there is the ‘triple word score’ where you put down a letter at an intersection of words near the triple word score and get a ton of points for ALL THE WORDS. One or two letters—A TON OF POINTS.  And on that walk, I laughed because I realized that I am trying to get the triple word score at everything I do.

Doing two things at once and being rewarded for it was part of my early training as a child care worker in the 80’s. In the residential treatment program I worked in the kids would get extra points toward their reward levels if they ‘used their time well’ and did more than one thing at a time. If they, for example, folded their laundry while watching TV, or worked on a puzzle during quiet time. We had a special acronym for this behavior, GUOT (pronounced gwat) that meant ‘Good Use Of Time.’ As a young adult I took this acronym to heart and taught it to my housemates.  We would all joke about doing our bills while watching TV getting extra points for GUOT and my best friend and I still will put on Airpods to talk on the phone to each other so we can clean the kitchen while we talk because, you know, GUOT.

And to be fair there were years in my life (and probably yours too) where GUOT was crucial, and the only way to survive. Years when I was working three jobs, going to graduate school and doing my training for psychology. The rare free hours I had needed to cover a lot of ground and doing three things at once was necessity---so I got a lot of practice at it.

But I may have also come to be addicted to it. Walking around the lake last week I realized I wasn’t doing the ‘triple word score’ because I had to, but because I had come to see that act as a form of ‘good’ or the right way to spend time. There’s an adrenaline rush that comes with that ‘triple word score’—but there’s also a cost.

On the last mile of that walk, I began to wonder: what it would take for me to be content with ‘just one word.’

Practically speaking, I thought, I could start with going to the store on the way home and just getting what I needed for dinner that night. I could be *radical* and even get some of the parts of dinner already prepared.

Which is what I did. I got some arugula, and some already roasted sweet potatoes and chicken, and an orange. And had a wonderful winter salad. Just one meal. No bonus points. And the world continued to spin on its axis.

Healing from trauma I have learned the power of saying just one true thing. The power of being able to admit how you feel in one word, even if that word was ‘lost’ or ‘numb’ –words that seemed to describe the feeling of not having words at all. But even these simple words, one word at a time, allowed me to be found and find myself. As much as I love the ‘triple word score’ –it’s never worked for me in healing, or really for anything I have done or accomplished that mattered to me. It may be that all important things, all things that are close to our heart—all things we love—can only be mended or repaired or built—one word at a time. One conversation at a time. One page at a time. One hour of practice at a time.

The reason I need to keep learning this lesson, or I keep forgetting this lesson is because I make the mistake of thinking that the simplicity of ‘one word’ means it should feel easy or get easier—and it never does. One word is actually always hard. One word is both small enough to hold, and big enough to feel. One word makes it easy enough to start, but then you feel the weight of staying committed. And one word is simple enough to understand so that you become seen and visible—with no place to hide—which is both terrifying and wonderful in equal measure.

© 2025 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD

For more reading about one thing at a time an excerpt from Journey Through Trauma in Spirituality and Health: