Freedom begins with naming things.

Humanity itself, is preserved by it.

When we name something — a thought, emotion, phenomena, practice — we acknowledge its existence as separate from everything else; it is an act of conferring dignity and autonomy.

Animals become pets when we name them; couples give each other private nicknames to embellish intimacy. Emotions are experienced fully and even discharged when given a name.

Think about it. What would we be without language?

Our entire understanding of the universe is predicated on attributing meaning to sounds that emanate by combining letters of the alphabet in ever different ways.

It is how we fundamentally make sense of the world and transform strangeness into familiarity.

Every day in the world, we see that shame and guilt begin to melt with the process of naming an action.

Emotions are just a form of energy, forever seeking expression. It’s also true that we can’t change what we don’t notice.

Noticing and naming emotions gives us the chance to take a step back and make choices about what to do with them. It predates action.

Things that are felt deeply, subliminally and privately and exist in time and space. But are not — or can seldom be communicated — because there isn’t a name for it.

Thought leaders in every field are mostly paid for naming things others are able to fully or partially experience but unable to name.

In the ten years of facilitating workshops, one of the more memorable sights is watching people’s faces light up in myriad ways when we are able to name something that they have been feeling but are yet to capture.

Language has the capacity to transform our cells, rearrange our learned patterns of behavior and redirect our thinking.

Hurricanes in America, for instance, have names to make people more aware of them and how dangerous they can be. What is named is what becomes real.

If misogyny is not going to be named, how is it going to be understood or fought?

Naming allows us to first understand what is going on inside us and then communicate, with conviction and clarity to others.
There is a joy that comes when we are understood by others with no loss in transmission. This joy is often a function of whether you have understood what you are feeling yourself without any loss in translation.

Naming correctly what the other person is feeling is a big part of having good, meaningful conversations.

Different words make people think about and experience the world in different ways.

Experiences may not be limited by language; but the expression of these experiences certainly are.

Recent coining of words such as petrichor — which is the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry soil — has given us a shared understanding and appreciation of a phenomena that we otherwise would have had continued to experience but not necessarily be able to express.

Simplification in language may get us speed but its end result in often a loss of depth.

Elsewhere, a big part of marketing and branding is storytelling and naming. Language as a sense making sensory tool has never been as prevalent as today.

A slice of tomato on your pizza is only a vegetable. When that tomato is grown by a disenfranchised farmer in nasik who had to sell his land or is a limited edition import that was cultivated in the succulent vineyards of sicily, your audience begins to feel what it needs to feel for them to act upon that impulse.

As soon as you label a concept, you change how people perceive it.

Language is also a conveyor belt. The words we use, the things we name are the primary transmitter of our culture, history and heritage.

Every thing we know today has been passed on to us and will in turn be passed on to those who come after us through words.

Words — as the peerless Maya Angelou once admonished the rest of us lesser mortals — are things.

They get on the walls. They get in your wallpaper. They get in your rugs, in your upholstery, and your clothes, and finally in to you.