I was idly browsing t’internet the other day, as you do, when I came across a fascinating video about a school experiment that involved talking to plants. {Stick with me, you’ll enjoy this, honest.}
What happened was IKEA (yes, IKEA) set up a competition in a school in Dubai to see the effects of negative affirmations vs. positive affirmations. (It was an experiment to see the effects of bullying.) They put two plants next to each other, and to one plant they played recordings of compliments and words of encouragement:
‘You’re making a difference in the world’ and ‘Seeing you blossom makes me happy’.
While to the other plant they played recordings of hateful and bullying words:
‘You’re useless’ and ‘Nobody likes you’.
But in every other way, i.e., sunshine, water and fertilizer, the plants were treated exactly the same.
Can you guess the result?
The plant given the positive affirmations blossomed, while the other plant wilted. As you can see in the pic above.
‘Mazen innit!
‘Well it could’ve been this, it could’ve been that’, said the naysayers.
‘It’s probably a trick’, said others.
Well here’s the thing, it isn’t, coz I’ve proved it too! {Told you this would be good.}
A friend and I did a similar experiment, also testing out the premise that our thoughts are energy.
Basically, the theory behind it all is that we can influence ourselves and everything around us by learning to be more mindful of what we are thinking. I’m sure you’ve all heard of ‘positive thinking’ and how it creates our reality. We regularly use phrases such as: ‘like attracts like’; ‘what you put out you get back’; ‘you reap what you sow’ etc. But do we actually know what we mean when we say this? In its simplest form it means that if we are positive we attract positivity back, and if we are negative we attract negativity back.
Proof that a plant is affected by negative or positive words is surely only the tip of the iceberg compared with how it can affect us as humans!
So back to my lovely friend and I. We planted two sets of green beans in two different pots. Put them both in sunlight and watered both regularly. We then talked to one pot every day, telling it how beautiful it was and that we couldn’t wait for it to grow, and lots of other lovely things (I even drew hearts on this pot), and we totally and unashamedly ignored the other pot.
Yes, you’ve guessed it, the green beans in the happy pot burst through the soil first, and grew bigger. Honestly:
I.SAW.IT.WITH.MY.OWN.EYES.
So if this isn’t proof positive that thoughts and words have an impact on living things, including us, I don’t know what is.
The moral of the story is folks, BE KIND TO YOURSELF AND OTHERS. It honestly does make a difference, as the beans told us.
If you want to see more, here’s the short video of the IKEA experiment.