S2 Ep1 - Talking About The Revolution

Welcome back to Rebrand Revolution! In this powerful Season 2 opener, host Sidonie Henbest introduces a radical new concept: everyday language as a revolutionary act. Discover how subtle shifts in your vocabulary—replacing "I should" with "I choose to," eliminating permission-seeking words like "just," and reframing problems as solutions-in-progress—can transform your reality and reclaim your personal power.

Sidonie breaks down three powerful guerrilla tactics for linguistic liberation that anyone can implement immediately. This isn't about semantics—it's about sovereignty. When we change our words, we literally rewire our brains and create new possibilities. Join the movement that begins not with grand gestures but with the next words out of your mouth.

• Show Notes

  In this episode, I reference the following:

  Audre Lorde “For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.”

• Audio Transcript

  This podcast is recorded on Kaurna Country. We acknowledge and pay our respects to the Kaurna people as the traditional owners and custodians of this land.

  You are listening to Rebrand Revolution, the podcast where we take today's pop culture cliche and turn it into tomorrow's empowered call to action. My name is Sidonie Henbest. Thank you for joining me. Welcome to Season Two. It's great to be back with you if you're returning. Thank you so much for continuing this journey with me. And if you're new, well, you have arrived at just the perfect moment.

  Last season, we started out by examining some of the words that really hold us back every day, the kind of limiting language that has become not only acceptable but almost expected of us to use things like imposter syndrome in a critic and we got into some pretty juicy territory with things like self care as well. There are a few words that you might notice were missing from last season, and we're definitely going to get to them, but this season, we're also going to go a little deeper. This is not just about examining limiting language, it's also about arming ourselves with practical alternatives. I'm talking about the tiny everyday shifts that actually turn into a wave. The tiny everyday shifts that create revolutionary change. Because, make no mistake, the revolution starts now, and it starts with our words as we start out on our season two journey together. Let's consider this our call to arms. And you know me, I love a musical, and I would love nothing more than to be able to invoke the lyrics of Les Miserables. But rest assured, our weapons aren't barricades or bullets, and there will be no fighting in the streets - or will there? But it is about the deliberate choice of words and everyday speech. So let's get on with it. Hey.

  Have you ever noticed how often we say "I'm trying to" when we mean "I am", or how often we say "I should" when perhaps we mean "I choose to"? These just aren't semantic differences. They are actually the difference between language that gives away power and language that claims it. In Season One, we talked a lot about the idea of language as both limiting and liberating. You know.. That it has the power to be either. It has the power to be both. But what I've come to realize even more than that is that this isn't really about an abstract concept. It's actually about how that shows up as a daily choice, moment by moment. And those moment by moment choices actually end up shaping our reality in ways that we like rarely are cognizant of. Last season, I invoked The Good, the Bad and the Ugly framework, which is a reference to a famous Western if you're wondering, but it gives us a chance to examine all sides of an issue, to not just assume something is inherently bad or that it's good and doesn't need to be questioned. And so I'm going to keep it and we're going to use it when it's useful, because it's important to acknowledge that this stuff is always complex.

  So what is good about the idea of everyday language as radical act. Well, it has to be that language is immediate and accessible. It's available to everyone, every single person, no matter of their state or status, no matter their position or perceived power, has language and they get to wield it. Unlike economic and political systems that seem and often are genuinely beyond our control, words are actually available to all of us in every moment. And so it strikes me that there's something profoundly democratic about it, right? We don't need special resources or privileges or connections or even conditions to reclaim language, it's actually available to all of us in any given moment. The tools of this revolution are already in our hands. Great news and history has shown us time and time again through various movements that reclamation of language is an incredibly powerful call to action for people. If we can take back the power of words, if we can take back their meaning, as we've discussed previously, we actually hand the power back to those who have often been disenfranchised or disempowered. In fact, the shift and the gradual evolution that becomes something bigger. You know, the trickle of water that becomes a river is beautifully exemplified through language. Certainly some of the most powerful changes that occurred in the 20th and 21st centuries. In fact, you know, well beyond those dates, but they occurred because people took back the power of language that had been used against them. They flipped the table on the powers that be, by taking back control of the language, and more importantly, the everyday piece of this. This is not about big gestures. This is about tiny, repeated, powerful, micro gestures of revolution.

  Okay, so there's some really good things about language and what it presents to us as an opportunity for change. It's immediacy, it's democracy. So what about the bad? Well, let's be honest, number one has to be the changing language habits is hard. Our brains form neural pathways that make certain speech patterns quite automatic. We do not even realize we are doing them and breaking those patterns. It's going to require some conscious effort, and that effort can feel like a lot. It can be mentally a bit more gymnastic and a little bit more exhausting than following the norm, certainly in the first place. So let's do ourselves a favor and acknowledge that that kind of change is going to take a little bit of work. It's not automatic. It's going to require mindful, consistent application of new words, new ways. There's also then, and I think this is a very real fear as well, the perceived social cost of this kind of change. So if you start speaking differently, for example, saying, "I choose not to" instead of "I can't", so "I choose not to come out with you on Saturday night", versus "I can't come out with you on Saturday night", or "I choose not to come to this event", versus "I can't come to this event". There's a chance that people may notice. Some people might feel uncomfortable. We might feel uncomfortable because one of the things that we have allowed to happen time and time again is to soften our own truth a little bit so that it doesn't hurt other people's feelings and it doesn't hurt ours. You know, language patterns maintain social bonds, and so disrupting them like rightly so can feel pretty risky.

  But what is the cost of not doing it? In a world where we see burnout on the rise, where we see people experiencing really profound levels of distress in well being and mental health, we have to be prepared to, I think, admit that maybe our language and the fact that we don't put up good boundaries for ourselves, that we don't allow the care of self to be our primary object, because without Care for Self, we certainly can't care for others. That language is at the center of all of this. It's our major tool for making this stuff known to other people, for establishing boundaries, for maintaining them, and for treating ourselves and others with the respect that they deserve. If we're clear about what the benefits of everyday language as a tool of empowerment are, which is that it's available to everyone. It is truly democratic. It is accessible, it is immediate. The downside has to be that there is a cost to change, both to ourselves and socially, that is something that we have to be realistic about managing and recognizing, that it can serve as a very big deterrent. If we are more worried about what other people will think of us than we are about ourselves, then this kind of change is pretty hard to enact. But the ultimate cost of not doing it is that those who benefit from us staying disempowered and disconnected to ourselves and each other, to our words and our actions, will they benefit from that disempowerment in the language when we speak in ways that diminish our agency, that make us feel small or position us in some way as a victim of our circumstances, we are much less likely to challenge the systems that oppress us. Right? Obviously, in this conversation, I can't go past the way women are more likely to use qualifying language. e.g. "I might be wrong", "but this may sound silly", things that diminish our contribution and before we've even actually made it. And this isn't an individual failing. This is not any one of us, but it is actually how we have been encoded linguistically to participate in this power imbalance, right? So every time a woman opens her mouth and says, "I might be wrong", it immediately discounts whatever is going to follow. So how do we move forward? Well, this is where I think the revolution begins.

  I would like to propose three guerrilla tactics for our everyday language revolution. First, claim your actions. The next time you go to say "I have to", or "I need to", or "I should" consider using "I choose to", or "I'm going to" or "I will". It's a simple shift, but it acknowledges that most of what we do, we do by choice, even when the alternatives aren't that appealing, right? So let's, let's workshop a couple of examples with this. "I have to finish this report tonight." Becomes, "I'm choosing to finish this report tonight." The first sounds like you have no choice and you are just a victim of circumstance, whilst the second gives us the possibility that you're making a deliberate choice, perhaps because you have a deadline to meet, because you're maintaining a professional reputation, or because you take care of yourself you're you're finishing it now to avoid stress tomorrow. Second, and I tell you what this one is really quite tricky, and my personal Achilles heel: Eliminate permission seeking language. Notice when you go to say "just", "kind of", "sort of" - these little diminishing words. This is one that I have to work on really hard myself. Writing things like, "I just want to check in", "I'm just doing this." "I'll be there, I'm just finishing this." Why d we do that? Instead of "I just wanted to check in", why can't we say "I'm checking in"? "I kind of disagree" becomes "I disagree". I think what strikes me so much about this is that our internal thought is usually pretty damn strong. Like we know, we mean, I disagree, but we're afraid to say it, so we we dress it up, we diminish our own power. We give people permission to ignore us before we've even finished the sentence. And obviously this is particularly crucial for those who are socialized to make themselves small, for example, women, minorities, or anyone who's been raised to believe that their thoughts or their ideas don't deserve a space in the conversation.

  And the third of the guerrilla tactics is the idea of shifting from problem framing to solution framing. You're like, that sounds very technical. Sidonie, how do I do that? Really simple, and I'm just going to give you one example of this one. Instead of saying, "I don't know how to do this." What if we said, "I'm figuring it out."? "This is a complex problem, but I'll figure it out." It isn't toxic positivity. I'm not trying to whitewash over this, and I'm certainly not trying to deny the challenge that may be inherent in this situation, but it's actually about respecting that challenge and myself, and saying I am not a passive recipient to the circumstances of this. I am going to work it out. It's tricky, and I'm going to work it out. I haven't worked it out yet, but I'm going to. It's different than being someone who can't solve their own problems. I can already hear the objections. Excuse me, Sidonie, this just sounds like semantic games, like the reality doesn't change just because I describe it differently. Well, I'd beg to differ. The reality does change when you describe yourself and believe that you have a choice, your brain activates a different neural pathway, you literally create new possibilities in your brain and in your life. This is the amazing thing, and the really powerful thing about language is that it immediately alters the environment in which it is voiced, both literally and figuratively. And beyond any individual transformation that might be going on here, there's also the collective one. When we model empowered language to each other, to our children, to our loved ones, to our workmates, to the world at large, we create space for other people to do it as well. Imagine if you never heard anyone else say, "I'm just checking in". What if it was just erased? How wild would that be? And this is how movements begin. They start with tiny, tiny raindrops that that gather momentum and gather formation. It's not grand gestures. It's tiny, persistent shifts that accumulate into transformation. And don't forget. In all of this, the powers that be, the ones that maintain the status quo, they don't actually need you to believe that you're powerless, they just need you to use the words that keep telling everyone else that you are. When you change your language, you will begin to change that reality, we do begin to change our reality.

  Here is my invitation to you for season two: join the everyday language revolution. As well as looking at the odd buzzword that I left out last season, we're going to start to look at some of these language patterns that limit us. Still looking at it through a lens of history and function. Discover what the past can teach us about now and develop, most importantly, practical alternatives. Otherwise, this is a theoretical exercise, and I want it to be something that empowers you to take action. But you don't even have to wait for the next episode. Start now. Today. Just pick one of the phrases that you know you use regularly, whether it's something you really want to admit out loud or not. It might be "I should" or "I have to". In my case, it's going to be, "just". Give yourself permission to treat it like an experiment. Try some different things. Have a little play. See what happens. Notice what happens, not only in how it lands with other people and how they respond, but most importantly, how it makes you feel. And this isn't just about feeling better, but that is important. It is about reclaiming the power that is rightfully ours. It's about reconnecting to the communities that are rightfully ours. It is about remembering that while there is so much in this world that we cannot control right now, our words and our thoughts remain and will always be sovereign territory, to quote Audre Lorde, "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house". Our language revolution isn't about playing the game better. It's about changing the game entirely. So throughout this season, I'm going to bring in voices from various movements in history and now and different disciplines to enrich our understanding of language as a revolutionary act. We're going to look at it from a linguistic behaviouralist, historic and everyday, practical perspective, and discover the power of words to transform reality. But hey, this revolution isn't just mine to lead. I want to hear from you too. What language patterns do you notice in your life? What alternatives have you found to those that are disempowering or just don't fit who you are? Share your experiences on social media with the hashtag, rebrand revolution, or email me directly: rebrandrevolution.com.au. Because this is the thing about revolutions. They happen when individuals and their actions coalesce into one collective movement. Your tiny language shifts, combined with mine and hundreds and 1000s of others become an unstoppable force. My name is Sidonie Henbest, and this is Rebrand Revolution. We're starting now with the next words out of our mouths. Choose them wisely. Choose them bravely. And remember that in a world that profits from our sense of powerlessness, reclaiming our agency through language is itself a revolutionary act until next time, stay curious and stay revolutionary.

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