If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all!

What great advice.  This line said by Thumper from Disney’s Bambi shows that (at least) one of the writers truly had great insight into the inner workings of the human mind and the effect our words hold on both our unconscious mind and our conscious experience.
Torah and halacha have extensive laws against lashon harah – evil speech – and people are warned against even engaging in the permitted speech that can be interpreted as “close to lashon harah” or “the dust of lashon harah”.
What’s the big deal?  It’s only words, right?  Wrong.  Words are the furthest thing from “only”.  Words are almost everything!  Firstly, it must be noted that according to a number of kabbalistic texts, the duration of one’s life is not guided by Heaven based on the number of years, months, days or hours but by the number of words one speaks, so for a “long happy life” watch your words.
Why words?  Doesn’t Heaven have anything better to do than count the number of words out of my mouth?  Everyone knows that man was made in the image of God.  What that exactly means is up for much debate but one explanation which I will expand upon here is that, like God, man is a creative being.  So, does God build houses or paint pictures?  Is God a musician?  Let me tell you, God is all talk!
Yes, I know that expression has taken a very negative connotation meaning one who says much and does little, but indeed, this is the exact opposite of Godliness.  Firstly, everything that God says, God does.  For example, “God said ‘let there be light’ and there was light”.  Indeed the great sage Shammai said “say little and do much” (Avot 1:15).  Furthermore, it is stated by Rabbi Shimon the Son of Rabbi Gamliel “I have spent my whole life among the sages and have found silence to be the best thing for what one expounds is not the main thing rather what one does” (Avot 1:17).  The famous Rabbi Akiva expressed “a safeguard for wisdom is silence” (Avot 3:13).  What our sages here are teaching is not that speech is evil, but indeed if you are going to say anything at all, make sure you can “put your money where your mouth is”!
The truth is that as we are in the Divine image, our “money”, by definition, is “where our mouth is” which is why one must be so careful with one’s words.  Just like what God spoke, God created, when one speaks one is creating the manifest reality around one’s self.  Indeed, according to the Holy Zohar the power of speech is correlated to manifest reality.  The Sefer Yetzira begins (1:1) by saying the world was created with a book, a storyteller and a story.  When we speak, we are telling the story of our world.  What is your story?  What do you want it to be?  Have you ever told anyone?  Have you ever told yourself?
There is a relatively modern (and controversial) form of psychotherapy, the principles of which are often integrated into other, more accepted psychological practices, called NLP or neuro-linguistic programming.  The basic premise is that by selectively using particular language, one has the ability to program one’s subconscious mind and consciously manifest a more favourable reality based on one’s words.  Personally I understand this to be the “science of mantras”.
We all know the idea of a mantra:  by saying the same (positive) phrase over and over one manifests the new positive reality.  Indeed, this is the exact idea as mentioned above in the Sefer Yetzira: by telling one’s self a particular story, one enables one’s self to connect to that reality, to believe that such a reality can come about and ultimately trust that said reality WILL manifest.  When someone internalizes a particular truth to such an extent, their experiences will come to reflect said truth.  (Sadly, this same technique, while having its source in the holy texts, has been “hijacked” by forces of evil which is why we find these same concepts being used by the most damaging of cults and ideologies.)
It is interesting to note that, in my opinion, this is the whole essence of Jewish prayer.  The main prayer in Torah observant communities is the Amida.  It is recited three times every day, morning, afternoon and night, and following the first two of those recitations, it is repeated by an individual on behalf of the whole community.  People always ask “why so many times?”, “why always the same words?” and so on and so on.  Rabbi Akiva Tatz in his book “Living Inspired” says that one prays for the same words, written by our sages, over and over again because they are the things one should actually want, even if one is not aware of it.  To take it one step further, the reason we pray a seemingly repetitious prayer is that the words of the prayer should become a sort of mantra.  Indeed, the Hebrew word “to pray” is lehitpallel actually translates “to speak to one’s self”.  That is, after enough repetition of a concept, one will be accept one’s own words as truth and ultimately one’s words will be transformed into manifest reality.
In Jungian psychoanalysis there is a term “synchronicity”.  The underlying principle is that whatever is going on inside me will be reflected in my experiences and surroundings.  Approximately 200 years before Jung, Rabbi Israel son of Eliezer, the Ba’al Shem Tov taught where one thinks is where one is.  Namely, think good and it will be good.  (The opposite is also true.)  Think holy thoughts and one will live a holy life; think about mundane things and the mundane will over take one’s whole existence.  What is interesting is that the Ba’al Shem Tov was also considered a miracle worker.  So what were these miracles?  The truth is they were not miracles at all – they were manifestations of new reality.
It seems that the Ba’al Shem Tov and other sages before and after had such a strong faith, such a strong control over their mind that even contemplating a concept for a short time was enough to make it a manifest reality.  Once the blessing was spoken, or even thought, the effects were experienced.  While for the average person, it might takes months or years to trust in the ultimate outcome of their prayers, the Master Sage is one who has that trust immediately, or alternatively is one who can tell a story with total conviction that the story will come about, and therefore such a one can manifest the necessary reality in the same way that “God said ‘let there be light’ and there was light”.
The Torah commands one to be holy because God is Holy (Vayikra 19:2).  That is, just as we are created in the Divine image, we are to use the tools we have been granted to manifest a Godly reality.  Before one can do this, one must learn the nature of a Godly reality.  This is the pursuit of Torah, the pursuit of Truth, the pursuit of Life.  For now, enough “nice” has been said.  Now the time has come to stop with words and start to act and change the world!