World's Best Strategies to Quit Cussing

My dad was an Egyptian immigrant.  Unfortunately most of the Arabic I learned was cussing. As a child, I knew I was in deep trouble when dad's lecture turned Arabic. I never did hear him cuss in English, or at least until I was an adult.  After becoming a Christian, I made the conscious decision to quit cussing, at least out loud.  It took a few years for those serviceable four-letter words to quit running through my mind. They still come and go. Now-a-days I tell my prepubescent children that cussing is for people who aren't creative, calm, and clever enough to find something worthy of saying. I hope their pride will be stronger than their tongue!

Let's face it, cussing is negative and does damage.  As a rehabilitated former cusser, I would like to share some strategies that helped me quit cussing.

1.  Creative Words -- Finding descriptive, creative words to use not only exercises the brain, but makes for more interesting conversation. Take for example you hit your finger with the hammer, which response is more others focused ?

1. *&^#$, 
2. Ouch, or
3. Son, this is why you should learn to concentrate in school! (face very bright red with grunting undertones)

2.  Stay Calm --  Easier said than done. A practical solution here is to take a breath before cussing, see if it stops the cussing reflex.  I'll see you in yoga and meditation here soon?  

3.  Earshot -- What helped me immensely was staying out of earshot of cussing.  This is extremely difficult when all of your friends and itunes library cusses.  The songs are definitely easier to clean up than friends.  If you can't dump your cussing friends--unless their involved in illegal activity, I suggest you keep them around--I suggest mentally blotting out their cuss words.  For example, if they use the f-bomb, you mentally say to yourself "flower" (or other f-word) as you repeat the phrase to your self, mentally rewinding and rewiring your brain for a cuss-free zone.  

4.  Visual Assassination -- This off-beat suggestion seems a little crazy but worked for me.  Whenever I would slip up to say or think a cuss word, I would mentally assassinate it with a knife.  Yes, I killed the cuss words visually

5.  Think Positively -- Cussing is negative.  The more positive of an outlook you have, the less urge you will feel to cuss.  Did I invite you to my Christian Yoga class already?  Okay, good...see you then!