“Eh? What’s that?” I imagine you saying. “Does she mean ‘adjusted’? Justed isn’t a real word”.

I do mean ‘justed’. It’s a word I’ve coined over many years of seeing people being disempowered by someone, usually a health practitioner (and frequently it’s their GP). A small word, easily overlooked, yet heavy in how it lands on our hearts.

You know the way it shows up:

“You just need to relax.”

“You just need to get more sleep.”

“You just need to lose a bit of weight.”

“You just need to … have a baby, change jobs, have a holiday, exercise more…”

And I’ve realised that we do it to ourselves:

“I just need to”:

try harder, read more non-fiction, get more sleep, cut out sugar, do one more course etc.

Or ”I’m just” a mum, a student, a beginner, a bit tired (when you could fall on the floor with exhaustion), out of sorts at the moment, a bit periody. I hear my patients and others say it about themselves so often.

It’s very diminishing. We dismiss our capabilities, our own health, our own self-care, the effort needed to make these changes, the effort and care we invest in things and people.

I first noticed this common use of ‘just’ when I was ‘just’ fairly new in practice as a herbalist. I had a lovely new patient, a mum with a young baby. She was exhausted and struggling with stress, anxiety, lack of sleep and a host of issues that often go with that stage of life, especially when you don’t have much support. She was feeling isolated and desperate, and before she saw me, she had been to her GP for help. Guess what she was told?

“You just need to learn how to relax ”.. Really? Such a simple thing to do - learn how to relax. It was not the advice she needed, quite the opposite. Adding more weight to the stress and exhaustion she was seeking support for. We worked together with herbs, tissue salts and words of encouragement and her ability to cope with everything helped her feel a lot better.

A small word, but heavy how it lands

‘Just’ doesn’t just diminish the person when used like this, it’s also a form of victim blaming. Implying that they are unwell, not coping etc because of their behaviour and lifestyle.

It is dismissive and negates all of life's influences leading to their current situation. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it was so simple to implement changes that require little to no effort and that would solve our issues?

Once I was aware of this language I noticed it more and more. I hear it so often in my clinic still:

“It’s just stress.”
“It’s just your age.”
“It’s just how your periods are.”
“You just need to cope better.”

Funny, isn’t it… how often the advice boils down to “you’re the problem,” rather than “you deserve proper care.”

One woman who had been seeing the same female GP over a few years, was told “it’s just how your periods are, you just need to go to bed earlier and learn how to deal better with stress”. She got almost the whole lot of justs. When I referred her to my friendly GP, he arranged further investigations for her that uncovered her pain had a physical cause, it wasn’t due to any of those ‘justs’ she had been told.

The term ‘medical gaslighting’ hadn’t been coined then but this is what it is when coming from the medical profession. I’m sure its use isn’t restricted to them.

The power of the language we use for ourselves

And now I come to how we use it ourselves.  Words matter.  They can soothe or they can diminish.

Again a particular conversation comes to mind when I was approached by a woman younger than me, asking for advice about studying to become a herbalist. She was very lacking in self-confidence and her abilities. But I saw her as someone with great capacity to care and to learn, and I thought she’d make an amazing practitioner. As we talked, she used ‘just’ over and over to describe herself and her capabilities. I gently brought it to her attention, and we discussed it, and as the conversation flowed on, ‘just’ crept into her words frequently. It was part of her language about herself. A very lessening, diminishing, putting herself down part of her language. We ended up having a great chuckle about it when she realised how often she was saying it. She certainly left our conversation standing taller, with shoulders back, and looking less like she didn’t deserve to take up much space. I hope she has gone on to recognise how much she has to offer and is taking steps to put her skills to use.

And now to my own use of it.

While thinking about writing this very piece, I went back through an old WhatsApp chat I’d had with a dear friend. I typed “just” into the search bar and was blown away by how many times it appeared in my own chats to her - 338 times!

“I just wanted to check on you…”
“I just thought I’d ask…”
“I’m just wondering if…”

Even in kindness, I was shrinking my own care down to something small and unimportant. It made me laugh a little, and sigh a little too.

I had been searching through the chats to find a time when I gently chided her for using ‘just’ to brush off the thanks I gave her for a very thoughtful action. To her, it was a simple action, to me it was full of thoughtfulness, and it had given my day a wonderful start. It made me aware of how often we use ‘just’ to lessen the thought we have put into an offering of care for another. We have thought and cared enough to take an action to show our care and yet we lessen it. “I just thought you might like this …”, “I just made this for you”, “I’m just wondering how you are”.

Awareness

Of course, like other common words. ‘just’ has many connotations. You might use it when you say “oh I’m just popping out for a minute” when you really mean, “I need to get out of the office/house for a decent break” but for your own reasons you can’t or don’t want to say that. Or it can be a time ‘just’, “I’ve just heard the news”.

But when ‘just’ is used to dismiss your pain, your needs, your effort, or your worth, whether by someone else or by you, that’s when I encourage you to pause and notice. Be aware of how often you may use it to diminish yourself, your gifts and capabilities.

You deserve better language than that.
Better care, too.

So perhaps, after reading this, you’ll start to catch yourself, and others, in the act of minimising yourself or your loving actions.  Not with judgment, but with gentle awareness.

And now I just need to stop writing this and get ready for the rest of this wonderful day.