The apple experiment

The other month I did an experiment with my children, and I found the results so fascinating that I’ve been sharing it far and wide!

It was The Apple Experiment, which I discovered via Daniella La Porte's blog here.

I am acutely aware of the power of our words, but it can be harder to articulate this to children in a way that they can understand and appreciate. I had been looking for an exercise to do with them that would make it more ‘real’, and this experiment has done just that.

Intrigued? Read on…

The Apple Experiment involves cutting an apple in half, and putting each half in a separate jar (we used empty plastic hummus pots!). Each jar should be labelled - one ‘good’ and one 'bad. The jars can then be stored, out of direct sunlight, in the same location (to make it a fair experiment).

Here's where it gets interesting - each day we've repeatedly been talking lovingly and kindly to the ‘good’ apple… “You're a beautiful, fresh, crisp apple. I am grateful for your nutrition. Thank you so much. You're the best.” etc. as well as sending it good energy and the ‘bad' apple we've been really mean to… “You're a mouldy, horrible apple and you are going to rot badly. We hate you. You're useless. You're worthless.”.

And guess what… the ‘bad’ apple got mouldy, and the ‘good’ apple still looks healthy!!!!

Boom 💥 How powerful is that??!!

I've included below our photographs, as well as Danielle's for comparison. Our apple was actually bruised from the outset (at the top near the stalk), whereas I think if we had a ‘perfect’ apple we might have seen even better results.

Here's our apple at T = 0…

And here is the same apple, at T = 2 weeks. Our good apple is on the left… the bruising got worse and possibly the start of a bit of mould at the top of the apple. Whereas the bad apple on the left is covered with mould!!!!!!

And for completeness, here is Danielle's final result that she achieved (I think at T = 3 weeks).

"Words can make you sick. And heavy. And dark.

Words can make you light. And radiant. And energised."

Danielle La Porte

We have on average between 60,000 to 70,000 thoughts every day, 90% of these thoughts are the same thoughts as the day before and up to 80% of these are negative.

Yes, you read that correctly - 80% of your thoughts each day are negative.

Now just imagine what damage we are doing to ourselves if we let our inner critic, that negative voice inside our head, to run the show… the ‘bad’ apple will give you an idea!

Our words are powerful.