Human beings have been telling stories since the dawn of civilisation...sharing our own and listening to another. We love to get lost in stories: through a film, a book or a play. We’re drawn into the lives of characters whose heartbreaks and talents reflect our own.... there is comfort in knowing that we can re-live our story whenever we like.
In our everyday lives too, we make up our own remarkable stories.... our kid is out late, a friend doesn’t answer our call, our boss asks to speak with us and we instantly start to fill in the blanks.... creating riveting scripts.
Stories help us make sense of ourselves in the world. But a lot of stories people create are faulty narratives. Many times, these stories aren’t simply inaccurate they’re destructive. They isolate us and damage our relationships and we may not realise that it’s the way we’re telling ourselves the story. A story is heard and told through a lens that might be too narrow or skewed.
A lot of stories go like, “I’m unlovable and nothing will ever work out for me, or people don’t understand me” or when people talk about things not working out for them, whatever they try they fail, the world conspires against them etc. These stories stem from resentment, despair or just plain fear.... they buttress a view of the world that justifies their being who they are...victimised! They may not necessarily be wrong about their stories, but they certainly identify with that way of living.
I think many times people come to me saying, “help me not to feel. I’m anxious, help me not to feel this. I’m sad and angry, help me not to feel this.”
What they don’t realise is that feeling all this is part of being human and the issue is, in fact, to learn to accept and grow from these feelings. Our feelings are like a compass; they’re useful. They help to guide us in certain directions and, most importantly, we need to realise that if we cut off, mute the pain, we also mute the joy!
I help people edit their stories by looking at the present and what the real circumstances are. Then they start to broaden the possibilities of their life.
The point of view people have of their story is sometimes so close that they’re missing the details of the narrative that might change their view.
Think for moment the story you tell yourself about you. Aside from the public posturing and the party intros we all end up doing, what is the narrative you live each day?
What inner tape plays most of the time and what lens do you look through at outer circumstances?
What do you say about your fitness, play or self-care? Have you settled in the role of ‘fat person’, ‘sugarholic’, or ‘shopaholic’?
And where did these narratives start? Most definitely way back in the past.... as they say if you don’t process the past it will keep showing up in the present. We talk ourselves in and out of many opportunities simply because we’re ruled by past scripts.
The point is to ask ourselves how we can change our story.
There’s an old adage, “whatever we give our attention to grows” .... So, changing our script means re-training our brains; moving beyond old messages.
1.Accept that the old message doesn’t work anymore. Put your intention to what you want instead and visualise this in detail.
2.Make sure you do something every day towards this intention.
3.Acknowledge that now you make a choice to live from a different place than you used to.
4.Persistence is the key. Just show up and live the message every day and you’ll find it’s already there inherent within you!
Cheers!
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