What stories are you telling yourself?

Are you listening to the stories you are telling yourself?

Do you spend time alone each day? If so, do you listen to music during that time? Or are you someone who turns the TV on when you get up in the morning and leaves it on until you go to bed each night? If so, you might not be aware of what stories you are telling yourself. Yet these stories are running your life. 

Listening within brings freedom

I enjoy spending time in quiet each day. Whether this quiet time is spent in meditation or journaling or silence doesn't matter as much as that I'm being with myself in the silence. In this silence I can hear what I am saying to myself.

How our stories affect our life

Hearing our own thoughts is important because these "stories" create our feelings which in turn create our experiences in the world. Research has documented that 80% of the thoughts we think are the same day after day, throughout our whole lives. I believe this is because we are not listening to our thoughts. I believe that when we listen to our thoughts, we have more choice about what we think. After all, how can you change something if you are not even aware it exists?

An example from my life

I often heard my mother tell me that I was "too big" to be held. Intellectually, I knew she said this because she was required to wear a brace while pregnant with my sister when I was three. This brace supported her from having pain while her belly pinched a nerve from weight and it prohibited her from lifting more than a few pounds, including picking me up. Yet even with this understanding, I repeatedly experienced being "too big" throughout my life. I realized this story was operating for me when i did an exercise at an International Intensive Training in Nonviolent Communication, at the age of 49.

Trusting another to support us brings freedom 

In the exercise, we were instructed to lean into another person with our full weight, as they leaned back toward us, seeing if we trusted them to support us. I reluctantly created a triangle by leaning in, until the man I was partnered with said to me something about my reluctance. I was both shocked by his honesty as well as grateful for the information.

After that exercise I decided that it was safe for me to join "puppy piles" and snuggle with others and allow myself to be held, something that until then I had thought was for others but not for me. I realized that, in fact, I was not "too big" to be touched. I shifted my story from being "too big" to allowing myself to surrender to another and know that I could trust them to support my weight. This has increased my ability to be intimate in many ways.

Choosing the stories we tell ourselves empowers us

I hope you are empowered by this sort of thinking. It certainly has empowered me. I have, on more than one occasion, discovered a thought that surprised me. By becoming aware of these thoughts, I've seen how telling a "story" resulted in frustration and how that frustration was e a direct result of telling that story. By becoming aware of the story, I was able to change it to something I wanted instead. My point here is that you cannot change what you are not aware of and that by becoming aware of your thoughts you can have more choice about your experiences in life. 

What's your experience with "stories"?

Is there a story that you are becoming aware of? How can you change this story so that it empowers, rather than disempowers, you? I welcome your comments below!