If you want things to change, you have to tell a different story.
I’ve heard this before… What story? I’m not telling any stories, what does this even mean?
I think of this advice while I drive along an old road of my past. As I turn down a familiar corner that looks just as it did 10 years ago, I am quickly taken back to that distant time of my life. I can immediately hear old thoughts and am unexpectedly paralyzed by the fears that once consumed my tired and exhausted mind.
I remember imagining bad things. I can see the confrontation, pain and disappointment I’d once feared. I am aware of how frequently I’d expected to be hurt and abandoned, and in the brief time it took to round that corner I realize this had been the ‘story’ of my life back then. It was what I told myself constantly. It was what I imagined and what I feared. We all have a story to tell, and this was mine. It was the fantasy I wove in my head, watching the sinister plot unfold day in and day out.
And because life is a self fulfilling prophecy, when we expect things to go wrong, they will. When we look for others to hurt us, they do. If we are certain we’ve been victimized we will certainly be the victim. Even when situations do not play out as we fear, we enter them with trepidation, defensively waiting for ‘the other shoe to drop’ and effectively destroying any chance at happiness in that moment.
So again, if you want to change your life, tell yourself a different story. When you imagine your boss grumbling and complaining, change the story! Imagine a different conclusion, one where you come away smiling and feeling good!
Thinking of your lover, do you see pain, infidelity, disregard or disrespect? Change the scene to one of love and tenderness.
Going to the mail box, does the monologue leave you crying and overwhelmed at all the past due bills? Rip out those pages and write a new, fun and prosperous ending.
The future is not yet written, and you can fill those pages with whatever words you choose!
Things may not change right away, but I believe they will. In fact know they will. For me, my life unfolded far too closely to the scripts I’d rehearsed in my mind. Only when I began to change my story, did my life begin to change.
Tell yourself a different story. I get it now. Do you?