Stories of Our Life

We all have a gazillion stories that float through out our psyche. We have stories about our childhood. We have stories about relationships. We have stories about lots of different experiences. Then, there are the stories that we carry about friends, coworkers, our ancestry, our community, our culture, and other people's cultures.

We also have "default" stories ... these are the ones that we tend to fall back on when we are sharing about ourselves or when something happens that is upsetting ... we just write it into the book which holds all the "stories which prove that life is hard!" or "stories which prove that I am lazy!" If a loved one does something that upsets us, that goes into the book labeled "Proof that my fella is rotten!"

If we are really creative in our story telling we might create varying categories with story titles like: "Ways I fail in life!" "Abundance is for others, not me!" or the best seller "Unlovable Me!" These categories tend to be sort of vague, which allows us to put anything into them depending on our mood!!!

If something lovely happens, we store that information in the book which holds all of the "stories which prove that I am fabulous!" or "stories that prove that I am funny" or whatever. Interesting to note, that for many folks these books have more blank pages, then pages with words on them!

There seems to be a tendency to gather certain stories lines that "prove" what we believe to be true about ourselves, about someone else, about our culture, about another's culture ... proof that we are "right" about our stories.

Now, what I think is interesting about all of this is that our ego wants to be right no matter what! Even if it is a story about how "lazy" we are, or how someone else doesn't "appreciate" us, or that we are "unlovable!" The ego says, "This is my story and I am sticking to it!"

What's your point? You might be asking this by now! My point is this: These are just stories. Stories are created by the imagination. Stories are created by our perceived experiences and are passed on down the line, which leaves lots of room for even more distortion.

Ever play that game as a kid? It seems like this was usually around a campfire with marshmallows ... where one kid whispers a short story to the kid next to them ... that kid shares what she heard to the next kid ... on and on until the last kid to hear the story, tells the group the story. The story tended to be hilarious because it was nothing like the original story! This is what can happen in our own stories. It starts with a experience ... we have a reaction ... positive or negative. We replay what happened in our mind. We tell someone else the story. Time passes. The story changes with time and mood.

If you are prone to embellishing things, you can bet that the stories have a flair for the dramatic! In any case, the story becomes distorted in some way: the memory get more intense, less intense, sounds change, colors change, what was said changes, your placement in the story may change. What you tell yourself it means about you may intensify. What you tell yourself it means about the other people in the experience may intensify. All sorts of things happen.

This conversation leads me to ways to shift the story line. How can we release the charge from the stories we tell ourselves? I use lots of tools to do this, my favorite is EFT. What I love about doing EFT with folks (including myself), is that when we clear the negative charge about an event, a new story line emerges. When the person describes the story again, it has a different focus and sometimes even a different outcome. Now that is cool!!!!!

When the disruption is cleared, the person is able to see the story from a different perceptual focus. So, we literally carry our stories, not only in our minds, but in our bodies ... in our cells.

We also carry stories from our ancestors the same way ... though these stories may not be in the conscious mind; they are in our cellular memories.

Can we change our stories without using tapping or other energy psychology modalities? I am not sure. I can change my own stories as long as there is not an emotional charge behind the story. If there is a charge, I need to move the charge out of my body before the story can change ... meaning: Once the charge has been released I believe the new story.

What do you think about this whole topic? How do your stories about yourself and others affect your daily life? What are some of your "default" stories?