How Your Stories Either Make You Rock or Languish
I don’t know about you, but I love stories. I love reading them, watching them, writing them and making them up for future novels and screenplays I’ll someday write. Stories are the very fabric of our experience here on earth. We remember the ones that uplift or scare us, and we tell and share the ones with which we identify—either for good, or “bad.”
But, like anything, story can be used to create suffering or healing. It’s the most powerful tool I know of that thoroughly affects the psyche and emotional well-being of each of us. How? Let me show you.
I tell stories for a living. I write blogs, books, posts, brand stories, curriculums, and I help shape the stories of my authors at Enliven along with the brands with which I consult. I’m the kid that told such convincing stories at show-and-tell that my teachers would call my parents to make sure everyone was “ok” after the car flew off the cliff and rolled thirty times down the embankment to avoid hitting a deer (which was kinda only not at all true).
Once I learned that I was a writer—which helped me stop telling such harrowing tales to classmates, I focused my imagination on writing short stories. This landed me a full scholarship to an all-women’s college, and a creative writing grant from Sue Grafton. Here’s where stories are good: They can open doors for you.
Stories can heal us simply by the retelling of them. A painful story shared with a close friend or therapist can help us move it through our bodies, and into a space of healing. I see this every time I host our monthly women’s writing circles. Our writers write and everyone reads, gives praise, feedback and constructive tips on what they would like more or less of. We laugh, we question, we expose our hearts. What occurs is healing and from this a sisterhood. This is where story can truly transform our lives in a practical way.
Now, here’s where story can cause suffering: When we identify with one that repeats in our heads and clouds our possibilities. We stick to stories that tend to be defining moments. For instance, I love telling the story about getting fired from the tea company. It makes me marvel at the turn of events. I’m not mad about it. I’m not bleeding (anymore) from it, and I actually find it fun to give the twists and turns of the journey to show my audiences that not only can we reinvent ourselves, but the stuff that looks scary as hell can actually point us to our destiny. I’m writing now. What was the one thing I mourned daily while at the tea company? No time to write. So, is this a healing story or a suffering story? I choose healing.
Now when you are moving through your life, what stories do you tell over and over? Is it a breakup story or a big break story? Is it a story of how you met or how you started your company? Is it a story of how you once felt a certain way? Is it a story from your childhood or one of justifying an addiction? I’d love you to take inventory right now.
Healing stories connect you to others. Suffering stories isolate you from connection. Plain and simple. So, let’s get some healing on.
Take Action:
Identify your three main stories and then add a perspective to them. Are they suffering stories or healing stories?
Example:
I got fired. It wasn’t my fault.
-Suffering.
I was released, and now I’m free to find my true calling.
-Healing.
*
We are divorced, he/she is a cheater. I was betrayed.
-Suffering.
We are no longer married, he/she set me free, I have a wide open space for myself, my dreams, and my person now.
-Healing.
*
I had a rough childhood.
-Suffering.
My childhood taught me to have sensitivity to others’ anger which is masked pain. It gave me depth, compassion, and skills to discern who I want in my life.
-Healing.
*
All the good ones are taken.
-Suffering.
My soulmate is out there looking for me. In the meantime, I’m going to celebrate my delicious singledom.
-Healing.
*
No one hires people over fifty.
-Suffering.
I’m excited to share my badass experience in exchange for all forms of currency: Appreciation, cash, and fun.
-Healing—yum!
*
There’s not enough funding for my business. Taxes are too high. It’s too expensive.
-Suffering
If a fidget spinner can make someone a quadrillion million zillion bucks, I can freaking do anything.
-Yep.
One thing you may notice about looking at the three main stories with which you most identify, is that they are clues to what you are meant to be working on in your life and psyche. They are your targets for knowing exactly how to max out your own growth potential. They also expose the mindset you’ve formed around your perceived limits and inevitable expansion.
Do you find yourself telling the same story about:
Your age
Your love
Your body
Your money
Your opportunities
Your relationships
Your dreams
Your Past
Your future
Examine whether or not your three identifier stories are suffering or healing stories. How you can tell, is that a suffering story will make you feel stuck and heavy in your body. A healing story will feel effervescent and light edged, maybe even cause a flutter in your fabulous tummy.
So, that’s the assignment from the universe this week. I can barely wait to hear your stories in the comments on the blog, oh how I love our conversations, sweet seekers of holistic success, you make my heart sing.
Here’s to your best story yet,
P.S. Have you seen our updated website www.zhena.tv? I’m kinda super proud of it. I spend a lot of time branding women, and hadn’t rebranded in three years—check it out and tell me what you think—it’ll evolve a lot, but I hope it sparks some creative energy in you to keep your own brand fluid and filled with the gorgeous life force you are.
P.S.S. If you haven’t signed up for our final live Author’s Academy, we have room for 10 more aspirational, inspirational creatives who want to publish their first or next book from a position of power, blow through the idea that there are gatekeepers, build a scintillating platform, and work some word & soul magic. It’s a fun event and there will be breakthroughs, and maybe breakdance. You never know.
