Story Telling

We all have our stories, right? We tell our stories about who we are, where we come from and what we do. We tell our stories of how we are and what we want or don’t want and we tell these stories over and over again. We say them to ourselves, to our friends, families, significant others and perhaps even the stranger at the bar. We tell our stories so much, either in our heads or aloud that regardless of the truth or value in the story, we become it.

By telling our stories again and again, we are affirming that they are real and we are becoming more and more attached to them. In some cases, this is awesome and is a catalyst for manifesting exactly what you want. Other times though, we must be careful of what we are saying about ourselves and be aware if what we are telling others and ourselves is positive and productive. What we declare is very often a self-fulfilling prophecy, so we must ask ourselves if what we are saying is actually what we want for ourselves.

I remember a few years ago when I was teaching fourth grade. There was a boy in my class who was “bad at math”. The boy had told me he was bad at math and that was why he could not complete his assignments or even study for a math test. He was bad at math, that was his story and he was sticking to it. When I called his father in for a meeting, his father told me how he was also bad at math and his son was very much like him and bad at math as well. Their story was constantly being affirmed. The boy was affirming it as well as the father and they were so attached to the idea of being bad at math that being good at math was not even a possibility.

In reality, the boy wasn’t bad at math. I asked the father to change his dialogue and start telling his son that it was possible to be good at math, regardless of his own math abilities. I explained to him that the “bad at math” story was what was actually making his son “bad at math”. By changing their story, they could change themselves. The boy may have not been making A’s in math, but he was trying and he started to realize that he was not so bad at math after all.

I share this memory with you in service of you recognizing a story that you may be telling yourself. What do you say about yourself? Is this how you want to be? Think of a repeating thought that you have about yourself, one that runs through your mind on a regular basis or one that always comes up in conversation with friends or loved ones.

Are you lazy? Are you always late? Are you not good at commitment? Are you never going to have enough money? Are you always going to be stuck where you are?

Change the story that you tell yourself and the story that you tell others. Start affirming how you want to live and start affirming it now. Instead of saying something like: “Well, I will never have enough money anyway, so why bother working hard”, start affirming something more positive. Start affirming what you actually want. How about a story such as, “I am working harder to provide for myself and have the abundant life that I want and deserve”.

Changing our stories is challenging, especially those stories that we may be attached to from childhood. Start by being aware of your stories and choose one that is not serving you. Change that one story into one that you actually want to tell. Do not worry if your friends or family look at you funny when “the late one” starts showing up on time or “the lazy one” starts referring to himself or herself as a productive go-getter. It’s your life and you deserve to write (or rewrite) your own story.

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