Author Your Story
What if you first got to decide how you’d like to feel – happy or sad, hurt or mad, approving or jealous – and then I had to go out and rearrange all the people and circumstances of your life to make it so? You’d like that, huh?
You’d choose happy, eh?
Done.
Notes from The Universe October 20, 2009
Every day we author our lives. The stories we tell ourselves could fill the Library of Congress and then some!
We tell ourselves stories about our health, intelligence, capacity to love, how successful we are (or not), etc. We then interpret our circumstances telling ourselves why we feel the way we do. Often, the emotions we attach to our stories become the source of pain and discomfort.
My supervisor closed her door today; I feel unappreciated and taken for granted.
My associate laughed at my question; I feel humiliated.
Everyone is being so difficult; I’m overwhelmed.
But is there a difference between a story and the truth? I say yes. Our stories impose meaning. We give meaning to the facts and then forget the facts. Let’s say you don’t have money to pay all your bills. This is the fact. The significance you give this fact is the theme of your story. You might decide, ”I am not worthwhile“, “There is never enough”, or “I am a failure.” None of these are the truth; the fact is lack of money – the only truth is that you are whole, perfect and complete!
If you gave up your story, what would happen? Perhaps you would be more peaceful, more resourceful or have greater enthusiasm about your life. Perhaps you would be less concerned about what you don’t have and more intent on contributing. Perhaps making the choice to be grateful would be a magnet for unlimited abundance!
Byron Katie, author of the best-selling book Loving What Is, says,
What we need to do to ease the pain and experience more freedom in
our lives, is learn to get beyond our stories, to get under our beliefs
and assumptions to what’s really living there. We need to investigate
and examine these stories. The result of investigation is often a
deeper appreciation of an Authentic Self and the people in our lives,
and a realization that it was not our words or actions that really harm us,
but our uninvestigated thoughts about their words or actions.
Katie outlines a simple path of inquiry into some of the horror stories we tell ourselves revolving around four questions:
1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
3. How do you react when you think that thought?
4. Who would you be without the thought?
Now, imagine that you don’t have this story anymore. Katie asks, “who would you be without your story?…You never know until you inquire.”
A friend of mine often reminds me that wherever you slice into a carrot cake you will always touch a piece of carrot. Wherever you slice into your life, you will always touch a story, and that story is sacred. You can choose to enjoy the privilege of being the author of your own story!
Until next week.
Many blessings…
Bettie J. Spruill
