Choosing Your Story

Have you ever heard yourself telling someone a story of something that happened to you and suddenly realized that it’s time to change that story?

Usually, the stories that need changing are ones that are the ones that no longer serve us. We get tiny inkilings of this discomfort by our own feelings alerting us by making us feel uncomfortable.

This is good news for us. It means that even if we haven’t realized it yet, we are growing – sometimes in spite of ourselves.

Growth, although it also includes change, isn’t always hard. Resistance is harder.

Sometimes we get this lovely glimpse of what we could be, through something we did that was right.

We often spend so much time being the major critic in our life that we never take the time to notice what or how we are becoming someone better.

What if, every day, at the end of the day, we spend a few minutes writing down what went right, what we said either to ourselves or someone else something that helped, inspired, encouraged or simply listened?

I started doing this a while ago. I am not always consistent with this new habit until, after a few days, I remember again how incredibly powerful this practice is.

When you make a list of what went right, you’ll notice that things are pretty good.

Even in the worst of circumstances, there are gratitudes to find.

Here are a couple of mine: in the midst of my son’s heart surgery and the complications that followed I realized what my true values were and quickly discarded the ones that others had made me think were my own.

After a gut-wrenching divorce, I had the chance to determine who I might become and this has been a most amazing adventure.

During Covid, when I moved from my house to an apartment, I discovered new ways of being creative, the joys of learning about new places, new walks, good places to meet.

The real reason to do this is to shift our focus.

Our entire culture spends most of its time telling us what’s wrong. We continue this training by being hard on ourselves.

But what if we decide to ditch the critics?

It doesn’t mean we don’t keep working at getting better – it means we let go of the tactic of finding every tiny thing that is wrong and instead finding every tiny thing that is right.

If you don’t believe that we are acculturated to finding the imperfections of everything, just read or listen to the news. The regular news cycle has a curve that hits a zenith at the midpoint and winds down to low -level bad news – usually the weather.

Compare this to your own thinking. What is your curve?

Is it positive or do you investigate every minor infraction you committed in a day to prove to yourself (or others) that you are not really good enough?

When you spend time noting what was positive, great, wonderful, kind, encouraging, inspiring, or any combination of these, you will find your mind lifting and feeling pretty good about things.

You might even be inspired to want more of certain things which translates to the door of possibility opening. This door is available to anyone at any time. It is the door of wonder and even awe.

Are the stories you tell limiting you in some way? Or, are they inviting you to construct more of what you wish for?

Our stories are a method of how we make sense of the world but they aren’t necessarily the only version. Sometimes we are the hero, sometimes, the victim. What is interesting is how we can be both and what we choose.

Rosemunde Zander, leadership coach and lifemate of Benjamin Zander, Conductor of the Boston Philharmonic, and both co-authors of The Art of Possibility talk about possibility being energy.

I love this concept because it opens up a new gift for us.

Who doesn’t want more energy for their lives? Possibility has a positive charge and feels like the sky is the limit …. wait…the sky doesn’t have a limit!