I love how insight comes at random times. There we were, my fellow mama friend and me working out at the Y, BY OURSELVES with no kiddos at 7:15 at night, moving our tushes on the elliptical trainer, talking about life, what we are wrestling with, letting go of, what makes us mad, what brings true happiness…when, bam! It hit me:
“I am living my life from the story (or “stories”) I tell myself.”
In an instant I saw how I have wrapped much of my identity around a few stories I keep telling myself over and over again. Stories that I keep playing out in my relationships and let me stay “the victim.” Stories that I keep asking others to heal.
We do this, don’t we? We have an experience, we have an emotional reaction to that experience, we tell folks about it, and then a few more folks, and soon enough we are waaaay attached to the storyline. We’ve wrapped our identity around who we are in that story.
It can be stories from everyday living: “I’ve had such hard day! I always have to be on top of everything.”
It can be stories that we’ve carried for decades of deep trauma, hurt, grief, loss: “I’ll never be good enough.”
In that moment with my friend at the Y, I felt grace move into my heart and I said to myself: “Enough. Drop the story.”
I knew which ones I needed to and was ready to drop. I could see how holding on to them had kept me from being fully alive. And full of delight.
Dropping the story is an act of kindness.
Letting go of your story. Not forgetting your stories. Not ignoring them or pretending they didn’t happen or harshly trying to push them away. This is about freeing yourself from how you define yourself, how you play the victim, and how TALKING about the story doesn’t get us any closer to being content.
Sure all that lets off some steam, it makes us feel affirmed…but it can be a slippery slope to “feeling justified” and soon enough we have wrapped who we are around our story.
Can we just BE WITH what arises in us and see it as a story we are telling ourselves?
Can we just feel it in our bodies and watch it shift as we give it some compassion?
Can we just soften and, as Eckhart Tolle says, “Just drop the story?”
Can we stop asking our partners, parents, or this world to “see what I’ve been through” and see it for ourselves, give ourselves the sweet embrace we long for that no one else can give us, and fall into the arms of our own Self, completely accepting and kind and nurturing and say,
“Ahh, I am here, Dear One”
and say, “That has just been a story you’ve been telling yourself. Wake up now, sweet one, and, feast on your life?”
I believe there is a time and need for voicing/telling our stories. Every culture from the beginning of time has told “our stories.” The stories I am talking about here are the ones that we have based our sense of “self” on that actually rob us of a voice and hinder our “becoming.” The ones that keep us myopically turned inward.
We need to be heard. We need to tell our stories.
But there comes a time when we find that we are holding those stories much too tightly, clinging to a false sense of safety…and identity. There comes a time when it creates more suffering to hold onto those stories than it does to gently, slowly, softly, quietly, confidently stand at the river’s edge and allow the waters to carry them.
There is no forcing this. THAT would be harsh. There is only allowing, opening, and letting go when Life is calling us to wake up and we respond with no effort, with only the deep knowing that it is time.
Blessings,
Oh, wow – this has been on my mind lately, this very specific thing. Yes, yes. I agree entirely that the stories hem us in and create friction and unhappiness where there often need not be. But why is it so hard to drop them? At least for me. Thank you for this reminder. xox
Lindsey, you bring up a great point. YES it is “very hard” (for me too!) for a lot of different reasons. First, we have built a neuropathway that supports our story/keeps us “going down that path” whenever there is a particular trigger. It’s entrenched — literally – in our brains. So it does take CONSCIOUS effort to be AWARE and to make a shift. You know me, I’m big on how it’s got to be “every day” kind of stuff/strategies to make any changes. So like even today, when I NOTICE (and everything begins with AWARENESS) that I’m telling myself a particular story, I just say, “That’s just a story. That’s just a story.” Something begins to shift. Like TNH says – the minute we become aware that “something” has less of a grip on us. Then I say to myself, “Can I let that story be? Do i have to get wrapped up in it?” And I breathe. I give it spaciousness. I ask “Am I ready to believe something else?” I notice the gripping. I think we let go when we stop forcing it to “move on” AND we stop feeding it. We just notice it. At least those are my thoughts!
I love this post. You’ve reminded me that in order to allow Grace to work in my life I have to make space for it — be open to a new storyline and path. I tend to cling to the stories that haven’t even been written yet, or the plans I have in my head for the kind of person I am destined to be or the shape my family should take. Clinging to my idea of the future can be just as thieving of joy as holding on to the past. Thanks for this moment, Lis. Love you!
Ahh, yes, Anne, GRACE. I really do believe it is GRACE that initiates the invitation to “drop the story”, the illusions, we’ve been telling ourselves. And it is grace that enables us to just LET THEM BE. You bring up a good point — we cling to not only our old stories but the ones that are “not yet” and we define ourselves by what we want to achieve, etc. SOOOO true. Lately this has become apparent in my life as I look at some dreams I’ve always had (and consequently how I define myself) and it’s coming to me “hmmm, maybe that’s NOT me anymore” — yet I’ve wrapped my identity and my family’s identity around that. Thanks for the reminder, Anne! Even the stories still unfolding! Gosh, allow it to unfold!!!!
Thanks for the reminder! What a nice way to think of letting go of what holds us back.
Angela, I love the line you wrote — yes, these illlusions are holding us back. gosh if i see them as rocks in my backpack that shifts things. just put them down. so simple yet so “hard”. but it starts with just noticng that we’re carrying the rocks! thanks angela.
Lisa, this is a great piece. I’ve often thought of this as self-defining, but the idea that we live by the stories we tell ourselves is great. I, of course, do this as much as anyone, but right now I’m trying to find a way to get my mother to drop the story. She has suffered some great losses in her life and they now define her, leading to what I think is a self-fulfilling prophecy of more loss.
Any thoughts on how to suggest story-dropping in others?
Spike