All of life is a story.
We narrate our lives,
Internally and externally,
All day,
Every day.
The question is,
Though,
How consciously are we doing that?
Are we being the most trustworthy,
Reliable narrators of this one wild and precious life?
Researchers have found that we have anywhere from 6,
000 to 70,
000 thoughts a day.
With those thoughts,
That's a lot of thoughts.
Majority of those are repetitive and majority of those repetitive thoughts are negative.
That means the way that you are beating yourself up over telling a story of negative self-talk and blame is simply not based in reality.
Your brain is unconsciously primed.
To live in a place of survival.
To find the worst case scenario and do everything it can to avoid it.
When we go through moments of high stress or trauma,
Capital T or lowercase t,
Researchers have found that that trauma can be turned into one of two mindsets.
One is getting stuck in the moment and ruminating over that worst-case scenario,
And we call that post-traumatic stress.
We're all pretty familiar with that term.
The next way that these moments can go is we can develop what's called post-traumatic growth.
That means that we tell a redeemable story about our experience in the larger context of the story of our lives.
We make meaning and we don't fault ourselves.
If we are able to go through life and experience difficult circumstances and keep ourselves narrated as the redeemable and heroic main character,
We are able to turn all of our experiences into moments of growth.
When we get stuck in cycles and loops of rumination,
Telling ourselves the worst case scenario,
Blaming ourselves and having a negative view,
And story of ourselves.
We get stuck.
The great writer Rainer Maria Rilke wrote,
Perhaps all dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act just once with beauty and courage.
Perhaps everything that frightens us is,
In its deepest essence,
Something helpless that wants our love.
Telling a better story about our experience is simply that.
Telling a story of love.
Of potential.
Of possibility.
Of redemption.
Perhaps it's not that you're too broken.
Perhaps it's not.
That you will never be able to change or view the past in any different way.
But it's just that you're not telling.
The best story that you can.
I want you to consider the story that's on replay in your mind.
That negative,
Repetitive story of low self-worth or blame.
Can you begin to see it?
As something helpless.
That deeply needs your love.
And attention.
The wisdom.
Of the conscious narrator in the present moment to be able to tell a different story.
A story of how that moment,
That attribute,
That experience,
That character trait,
Got you to this moment now.
And without that moment,
Without that trait.
You couldn't go to the next chapter.
If it is a dragon in your life,
Waiting for you to act with beauty and courage.
I want you to consider what different story you can tell.
That'll move you out of rumination.
And into the infinite possibility of the next chapter.
