As we enter into this moment together,
Let's inhale deeply,
Bringing sweet fresh air into your belly.
Exhale,
Releasing your breath,
The tension in your shoulders.
Let's inhale and exhale.
Welcome to a hit of hope,
And this one is salty.
One of the things I teach my students is the different ways we can think about how ourselves get shaped,
Get constructed.
One of the ways ourselves can be shaped is by what gets reflected back to us from others.
You might think you're funny,
But your friends reactions tell you otherwise.
Ourselves can also be shaped by narratives,
The stories we tell about ourselves,
As well as the stories that get told about us.
I thought about that recently because a story from my past didn't stay in my past.
Here it was,
Rearing its stupid head in the stupid present,
And I had to deal with the shit all over again.
Has that ever happened to you?
The thing is,
This can happen without you contributing to this fact at all,
Because of whatever reason you are simply called upon to revisit what was as you walk your way through what is.
And the kicker is,
When that happens,
You have to sit once again with the pain,
The residue,
The frustration,
The emotions.
Inhale,
Exhale.
But let's be honest,
Sometimes we revisit what was those old narratives all on our own.
Think of our lives as a bookshelf.
Now,
There are times when we walk over and we pull out the best story of ourselves,
The ones that inspire and uplift us,
The ones that make us feel as if we can do anything.
We look at those stories and we think,
Damn,
I was fierce,
Or holy shit,
I did that.
Can you believe it?
Isn't life great when we do that?
Am I alone in the fact that I can't remember the last time I did that?
Celebrated the good parts of me like that?
That says something,
Doesn't it?
As does the fact that there are times when we walk over to that bookshelf of our past narratives and willingly,
Intentionally,
Pull out the worst narratives.
We sit down in a chair,
We open that fucker up,
And we wallow.
We roll in the shit.
Look at what you did.
Look at how you are.
Look at how you fucked it up.
Here,
There,
And everywhere.
Oh my god,
Why?
Why do we do that?
I have no idea unless it's because we are conditioned by life,
By those around us,
By those unhelpful selves inside to see and focus on what's wrong.
I suppose there might be a survival instinct in there.
If you're walking through a forest,
You survive.
If you hear the rustle that wasn't there and you think wolf and hide before the wolf pops out and tears you to shreds.
Survival,
Maybe,
But there's probably another reason.
It's easy.
Like the wolf,
It's easy to find the weak target.
Those past moments when we were not our best selves.
It's like watching one of those nature documentaries.
The predator always goes after the weak prey.
But when we watch things like that,
How many of us turn away because we can't bear to see the violence inflicted.
So why,
Oh why do we do it to ourselves?
Inhale.
Exhale.
We are narrative creatures.
The stories we tell shape ourselves and the way we shape ourselves affects how we live our lives.
We need to honor all of the stories in our lives.
See them as dramas with tensions,
With climaxes and cliffhangers.
With our wise selves sometimes leading the way just like Gandalf.
We can see our smallest selves that sometimes make us cringe.
We can and we should honor them all.
But please,
If you are struggling,
Please do not wander over to the shelf and pull out the worst stories.
Please choose a good one because that's you.
You've done incredible things.
You really have.
You are worthy of love.
You never have to be ashamed of your journey.
It's what you did in the moment when you did it.
But can you do your best not to willingly pull those old stories of hurt off the shelves?
Can you allow for a moving on,
An abandoning of the pain?
Can you live into what Shakespeare said?
What's the past but prologue?
What is the past but a set up for what you,
Yes you,
Choose to do next?
Namaste.
