I thought we might enjoy sitting and talking for just a few minutes and then meditating together and talking about love from a narrative perspective.
I've been a narrative therapist since 1989 and if you're not familiar with narrative therapy,
It's a particular approach that looks deeply and richly into the stories that we tell about our lives.
And the sense in narrative work is that our stories are incredibly powerful,
Both our personal stories and the cultural stories that we're all impacted by.
So I thought it might be helpful and fun to have a conversation with you about a narrative approach to love.
One of the tenets of the narrative approach is that we live according to the stories that we tell about our lives.
So I'll say that again,
That we live according to the stories that we tell about our lives.
So one of the most important stories that we tell in our lives is our story of love.
And so many of us live in cultures across the world that hold to a capitalistic system where everything is traded and bartered and priced out,
Where balance sheets are most important and relationship looks like an economic transaction that really doesn't have a whole lot to do with caring about each other and holding each other in deep respect and love and compassion and kindness.
So these stories that are large cultural stories impact us and then we have our own personal stories about love.
When we look at the models that our parents and grandparents gave us about how to love and through our own relationships and the ways that we have perhaps stumbled through our lives in loving relationships,
I certainly have had my share of difficult relationships and constantly trying to evolve my approach to relationships to make them better and better and yet at the same time falling flat on my face to be honest and having to pick myself up again over and over but always returning to love,
Always returning to a sense of the possibility,
The potential for a love that's overwhelming and bold and encompasses all the dreams that I've had for what love can be.
So the narrative approach,
Through the narrative approach,
We can take a look at how it is that we have created story about love itself and where in those stories do we place us?
How does our very self sit in our stories of love?
And what are our most preferred stories,
Our most preferred story lines and themes and chapters and all those aspects that make up a really,
Really great story that we want to include and bring into our own lives so that our story of love can actually be our most preferred story rather than a story of sadness or failure or tragedy or breakups or loss and discouragement.
So in the narrative approach what we would look at when it comes to love would be to really consider what are the stories and themes and storylines that we tell ourselves about love and how do those aspects of our love story sit within us?
Do we like our personal response to those stories of love that we hold and tell?
Do we really prefer our bodily reactions when we tell stories about the people that we love,
The way that we hold them in love?
Or are our stories dissipating of love?
Do they bring love down?
Do the way that we hold love stories,
Our own love stories,
Contribute to the difficulties that we find in our life of love?
Do our approaches within our own stories help to bring relationships into bad places for us and for our partner?
Can we have the courage to realize that perhaps we can become aware enough,
Conscious enough about our own love stories so that we can take on the responsibility for telling a really great story of love,
That we can have the integrity within us to live out that story,
That love story that we long to live,
That we hold in our hearts and wish for every single day of our lives?
This level of responsibility,
This level of integrity takes a lot of courage and a lot of willingness to be able to look within our own hearts and minds at how we have set aside our own responsibility,
How we have set aside our own integrity about love and instead work in relationship in a tit-for-tat process,
An economical capitalistic process where it's all a transaction.
It may be possible to really think through and consider the kind of love that you want to live and to reach inside your own heart and begin to express that kind of love,
To begin to hold yourself as an example of the very dream for love that you wish you were living.
And instead of waiting for someone else,
Your partner or someone that hopefully you'll meet someday to be that kind of love,
Perhaps from your own narrative about love you could start to be the person that you want to attract into your life.
Rather than waiting,
You could become that person and it could start with you beginning to tell a story of love from your heart of hearts,
From your greatest wishes,
From the aspirations of love that you hold most dear.
So let's just take a few moments here and move into meditation,
So close your eyes and bring yourself into your center,
That place within that has always been there where peace and serenity reside.
And when you find your center and you become relaxed,
Just imagine for a moment this kind of love that we're talking about.
Imagine for a moment your own love story,
How it's gone for you,
The kinds of ways that you've shown up in relationship.
Have you done so with integrity and kindness and love and compassion?
Or have you done so defensively,
Withholding,
Nervous and anxious and fearful?
Have you been overly dependent?
Or have you joined your partner in a way that's mature from an adult standpoint?
Imagine opening your heart to love,
To a love that's sweet and brilliant,
That lifts you up,
That holds you in a place of deep respect within your own self.
And the kind of love that allows you to share with your partner openly,
Engaged,
Committed and fully embracing a love relationship.
Just imagine that kind of approach for a moment.
Imagine the story from this narrative approach,
A story that could be for you,
That rests within your own heart,
That you've longed for for so long.
Stay in meditation for just a moment longer and bring that story of love,
Your own love story for one more moment fully into your vision for what you most desire.
And feel it all through yourself openly,
With compassion and kindness toward yourself for all the attempts that you've made.
And perhaps your readiness to have your most preferred love story begin to unfold with you.
Be ready to come out of the meditation now and bring this sense of your love story forward.
Bring it with you.
As you leave this meditation,
Consider that the power of this decision for your own love story rests in your hands,
Not in anyone else's.
Be well and have a wonderful day contemplating your most preferred love story.
Thank you,
My friend,
For joining me today.
