Change Your Life Story Session 2

We all hold various stories about ourselves that we more or less believe. These narratives from the past have the power to define your present, thus creating ground for your future. In session 2 of 6 you will explore the relationship between stories and your thoughts, feelings and body.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the second session of the What's Your Story course. I'm remembering this song and I didn't really remember the melody but it went something like I'm glad you came I'm glad you came and I don't know who it is who's singing the song but I'm glad you came you know coming the first time is one thing but coming again is a qualitatively very very different thing so thank you for coming. Also if you would feel like you want to appreciate the content in this course and help the community to develop then any donation is highly appreciated which can be done through the Insight Timer app or website. In the first session we talked and experienced how body sensations actually carry stories some content with them so bodily sensations are not isolated events sensations but there's something more to them and very much of these processes actually happen unconsciously and what we did last time was that we together was sitting and through focusing on the sensations that were happening in your body we were kind of seeing if we can identify what type of content or story the sensation is carrying with them and since I started this session with this kind of pop song it just brings me to my mind the idea of like all these stories that songs and pop music are actually telling us right and in the end they are not so many stories that's basically yeah you could we could very much reduce it to maybe the most common story communicated by pop music is this unhappy love kind of being left being heartbroken and these stories talk to us of course a lot because we all recognize ourselves and the experience like who hasn't had their heart broken I have yeah I often get reminded of that listening to some music and it's perfectly fine actually to kind of indulge in this feeling of a broken heart or whatever story that it might be that the song or music that you that you're listening to is kind of bringing up to the surface but again it doesn't necessarily need to be like putting yourself back to a past trauma but being really like aware doing it consciously in a way and knowing what is happening then it makes sense and there is exactly what I think this course should help you or support you in achieving in your life and not only related to music but generally like what stories you are carrying with you what stories are impacting you becoming aware of those narratives and just like with listening to your favorite music like there is no bad story that you're carrying they are simply stories and as long as you can learn to identify them stories and look at them as stories you're fine because then they will lose the control that they have over you and your life and we will talk about that a little bit more in the next session about how actually stories from your past experienced now are creating your future but for today I was thinking if you feel like that to start by orienting into your body by first of all feeling your the contact of your body with whatever you are sitting or standing on and again I believe that you can be listening to this session either sitting lying if you are good at staying awake or standing walking if you want to if you're walking and please make sure you're safe but you're not running into a street full of cars or you know in any way putting your life at danger but walking in a park is definitely a great idea to do fresh air and everything so just start by realizing where and how your body is in contact with whatever it is standing or sitting on I'm currently sitting in my living room on this very comfortable carpet with my meditation cushion under my bottom I'm sitting cross-legged and then when you get in touch with whatever is supporting you and see if you can actually make use of the contact in between your body and the ground the support to kind of get really really supported so that you can make your spine longer so that your body is kind of helped in carrying its weight by the ground the earth it's almost as if you're realizing like how your skeleton is kind of part of the earth which it is there's a lot of like trace elements and other stuff in the skeleton that actually are the earth so you're not so different than whatever you are sitting on a walking on another story you know that we're being told like there is the earth and then there is us not correct there is the earth and the earth is us so see you know how being part of the earth is actually giving you the support and maybe also helping you in relaxing a little bit into where you are what you're doing and who you are and if you wish then if you're kind of visual type then you could imagine a triangle sometimes it is called mindfulness triangle but it's not important really the name so it has like three peaks and one of them is the body and that's what we did last time the body sensations one of them is thoughts and one of them is feelings and this image takes shape of a triangle because in a triangle everything is connected or like all the three peaks are connected to each other the three angles and it is so it is in our experience so when we were talking about or like experiencing the sensations in our body last time then those were necessarily influencing our thoughts and feelings and vice versa so I'd like to ask you if it's possible in this moment to maybe go into the realm of your thoughts for a change and see you don't have to be you know walking and searching for a thought you can simply you can simply now my thought has become an airplane which was flying out side over the roof of my house so I do have a thought and I didn't really have to go home actually got distracted by it but whatever thought comes just like see if you can look at it there's no need to grasp on it but just look at the thought so for me it's like a helicopter above the house so the thought is oh that's a helicopter flying over the house which becomes a question what is a helicopter doing in this area now is there a question connected to your thought as well and the answer to the question of course is and now you might have already guessed a story and it might be a hypothetical story about yeah you know it's probably flying to a hospital and you know carrying maybe someone with an injury from a traffic crash or something but might also bring with it a story that I have experienced so the story about the helicopter carrying someone into the hospital actually brings me back to Barcelona a few years ago where I suffered whiplash and ended up in the hospital so see if there is a thought that is bringing a story for you into your awareness now if you remember the triangle then the story provoked by the thought is most probably bringing up some feeling for me it is feeling of like a slight anxiety connected of course to the past experience of an injury see what feeling there might be for you and it can also be a positive feeling it might be a story that is bringing up nice memories for you and so you can feel maybe happy satisfied or on the other hand afraid angry and the last third part of the triangle was body sensations and for me the thought of a helicopter leading to a whiplash in Barcelona leading to making me feel anxious is actually leading to the fact that I feel this sensation of me clenching my fists so what body sensation are you experiencing you might as well be nice body sensation like feeling of warmth maybe if there was a memory of being on the beach or being close to someone that you enjoy being close to and I'd like to invite you if you feel like to share your insights from this session in the comments to the course for us others to get inspired and also for me to know how you are experiencing the practical exercises or sessions that we are doing here together and of course I'll be very happy to welcome you into the third session which will very much be about how the stories we are holding about ourselves influence our future and myself and the insight timer community will be super grateful for any contributions that you might decide to make those contributions help us teachers to develop further and the insight timer community to provide space for more good content and also if you wish then you can go to my profile and if you click on this little bell icon then you will get notified of new content that I will be uploading including some live sessions so thank you very much for today and until next time if you feel like every now and then see how your thoughts feelings and body sensations kind of hang together and how the stories that are being brought up by you getting more focused on your experience so how these stories are influencing how you feel what you think and what sensations you are experiencing in your body thank you and talk to you soon bye