Life Stories
When you’re living in your “core you”, it doesn’t matter what others do or say. You are protected by your own personal Teflon. It is a strength of being that allows you to move through times of chaos without breaking and falling apart.
When you’re not worried about what others think of you, you can listen to what they are saying but not feel required to heed their advice if it doesn’t resonate with who you are and what you want to accomplish.
Unhooking Stories
This can be a difficult space to find, but when you do nothing will stop you from accomplishing your dreams. Finding this “core you” requires an acknowledgement that other people’s stories are just that…THEIRS. It’s the way in which they live their lives and is not necessarily the prescribed manner in which you should live yours. It’s what works for them.
Unhooking yourself from other’s stories and ideas of how life should be lived is a journey. It takes time to recognize the hooks that grab you and make you feel as though you have to change your trajectory.
Recognizing Life Stories
It starts with recognizing the moment when you feel ashamed or small when someone you don’t even know says something. Take a moment to see that this stranger is nothing in your world, so why would their opinion have any sway on what you do? Now it could be that their idea or opinion might just be the nugget you need to move forward but give it the weight it is due…which is NOT MUCH. They are a passerby in your life, and you will probably never see them again. It’s their story and it’s how they live their life. You don’t need to take it on.
Familial Stories
Once you are able to disconnect a stranger’s story from your own, you can start to see where there may be connections with those who are in the closer circles that surround you. Acquaintances, Co-Workers, General Friends, Close Friends, Best Friends, Extended Family, Family of Origin, Close Family.
The closer you get to your most intimate circle the stronger the hooks of the stories. Especially one’s family of origin. You learned pretty much everything from your Mother, Father, and Siblings. They were your first foray into the wider world. It was the first place you learned to “be”. There were areas in which you were encouraged and praised and areas in which you were discouraged and criticized.
Creating Your Own Life Stories
By recognizing these stories, seeing them for what they are and how they worked in people’s lives, you can start to work on consciously accepting, changing, or discarding them so that you can go for your BIG DREAMS without being held back.
This is your one big life and whilst you can learn from others lives, both successes and failures, you don’t need to continue living the same story. Create your own story, make your own destiny, live your own life.
Create your Dream Life one story at a time with the Finding your Stories worksheet and begin updating and/or removing the unhelpful stories from your life.