Life meets you right where you are. It unfolds in exactly the way you think about your life, your self, your story. It can never be any other way.
I’m reading Gabrielle Bernstein’s new book The Universe Has Your Back when I had an AHA moment and it hit me why I’m still holding back, why I haven’t totally let go and broke out of the small hidden place I’m keeping myself in, even though I really want to. It’s because of the story i’ve been telling myself about my story. The words that I’ve been using have kept me hidden, small and afraid.
I’ve been telling myself the same story, about my story, for so long that I didn’t even realize or hear the words I was telling myself. They were there every time I started to write creating a block I couldn’t get past. It’s too hard, it’s so heavy, I don’t want to go there, I can’t, I’m afraid, it’s too emotional… this has been my foundation and has been what has kept me from a lot of things, not just writing. With those words I kept myself stuck and didn’t know it. These words I’m telling myself have kept me from believing in myself, loving myself, having faith, seeing a beautiful miraculous world. This story has ruled and regulated and shaped every moment of my life.
The story I’ve been telling myself doesn’t even belong to me, it belongs to my mother, those are her words her beliefs about life. These are the words that I heard my mother speak every day from the day I was born – suffered, hard work, starved, where was God? No there is no God, I’m afraid, life is hard… These are the words that permeated into my very being, into every cell in my body. I didn’t understand what they mean when I was a child, but I felt my mothers pain in them. They stuck in me and I took them and I made them my own.
And of course my mother had every right to speak them and hold them, they described the horrors she lived every day in the hells of concentration camps. But they are not my words, I didn’t live and survive the Holocaust, she did. I can listen, I can sympathize, I can cry, I can feel the emotional, I can love her… But I wasn’t there in the physical, I didn’t live through the horrors and I can’t claim those words as my own.
In making them my own, I’ve been living my mothers story not mine. This doesn’t mean that I’m denying my story, it’s as much a part of me as my right arm, it’s my history, my legacy, my ancestors, and I carry an obligation with it. But, if I want to live an extraordinary life I have to give myself an extraordinary story, one that belongs to me and honors me. One that will uplift and empower me, strengthen and elevate me and support me to live my life in glory.
Life responds in kind, the thoughts that we put out is the life that we get to live. And so I’m changing my story (the one that I’m telling myself) about my story.
How about you? Do you have a story you maybe need to change? Feel free to leave a comment below, and feel free to share this blog post.
Blessings
In My Everyday Life 
It is so easy to take on our parents hardships, my mother had her own story that she tried to impress on myself and my brother, but like you said it is her story not my story, and I can’t get caught up in it.
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I think for me realizing that I was and than changing it was the hard part. Thank you.
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Yes! I had a story that I dropped. I made a new story and watched how different I was as a person after that. I felt new, as if I could create myself all over again. This kind of work is never done, though, I think. Fantastic post.
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I have to laugh because you’re so right, this kind of work is never done. Every time I think ok no more walls, there is always a new one. Thank you.
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Masha, that was an extremely thought provoking and timely post. Stories are so potent, and can hold you stealthily bound if you’re unaware. How great you’re aware now. xox
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So true isn’t it? You can only live the life you’re telling yourself. Thank you
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I was just talking about this very thing with a friend this week. I changed my own story many years ago and am so glad I did. If I hadn’t, my life would likely have been very different…and not in a good way. I’m still grateful every day for that flash of insight.
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That’s so great, you’re lucky to have seen that and were able to make change. thank you
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