Let’s say you’re afraid of something. Maybe big, maybe small. Maybe the very heart of the work you feel is yours to do right now.
Whatever it is, it scares you.
And let’s say there’s a story around this thing that you fear:
- If I try it, I’ll fail and end up worse off than if I don’t try at all.
- If I succeed, everyone I care about will resent me and I’ll find myself alone.
- I’ll never find someone I connect with deeply.
- I’m unhelpably stuck.
- I will always feel this way.
- I can’t find the money.
- I don’t have enough time.
So you have this story, and you feel like it’s the only possible story to tell. There’s even a part of you that likes this story – how familiar it’s become. How predictable. How it covers you somehow, makes you feel less exposed.
And let’s say part of the comfort of this story is watching for corroborating evidence and finding it. Hah! See? The story’s true!
You find the evidence so you tell the story more, adding weight and weight and more weight to it from all that evidence until the neuro-pathway in your brain between that story and that fear is a Grand Canyon-shaped crevasse.
The neurons don’t even have to think when it comes to what to do with this fear. The story. Always tell the story.
But what if.
What if that story you tell is only one of a thousand possible tales?
What if your fear itself is just a point of view?
What if you walked around to the other side of it and imagined what someone with more hope than you currently have might see? Or someone who isn’t religious or spiritual. Or who totally is. Someone who’s been through the fire and lived to tell the tale. Someone who’s been around the block of your particular fear and found a way to another route?
What would they say? What stories could they tell about you?
(No, really. Coming up with an actual answer to this can knock your socks right off.)
Or what story would your own wise self – the one you hope to be in 15 or 30 years – tell you in the face of this fear?
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If you’ve read here these last months, you’re aware that I’m in a season of inner expansion, of stepping more fully into my power…and that I’ve been doing so tremblingly.
Because as much as I feel called to this work and like my life has been a grooming for it, I have internalized a story around success that goes something like: Stepping into my power will cause me to lose the friendship and support of all the people that I love.
Wonderful, right?
And totally triggered whenever I taste success.
Last month I attended Tara Sophia Mohr’s retreat and one of the exercises we did was to pair up with a partner and look her square in the eyes. Without speaking, each of us was to look for the “light” in our partner – the light that isn’t synonymous with the physical body. The light that some call spirit or soul.
We did this for a few minutes.
We were then instructed to look, again without speaking, for our OWN light in that person’s eyes. To see our own spark in them.
And then, finally, after more minutes had passed, to wordlessly wish our partner well. To send her whatever blessing we felt moved to send.
WOOOEEE, that experience left me undone. Tears streamed down my face the whole time. I felt as if my fears of abandonment and disconnection melted into a warm pool in that stare, and I saw – no, felt – what it is to be safe. To feel as if “Don’t leave me!” and “What if I find myself alone?” make no sense at all. Are words that float like dust in the space beyond the Whole that is you and me and everyone else together. If, indeed, there’s any space beyond Us at all.
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My point is not to preach about oneness, though.
My point is to name an experience where a story I’ve been telling myself for a lifetime suddenly got unveiled as just that: a story. And one I no longer wish to tell.
I’m not cured of my story. Neuro pathways run deep. But I’m now recognizing that story for what it is and doing the conscious work of telling a different one whenever I find my mind slipping into it.
As I step into my power, I will be more supported and less alone has become my new mantra.
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Last week I wrote about sensing the time is ripe for us to address the intimacy issues we all carry around. And I’m wondering whether it might be revolutionary, in that very task, to recognize the stories we tell about ourselves and our real or imagined significant others – and even about the possible paths that our lives and relationships might take – and to listen with a new kind of interest for which of them are ones we want to lay down.
Which of those stories have become less security blankets and more scratchy, too-tight clothes.
Which have become less inevitabilities and more mere points of view?
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What are you most afraid of? What story about that are you wanting, with growing awareness, to tell?
Everything Belongs
Seasons are universal. Treat yours uniquely.
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Pingback by Another Mid-Week Question to Consider~November 16 « Because Of Grace — November 16, 2011 @ 11:05 amOnce again, you have struck a chord in my soul. So many zingers in your post.
* being seen and feeling safe – wowee! Life-affirming, girl.
* telling another story about my situation – so necessary
* imagining an entirely different translation or interpretation of my situation – much needed.
* reading that later part about what I’m afraid of and recognizing that another blogger I follow asked the same question earlier this week. I guess it’s time for me to take that question under advisement and ponder it more deeply.
Thank you, thank you, thank you yet again, dear Kristin.
Comment by GailNHB — November 16, 2011 @ 11:40 amGail, you’ve been on my mind so much. I’m glad for all of the resonance and am sending so much love your way.
Comment by Kristin — November 16, 2011 @ 12:00 pmI am only beginning to get this lesson. Thank you so much for sharing this glorious lesson!
Comment by pamela — November 16, 2011 @ 12:40 pmMy pleasure, Pamela! :) xo
Comment by Kristin — November 16, 2011 @ 2:50 pmI love your new mantra – a very good one that is so much more supportive and more true. It was an amazing exercise and experience, and such a gift, to see yourself be seen and felt so warmly by another woman in a safe place.
Your questions really invoke conscious awareness of the stories we tell ourselves, to figure out which ones should be kept and which ones can be laid down. For me, my first challenge is slow down enough to reflect, and that is a story all its own. Thank you for encouraging such reflection and in such a supportive way, Kristin. I really like the gentle encouragement you provide here, and I hope that mantra is serving you so much better than the old one!
Comment by Tiffany — November 16, 2011 @ 6:32 pmTiffany, your point about finding time to reflect is so potent. Having been a contemplative sort of person most of my life, it really took me off guard how hard it was to find time to think once my second child was born. I feel like I’m coming out of the roughest waters of that never-sitting-still time in my mothering career, but I think it bears noting that no matter how intentional a person is and wants to be about reflection time, sometimes it just isn’t possible.
Comment by Kristin — November 16, 2011 @ 7:00 pmThanks for the kind thoughts and support, Kristin. I covet it all.
Things are much better in the past week. So much thought and journaling and prayer. So many discussions and email exchanges with my friend who is in the midst of the fiery furnace, encouraging and supporting one another. Bouncing ideas, questions, uncertainties, random thoughts, and potentional decisions off each other. Having a tribe, even if it is a tribe of two searching souls, is life-saving.
And, again I plead with you, keep on writing this stuff. Your words challenge and soothe, support and shake me – and it’s all so very good. Nutritious. Filling. Protein, micronutrients, and fiber for my soul.
Comment by GailNHB — November 18, 2011 @ 6:10 amWow. There could be more than ONE story? I can stop the drips? What is the story I no longer want to tell? Such good stuff!
I am totally afraid of something right now… The heart work I feel called to do. Work on my compassion. Why am I afraid? Because it might hurt my heart to open it up like that. It might hurt my pride to be open like that. It might hurt my pride.
I’m looking for the other story.
Comment by Renee — November 18, 2011 @ 7:41 amGail, I’m so glad to hear you’re having a good week and feeling supported. Yes, having a tribe – even if just one other friend – makes all the world of difference.
And I have no plans to stop my work here. :)
Renee, I hear you so much on the fear of cultivating compassion!! Have you explored Jen Louden’s work this year at all – her Savor and Serve Experiment? Her fears and the directions she’s taking them come so much to mind as I read your words. She’s being so honest about her process of opening up her heart to the world and opening up her life to really savor and enjoy life more. A really wonderful combination.
Comment by Kristin — November 18, 2011 @ 7:49 amThank you, Kristin, for shining this light on the core of what we each live with, for naming what holds us back, and for encouraging and supporting our growth as we find our way on the detour route.
You are a wonder, my friend.
I see you.
Love to you.
PS. This drawing is one of my favorites!
Comment by Christa — November 22, 2011 @ 3:48 amThank you, Christa! Love to you, too!
Comment by Kristin — November 22, 2011 @ 7:17 amI really want to tell my story. And even if it is just one of 100 possible tales, it will be worth it as long as only one person can take something and apply to their own life.
Comment by Suki — November 22, 2011 @ 8:26 amBecause we are indeed all one.