What do we do with all these stories?
We love stories. Humans have been grand story tellers for as long as we have been humans. We make meaning through stories. We remember. We relate to self and others through stories. And your stories about your precious life are wonderful and powerful tools for learning and growing until they become a straitjacket that binds you.
What is the difference? It's complicated, perhaps. Sometimes it is timing. There is a time to live, and there is a time to turn back and allow your story to illuminate something significant about your patterns and your essence.
Sometimes it is how we tell the story. Everyone has always treated me this way. People always do this to me.
Other times I think it is just our intention in how we tell a story. Are we telling a story to grow and process, or are we telling a story to get attention? Are we sharing because we want to feel special, significant, or better than? While witnessing can be a powerful part of a journey, identity is in the Divine, not in how we are perceived by others.
Ironically, not telling a story can be harmful in some situations but necessary in others. I have found myself in a few situations lately where I have felt that the lens through which our contemporary culture would view a story, particularly one related to sexual matters, could intensify the story in a way that simply wasn't present in the original actions.
Of course, sometimes buried stories need brought to light, but to what light are we bringing them? A story we construct around an experience can minimize it; but conversely, a story can also become something larger than the experience itself.
Further, in a more esoteric realm, the essence of a story can change depending on how that story is received by those listening. Someone who is starved for attention and draws energy in from others around them often times finds themselves surrounded by a level of chaos; don't be surprised if you get pulled into all varieties of big drama because you are in the ring of disaster. Their story overrides and distorts others around them.
I'm not concluding to sit alone but rather observe. And when we become observers of our own stories, willing to see them, love them, and retell them as we change, we have surrendered to growth. More and more, I continue to be asked to view everything from a higher vantage point, looking down on stories as if from the top of a mountain. I continue to search for God's stories in all of it, illuminating a path in which all of us on this journey are forged by something much bigger than ourselves.
Maybe what we are seeking is to be able to hold our stories loosely enough to let God keep writing them. I'm so grateful to be a part of this process.
~c
This Week’s Reflection
“Showing up is the hardest part.”
Featured Photo by Violet
Carl loves his life. Remember to take great joy in the little things, like rolling in the dirt. What could be a simple roll turns into an ecstatic experience.