The Power and Prejudice in Our Stories

I t is my 8 year old daughter that inspired this post.  The thought of writing about “our stories” has been on my list of post ideas (that are written on various post-it-notes and stored in a basket for a rainy day when I might just run out of ideas) for a while now, without me getting jazzed up to actually write it…until now that is!  I was driving my two mini Zen masters home from school last week, when my son saw a boy from his school walking home and made it a point to yell out to me, “MOM, that’s the boy in my school who is such a show off!”

Before I could glance over, my daughter pipes up in an exasperated way as only 8 year olds who are going on 25 can, and says to her brother, “That’s a real judgment and a label and plus you don’t know what his story is!”  She then proceeds to fill in her brother about how this particular boy has moved to our community from Egypt where is family is being persecuted due to their religion and how he has had to leave his 18 aunts and uncles 36 cousins, 10 goats, half a dozen donkeys….and is really missing his home, family…you get the gist right?

Quite simply, listening to this conversation I was dumfounded!  How did she get so wise?  How did she learn to look past someone’s behaviour to connect with their story and the internal motives for perhaps some surface “show-off” kind of behaviour that attempts to hide their real pain!  Yes and thank you! I will just gloat a bit here and take just a little bit of credit for teaching her a few things, but really…it was her own inner wisdom that spoke up during that conversation. How amazing is it that at 8 she can recognize that we all have our own stories – narratives of the events and experiences from our lives viewed through our own particular lenses. I was a true proud mama that day.  It was yet another confirmation of what I know without a doubt; that our children are wise beyond the actual years that only include a tally of their “earth time” in this lifetime!  This infinite wisdom that they come into the world with needs just to be nurtured and guided in the right way for it to unfold in the most beautiful and profound of ways!

So outside sharing the inspiration for how this post came to be via this proud parent moment, I do want get us thinking about this idea of “our stories” a little bit more.  We all have our stories – right!  We love sharing our stories with friends, family, strangers in the line at the post office, waiting at the car dealership for an oil change and any place that offers us an opportunity to connect with another human being.  This is what makes us humans so amazing – our capacity to be able to connect with others walking this world with us. Most often we connect via our stories of our lives, our struggles, our victories, our passions, the big events and the little incidentals – this is what makes us human!

Our love of storytelling is supported in our culture in the form of books, television shows, movies and all forms of media.  Someone`s story of overcoming the odds of illness or some other type of suffering has the power to touch us at our core and remind us of our shared humanity and that`s why we just can`t ever tire of hearing great stories.

So I do love stories myself! I consider myself a storyteller of sorts, which is why I write here and share openly the stories from my travels in this world.  However, here`s where the “and” come in.  Our stories also have other angles to them. Just like anything in life, I have found that even our stories are just not one dimensional. They are multi-dimensional, with many levels and layers and colours and shapes and sizes.  Our stories have the power to inspire us and (not but) they also have the power to get us stuck and hold us back! What differentiates one polarity from the other here is quite simply our identification with our stories.

When we become deeply identified with our stories and our roles in those stories, we run the risk of becoming stagnant like an actor or actress stuck in a virtual world of their creation which may or may not resemble what reality is like in this moment. We become blinded to the reality that life is changing constantly, moment to moment with each presenting us with new opportunities to create new realities and new stories. When we get identified with our old stories whether we were the victims or the victors, we are unable to step outside this reality to see the changes around us, or to notice what’s new or even that something, anything has changed.

Your mind may quite literally at this point be racing to bring to your awareness the hundreds and quite possibly the thousands of people you’ve met who fit the above description…am I right? We all can probably come up with some extreme examples like the aunt who always complains about her knee every time she sees you, or your friend’s never ending saga of failed relationships…but that’s not what this is about.  Maybe after reading this post, yes, you may start noticing the various stories that people around you tell. You might even get some insight into why they are so heavily invested in their stories…what does it get them?  Perhaps it is some sympathy, love, attention or an excuse not to change or take responsibility for their life?  Whatever it is, I have found there is usually a pay off.

I am not so much interested in other peoples’ motives for holding on to their stories as much as I am in inspiring us to look at and into our own worlds! What I offer is an invitation for you to delve into the places where your mind resides. There are quite literally thousands of stories we tell ourselves in any particular day:  “It’s too cold. It’s too hot. It’s too rainy.  I’ll never be able to do that!  Nobody values me. Life is a struggle. I know better. She/he should do this or that!  Life is hard. I am too fat, too poor, too young, too old, too ill. Nothing will change. I always fail, make mistakes, know better, lose etc.etc”

This post is more a proposal and a friendly call back to bring some inquiry back to your own stories.  They are worth paying attention to, for it is our inattention to them that is resulting in us blindly creating our current reality that is our life! When we become aware of our stories, we can choose to fuel them, alter them, change them altogether and become master storytellers as we steer the vessel that is our life in the direction that we choose!

Going back to where we started with my daughter and her school mate, it’s quite helpful to remember a few things about our stories…and so with my love of using bullets…here goes:

• Stories can inspire us, motivate us and others
• Sharing of our stories during this collective human experience helps us connect with others and can be quite profound in their potential for bringing about positive changes in the lives of those who hear the stories and the larger world community
• Being aware that each of us has our own stories and perhaps our own pain and struggles can make us a little kinder, perhaps more tolerant and forgiving (i.e. the dialogue between my son and daughter)
• Stories can also trap us in the past or in other realities that are not based on the current reality of the present moment. So we get caught up in the way that life was, and truly believing that this is the way that life is!
• When we get too identified with our stories, we become rigid and inflexible and unable to see new ways or move with the ever changing current of life
• What stories do you tell yourself?
• What is your intention for telling these stories to yourself or others? 
• What are the payoffs that keep you coming back to re-tell your self or others these stories?
• Can you make a decision to notice one such story today and skilfully decide on the course of action for yourself?

My own learning in addition to the above is that when it comes to stories…whether they are others’ or my own (and especially my own) is to share them, love them, honour them and most importantly remember that they are just stories…and keep moving forward with life creating new stories of sharing, learning, loving and I hope inspiring others to do the same!