Telling Your Story, Your Way.

Hello, My Friends

Do you ever get so excited about something that your words fall out of your mouth before you have a chance to filter them?

This is exactly what happened to me. I was talking to some one who happened to mention my favourite subject, and before I knew it I was rabbiting on, sharing stories that I thought had been long forgotten, and the painful memories that went with those stories.

Once the muddy memory was stirred and my emotions fired up, my mouth went into overdrive. No putting the brake on, the memory had escaped into the present and was wrecking havoc with my ability to focus on what was at hand.

One day I may share this memory, but for today I’ll share how to get on top of a runaway story from the past.

The first thing as always is awareness. How can you stop a freight train in full go mode, if you don’t know you want to stop it?

Identify the memory, this bit is easy. Once the mud had been stirred it, it was clear (as disturbed mud) where the memory was. The more difficult part was to sit and listen to my brain retell it.

And it wasn’t putting me as the heroine. I was the victim, my brain was telling me who had done me wrong, and how and why they should pay. It was enjoying rerunning the details, blow by blow. Imagination is a wonderful tool, when it is used for our benefit.

I let my brain go on for a while, reliving the emotions and the sensations that those emotions evoked in my body, welling up in tears when it got to the saddest part, and feeling the anger surge violently when I wasn’t going to put up with the abuse anymore.

Once the picture had run it’s course, I was exhausted. Emotional reruns do that to us.

I sat in the semi-darkness, nursing the left over feelings of hurt, shame and guilt.

Then I decided this story was done, this would be the last time it gets to play with my emotions, with my permission. Creating a feeling of victim-ness in me. From this moment forward this story would become my empowerment to better things.

Pulling out my journal, I went into my sacred secret garden.

Ordering my movie projector player to begin again, I rewrote the story. I turned the villain into the victim, they were the victim of their life training. I made a decision to see them as a human. Isn’t it weird how we dehumanize people who do not live or think like we do.

I altered the details and the feelings around situations that happened.

That’s the great think about memories, they are an emotional stamp of an event. AND we have the ability to alter that emotional stamp at any time, so we feel better about the event and how we handled it.

The truth is, the event happened and I can’t change that. I can’t change the outcome or the physical facts surrounding the situation, but I can and I am choosing to change my story about myself and others in the story.

I am using this story to reinforce my belief that I am powerful, I am growing and maturing. I am empowered by the hardships, knocks and events that have happened, that were intended to keep me small, and make me believe I was broken. I am the heroine of my story. I survived and I am here.

Sitting in the semi-darkness, by the light of a touch lamp barely glowing, I wrote out all the heart ache, all the sorrow, all the guilt and all the shame. I cleansed my mind, my body and my spirit of all the feelings that generated vibrations that didn’t lead me to peace, harmony or joy.

Once I’d written everything out, there was no editing or monitoring my words, the hurt, and hateful emotions spewed out onto the page in all it’s ugliness, the bitterness, the feelings of broken-ness, and never feeling like I’d ever be ‘normal’ again, were all written in unreadable words. Peace flowed into the space that all this darkness and hurt had once been.

Ripping the pages out of my journal, I screwed them up and placed them on the imaginary altar in my sacred secret garden and burned them. In reality, I took those pages filled with hate and hurt to the incinerator and watched as the pages flared bright orange and the smoke wafted in the breeze taking the emotions away with it.

Peace had returned. Now, the Universe doesn’t like empty spaces, so back to my journal. This time to rewrite the ending of this story the way I want to remember it. With peace and love for myself. This is my version of the story and I can tell it however I want to. So I write all the good and marvelous things this event created for me. The fabulous people I met and the impact they had in changing my life. The skills I have now because of this situation and the way I learned to manage. I am who I am today partly because of this event.

Gratitude slowly moved into my heart, the feeling that everything does happen to strengthen me, and teach me how to be my best self, honestly with authenticity. The feeling that I can trust myself to handle any situation that comes my way, gives me confidence to let my emotions be.

So, what started out as a painful filter-less moment, turned into healing, hope, love and gratitude.

Was it easy? Nope! Definitely not.

Was it uncomfortable? Yip! Very, feeling emotions that have been locked up and hidden away for a long time are usually stronger and compounded by the fact that they have been locked up. So, when they are freed they over-compensate and are heightened.

Was it freeing? Oh, Yes! This is one story that has been set free.

Will it come up again? Most likely, my brain likes to dwell and ruminate on the hurtful past, for some reason it thinks it’s doing me a favour. I have a new story now and I share the revised version with my mind. Repetition is great for memory recall.

So into the future with one less bag of hurt to hold be back and trip me up.

Do you have a story from your past that has you playing the victim?

Does it keep you stuck in feelings of smallness, hurt, and pain?

You can find healing and peace too, find some one you trust who can guide you through a similar process to the one I followed, clear the hate, hurt and pain from your life, so you can walk briskly with light steps and a joyful heart into your future scene.

Until next time, remember your past stories by choice rather than by default.

xoxo Linda

#authenticlivingwithlinda

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