What Out-dated Story Are You Still Living By Today?

What out-dated story are you still living by today?

 Are you aware of it, and it’s impacts on your life? 

 Would you like to bring it to your awareness? 

 After all, you can’t change what you are not aware exists in the first place. 

 “It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.”

- Patrick Rothfuss, American author.

 Those who know me might also know that I am mixed. My mum was from Ghana and my dad from Lebanon. I was the intersection between an African and an Arab, a Catholic and a Muslim. I was baptised as a baby then when a toddler was raised in a Muslim household.

 My parents divorced before I was two years old. The circumstances then meant that I was shuffled around between carers and homes until I arrived, in the sixties, at the doorsteps of my Lebanese grandmother in Tripoli, Lebanon. 

 Not many people looked like me in those days. I was one of two black pupils in the whole school. The result was being subjected to discrimination and racism during the most impressionable years of my life. My brown skin became a reason to dislike me, reject me, call me names, poke fun at me, ignore me, or treat me with total inconsideration.

 It is no wonder that the combination of the unsettled early years and having to face those biases led me to make the decision that I was not good enough, and that I needed to try hard to earn people’s love.  

 When you tell yourself a story long enough, you believe it and it impacts all your life choices. 

 That was the story that I lived by for most of my teen and young adult years and it did negatively impact my personal and professional life. I experienced a crisis in my thirties, had a breakdown, and got myself some much needed help in the form of coaching and counselling. That was the moment when things started to change. 

 It was only then, in those therapeutic sessions, that I started to bring aspects of this old, out-dated story into my awareness. I started challenging its truth, and questioned its validity. Only then life began to slowly change, and I started first to love myself and then allow the love of others to flow into my life. Only then I began to experience joy and fulfilment, which spread around me and engulfed everyone in my world. 

 “There is a surrendering to your story and then a knowing that you don’t have to stay in your story.”

- Colette Baron-Reid, Intuitive Counsellor

 I observe a similar, yet unique experience, in my clients. I see how many of them are also still living according to an old, out-dated story. I witness how they carry heavily within them the limiting decisions and beliefs that they formed decades ago. The story that brought some comfort years ago is now the cause of so much discomfort because it is thwarting their chances of a happy and successful life. 

 The out-dated story could be stopping you from going after that promotion, or acing that interview, from speaking up and sharing your ideas during work meetings, or starting a relationship. It could be the reason you focus on the needs of others and neglect your own. The reason you can’t say no and try hard to meet the demands of others. The reason you are afraid to show your emotions and your vulnerability. The reason you strive for perfection and fear making mistakes. 

 My clients and I work together so they can become fully aware of the old story. This allows them to re-examine those decisions, and choose when and how to let this old story go, make new choices and live according to a changed and more authentic story. 

 What about you? 

 Are you still holding on to an out-dated story? 

 Would you like to bring it to your awareness? 

 Let’s talk.

DECISIONS, FEAR & RAIN

We often make decisions based on an emotion.

Fear is an emotion that most often drives our decision making process. Fear signals danger and directs our mind to take an action that can hopefully get us back into safety.

However when intense fear is repeatedly experienced in the absence of real danger, then it is no longer serving to secure our survival. In these circumstances fear serves to make us feel trapped and ends up holding us back from living to our full potential.

Our emotion of fear is shaped by our personal history and can get contaminated by memories of past events. That’s why some of us fear things that for others hold no danger.

My personal history meant that I have experienced the rise and fall of fear most of my life. I often said no because I feared saying yes, and I said yes because I feared saying no. In time I have learnt to explore and befriend my fears so I can stop expending energy defending my life instead of living it; most importantly so I can make decisions from a calm instead of a reactive place. It seems that I am not alone as many of my clients have their own stories around fear and how it impacts their decision making.

So what can you do when fear, in the absence of real danger, seems to often hold you hostage and negatively impact your decision process?

“Quiet the mind and the soul will speak.”

- Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati, spiritual teacher

I personally find Tara Brach’s RAIN meditation practice extremely helpful. RAIN is an acronym for: Recognise, Allow, Investigate, Nurture.

Recognise what is happening right in that moment and name it. What are you feeling exactly?

Allow those feelings and let them be without judgment. Don’t try to ignore them, criticise or get rid of them. On the contrary, let them be.

Investigate with a sense of curiosity and interest the sensory experience in your body. Where exactly in your body is this feeling? How is it being expressed inside of you? Ask yourself, “What am I believing is happening?” Sense if there is a core belief there. Do you perhaps feel unlovable or unworthy? How does this feel somatically in your body? Place your hand gently on whatever part of your body where you are feeling those difficult emotions. Ask yourself, “What does this vulnerable part of me need?”. Is it forgiveness, compassion, understanding, love or trust?

Nurture by intentionally offering whatever kindness is needed and is most going to serve you in that moment. Is it love, acceptance, understanding or belief in you? It can be something that you offer to yourself, or you can also imagine someone else offering it to you like a grandparent or a dear friend. Sense their presence and loving care. Communicate and offer what is being asked. Send a message that is simply helpful such as “thank you for trying to protect me but I am okay now” or “you are loved and safe now.”

Now take a moment and reflect on the situation. Notice what has shifted. What decision is now coming naturally to you? What have you learnt or discovered as a result of this practice?

It’s a simple mindful and self-compassionate practice yet very profound. As Tara says, the gift from practicing RAIN is that you start living from the truth of who you are rather than from your reactive self.

For more information you can check Tara Brach’s website: https://www.tarabrach.com/rain/

Or read her book Radical Acceptance.