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.
Do You Unknowingly Carry Unconscious Bias?
At the junior school that I attended in Lebanon there was a small kiosk where students could order something to eat during lunch break. Students could make their orders through a small window and were served by two ladies. There was no such thing as a queue system. The only way to purchase something during the break was to push your way through dozens of other students doing the same until you reached the front and then got the attention of one of the ladies and asked for what you needed, paid, got your change and then fought your way out again.
On one such occasion I fought my way in, bought myself a sandwich then fought my way back out, only to find out that the lady who served me gave me the wrong change. She gave me back too much money. I had more on me than when I started.
“Oh no!” I thought to myself, because I knew that annoyingly I was going to have to fight my way back in again to return the extra cash that did not belong to me. Those were the values that my grandma brought me up with. She taught me to never steal or keep something that does not belong to me.
So I went back, before I even ate my sandwich, fought my way back to the front of the window then tried to shout louder than the other kids to get the attention of the lady who served me. When I got her attention I handed her the money back and told her that she gave me too much by mistake. She was shocked! She literally stood there with her mouth open in disbelief. Not at making a mistake but at the fact that I, the black girl who has been experiencing racism and discrimination at school and, no good were ever expected of her, voluntarily returned what was not hers to keep. The lady finally thanked me quietly once she recovered.
Since that time and on every single occasion I fought my way to buy something from the kiosk, that lady would attend to my needs as soon as she saw my face emerge through the crowd of students, which was easy to spot as I was one of two black kids in the whole school. She would make a point of ignoring everyone’s screaming orders and look at me and ask me what I needed. It was her way of showing me appreciation for my action.
"Systems do not maintain themselves; even our lack of intervention is an act of maintenance. Every structure in every society is upheld by the active and passive assistance of other human beings.”
- Sonya Renee Taylor, author and activist
At the time I was struck by how my genuine behaviour caused a shift in this lady’s preconceived notion of black people. However now and with everything I have learnt over time about human behaviour and societal issues I realise what an unfair burden was put on that child that was me, to have felt that I needed to prove my worthiness as a black person by being a good little girl; that as a black person it is too risky for me to make mistakes. A similar message, that many black people experience in the US, UK and elsewhere. A message that was reinforced when I worked in the UK and was told by a well meaning line manager that as a black person I needed to work twice as hard as a white person to get the same recognition.
I hope this story makes you stop and think. Perhaps reflect on whether you unknowingly carry any unconscious biases and decide to confront those biases and change. One way to explore this is through working with a coach, counsellor or therapist.