Changing the Stories we Tell

I’m writing this post to prove to myself that a story I tell myself isn’t true.

I am at a country park in South West Wales. I had to bring my son here for a bushcraft meets Minecraft half term activity. My plan was to set myself up in the coffee shop with my laptop, work on my yoga course and write a blog post. I was going to do this till about 2, then reward myself with a walk.

Disaster struck when I discovered that I didn’t have my laptop bag. As well as no laptop,  this means I have no yoga book. I have this idea that I can’t write at length on my phone, so dismissed the idea of being able to work. I took this as a lesson in accepting when life goes wrong and enjoying the present moment.

Which I have been. I am in beautiful woodland. I can hardly hear any traffic. The bird song is delightful, and the wind in the trees soothing my soul. I have found a beautifully generous oak tree that has provided a perfect seat, and I’m thoroughly enjoying the moment.

I’m not a person who enjoys being told what I can and can’t do. A natural rebel, I even rebel against myself. This is usually problematic, as I am sure you can imagine. But today, it forced me to challenge my thinking.

Why can I not write a blog post on my phone? I write messages, texts and Facebook posts on my phone. Why did I decide that blog posts can only be written on my laptop or not at all?

Challenge the limiting belief

My mind is littered with stories like this.

“I’ve eaten a bar of chocolate, I may as well eat the crisps, sweets, and any other junk I can find”

“I’ve only got half an hour, I can’t do any useful work in that time, I may as well just relax”

“All my past relationships with men have been disasters, I should just stay single and hide”

We learn through stories. As we experience more of the world, we create stories that tell us how the world is. Much of the time, these stories are designed to keep us safe, and they are sub conscious. And many of them are based on old data.

Old stories aren’t always still true

I have, in the past, had phones on which writing a long blog post would have been impossible. This phone is not one of those. When I examined the story I was telling myself, I found it to be untrue. Maybe once it was, but in the spirit of accepting life as it is, I can’t, in all honesty, believe that story anymore.

The same is true of the other stories. At some point, they may have had some validity to them. The chocolate one is based on my experience of bulimia when I was 18. That certainly doesn’t have the right to make my decisions now. And I know that if I focus on one task I can achieve something good in 30 minutes (like a blog post written on my phone, sitting on a tree). And as for the men story…well, I’m growing into that not being true,  but maybe, for now, it’s the safest thing! Sometimes we need to live in the story while we are writing a new one.

What stories are you allowing to hold yourself back?

Can you look at them and honestly say that they are still true?

I originally published this post on my Facebook page, but wanted to share it here as well