What shape does the story of your life make?

Are there things in your life that you'd rather leave out?
If your story was to be told as a TED talk or made into a documentary, what parts would you include, and what would you leave on the cutting-room floor?

What do others say about you?
What do you say about yourself?

'You always do this, I always do that, things always turn out this way…'

What about other sources of influence on your story? Instagram is carrying your narrative one way, Facebook and Twitter another. Magazines and movies and reality TV all have a version of your story, as do the government and news outlets and religious institutions. They want you to align your story with their words, their values, their interpretation of life, what it should mean, and what it should look like.

They want you to assimilate your story with theirs.

Our own stories are complicated. They're not congruent and linear. There're many plot twists, multiple forks in the road, a thousand different influences vying for our submission, and new characters popping all the time, while old ones shift and bend and do whatever the hell they want, so it seems.

Your own story is hard to keep with. It's fragmented and random and wild, but at the same time, predictable and unexciting and same-same. It can be difficult to break out of old reactionary behaviour even when new things pop up.

And that can be one of the frustrating things about being a human… wanting to be able to experience something differently but not knowing how and what to change to make it so.

There are the things that happen to us, the place we come from, our heritage and culture and circumstances; there are the forces of nurture and nature; there are our passions and skills and desires…

And then, there's the story/stories we tell ourselves about it.

Narrative changes everything.

I've learned this the hard way; perhaps you have, too. Breaking under the weight of crippling narratives about myself, my body, my place in the world, my own (lack of) power, my duty… and more. The challenge has been to crumble or create new narratives that aren't as toxic to my systems, new stories that my life, body, and heart can carry.

I know people say that actions speak louder than words, but I do believe that the words you hold dear, the ones that you echo in the centre of yourself, direct your actions. And if you want a new experience, you must include the work of creating new narratives for your actions to get their cues.

Narrative work is deeply spiritual work in the sense that it's about your connections to yourself, reality, the world around you, and others.

Rumi said:

"But don't be satisfied with stories, how things
have gone with others. Unfold
your own myth, without complicated explanation,
so everyone will understand the passage,
we have opened you."

Everything is a portal for your growth and becoming, or at least, a pathway to presence, to be in your life while you live it. Sometimes you find yourself in a place where your stories about the world and yourself no longer serve you, and you need new ones. Don't despair, and do not condemn yourself for being here… This is the place where you find your path, where the moments of your life open you up for what's next, what's now, and what's true.

JOURNAL PROMPT: What are some of the stories that run your life? Things like: Sucess means *this,* My body should be *that,* people always leave me, I'm a scew up… etc. How would your life change if you could re-write these narratives?

Written by Liz Milani
Instagram: @thepracticeco

From this week’s series, "Changing the Narrative", with a subscription, in the App.