What's YOUR story?

We all tell ourselves stories of our lives, all the time, and we live out those stories. When I think back over all the people I've talked to over the years, each one of them has a story. One woman had an abusive mom, and struggles daily to avoid becoming an abuser. Another woman was molested as a child, and has never had a truly satisfying relationship with a man. The story generally comes down to this:

* Somebody done me wrong
* I'm bad/defective/incapable/hopeless
* I feel afraid/angry/sad (and it's stopping me?)
* I want to feel better
* I don't know what to do

The characters in the story generally are:

* Victim
* Victimizer/villain
* Rescuer/hero

And often the speaker sees him- or herself as the victim, that is, (s)he is telling the story from the victim’s point of view.

Are you telling your story from the victim’s point of view? What if you rewrote your story? What if you were the hero instead of the victim? (Because no one wants to see him or herself as the villain in his or her own story.)

A hero isn't someone whose life is perfect. Think of Raiders of the Lost Ark... Indiana Jones just got out ALIVE after he stole the bag of jewels from its cave hiding place, with that enormous boulder crashing towards him. It wasn’t easy; it wasn’t fun (for him). And there wasn’t any glory, at least not at that point. The hero is someone who, like Indy, gets through the tough stuff -- that’s all — gets through it, gets out alive. What if all those "someone done me wrong" items weren't the actions of villains, but obstacles on your hero's journey?

So instead your story would be

* I faced an obstacle -- because my soul set up a challenge/learning situation
* I am capable/whole/learning
* I feel how I feel -- and am carrying on despite that
* I choose to feel better, and am learning the tools for that
* Somewhere inside me, I do/did know what to do -- because I'm still here

Now the former abused child lets go of her identity as a victim, and instead sees that perhaps she came into this incarnation wanting to learn compassion. She see that she is learning this, however slowly, that she often feels angry and hurt, but that she is working every day to treat people kindly. She is learning to meditate and let go of her justified anger at what happened in her childhood. And that the simple fact that she continues to do this every day is her hero’s journey, that she does know what to do, maybe not in every instance, but in more and more situations every day. And as she lives out that more empowering story, every day she has more choices.

What happens when you rewrite your story?