Owning Our Stories
“Remember the moment you accept total responsibility for everything in your life is the moment you claim the power to change anything in your life.” ~ Hal Elrod
This is what is referred to as owning our stories, and yeah I mean owning our entire story, not just the parts we find particularly flattering, easy or entertaining. I mean claiming it all, especially the stuff we really don’t wish to claim. The stuff we hide or try and mask. The stuff we run from. The choices that have caused us pain and suffering, the image we so desperately want to project to the world, our relationships, our responses to life and others, our behaviors, our thoughts and our feelings.
We hand our power over to those around us… every…single…day. We hand it over to those we love dearest, to total strangers, to the culture as a whole, to the media, and perhaps most profoundly to those we don’t even really respect or like that much. We hand over our power to situations beyond our control. We give away more of ourselves than we’d really care to, we dishonor our boundaries. We say “yes” when we want to say “no” We offer our “help” to those we deem worthy. And then we resent those same people when they fail to utilize that “help” the way we believe they should. We apologize when we haven’t done anything wrong. We fail to apologize when we have done something wrong. We make excuses. We justify. We rationalize. We try to impress and buy the affection of those whose opinion of us we believe to be important…and then resent them for their lack of appropriate gratitude or awe. Why is that?
When we continue to hold tightly to the fantasy that people, places, and things are responsible for our feelings (good or bad) we remain a prisoner. The pay-off? It keeps us from having to look inward. It is the most brilliant of distractions. It keeps us “free”…miserable, twisting and tied up in knots of anxiety, depression and frustration…but “free” Free from responsibility. Free from doing our own work. Free from owning our stories. Free from looking deep into that mirror. It keeps us from having to change.
As long as we are believing the narrative “what’s wrong in my life is out there” we are powerless to take control our of lives. We are powerless to change. We are suffering needlessly.
The bad news? We are our problem. The beyond fabulous news? We are our problem. Because if we are our problem this also is true… We are our solution. If you are my problem I am doomed to misery as I am (despite my brilliance & greatest charms) 100% powerless to change or fix you. If I am my problem? Trudging step by step toward the solution will require depths of courage and vulnerability too great to articulate, it will require perseverance, vast discomfort, humility and determination…And it is 100% attainable.
Empowerment. Surrender. Accountability. Integrity. Freedom. Compassion. I love these words.
My greatest desire is that you’re stirred by them as well….
We are the only ones who get to decide when we wish to leap off the train of insanity and misery…. Tuck & roll baby….tuck & roll
Peace & Love Always Xo, Beth
