I’ve been thinking a lot about stories this week. Specifically the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.
We probably all have them. I’m not sure (never having been anybody else), but I know I do.
The thing is, until very recently, I hadn’t noticed that these stories weren’t real. That they were based on specific interpretations of things that could actually be interpreted in all sorts of other ways.
I was acting as though they were facts, when actually they were possibilities.
This didn’t matter too much when the stories I was telling helped me to be happy and healthy, but many of the stories did quite the opposite. For example, I had all kinds of stories that told me not to try new ways of being or doing things, because I wasn’t that kind of person. And I believed them.
Having started to get my head around the idea that these stories may not all be worth believing, I decided to see how many unhelpful ones I could dismantle and replace with new ones.
Lots of them, it turned out.
And I’m beginning to think: what if there isn’t such a thing as a kind of person? What if it’s ok to hold a little less tightly onto who we think we are and start being a bit more playful, experimental and curious about who we might like to be?
So I’m curious…do you have stories about yourself too?
Who else might you like to be?