Change the Narrator of Your Story

Looking at how becoming your own narrator allows you to experience yourself as empowered, unblocks what is stuck, and enables your ability to explore who you are now and who you can become.

Transcript

Change the Narrator of Your Story

Every single one of us is like a woven blanket made out of stories. You can feel this when someone gives you a form to fill out. Some items are easy like your name, but others you'll struggle to narrow down like the type of work you do or your education or even your marital status. Who we are is just not that simple. We are the child of this person and that, the sibling of these, born in this birth order, who got along with these but not with those. We are the one who chose this career because of that, but despite this, who got married at this time for this reason vs that reason which in hindsight might have been better and there are this many children or no children. There are grandchildren but I never see them-take care of them full time- get to see them once in a while. I've done this with my life but have never done anything at all and I can't seem to shake this while I strive for that and struggle with this while I might succeed at that.

Who we are, the container we have designed for ourselves is made of all these stories. Stories so present we can rattle them off without thinking. Stories we might not even realize we're rattling off. This is especially obvious at the holidays. Relatives will tell the same old stories, guests will be regaled with old stories about family members, everyone will have an anecdote to share which is well worn and serves to situate the person's role within the family system rather than actually describe who they are as an individual.

We are taught telling stories, explaining things to people, and just expressing ourselves is communication. What we don't realize is it's also an active practice of manifestation. Each time we tell a story about ourselves – how our mother said we weren't smart and it's turned out to be true, that our father was cold and punitive so we're always living behind a sheet of ice and can't connect, why we're stuck in a career we hate but our parents told us to go into, how we can't get over a loss, always have to strive harder to be perfect, or are still dealing with this family member decades after it no longer makes sense - these stories come alive. They are not dry and dusty facts taken from the inventory in our brain to be written on a form, they are like a plant which we've just watered through the retelling. They come alive again, flourish within us, and become the structure we use to manifest our lives.

Like a silicone mold the stories we tell are what we press our raw prana into. Then when we want to bring something out into the world, we dump out the results, which are exactly shaped in the form our stories created for us, for good or for ill.

Most of the time we do it without thinking. We fall into "this is just the way it is." This leads to what Marth Beck calls "story fondling". Like a rosary or mala beads, each story has its bead and we worry it between our fingers to make sure we and everyone around us knows who and what we are. The story rarely varies, which is part of the point. It's stuck in time, ever 'now-ing' in us because it is not something we were, but is what we are. Present tense, currently active, manifesting in this reality, spooling out into the world as we speak.

This is great when the stories are uplifting, life affirming and supportive. In fact, the role of the storyteller is to remind us of these things. In the winter months when everyone is gathered inside, the storyteller or the chosen elder would tell stories of who we as a people are, what we have experienced, and who each of us can choose to be. There are stories of heroism, right relationship, how to be a good partner and others of what happens when you ignore the warnings and go too far with something. All of these stories are meant to help us take on a healthy framework for our own personal stories. As we are weaving our narrative this is the warp and we will move the weft of our choices and experiences through it back and forth, under and over, skipping spaces here, changing colors over there, and creating a truly unique fabric for the universe to display.

But what happens when the stories are negative? Or when they get stuck and never seem to end? How many of us have a story which seems to repeat in our head over and over since we were young, about this person or that situation? It never changes, never gets better, never seems to resolve, but endlessly loops. When people talk about being stuck, often this is where their stuckness is. In the stories they are living. Throughout each day things cause them to fondle their stories, reactivating all the issues, and manifesting more of what they don't want to do or be, thread by thread. 

What's lovely is we're in control of the stories we tell. We are manifesting machines full of free will and the ability to choose. We live a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' novel each and every day and so can choose which way our story goes.

But before we get into how to change the stories you're fondling, let me dispel a common misconception.  The narrative you weave for yourself, the stories you tell, are not "all in your head".  If they were, they would be easy to change.  Our thoughts, opinions, and inspirations change all the time, often without our even noticing.  No, the stories we tell are part of what is called the mind/body/brain system.  Our memories are not just something in our heads, but also contained in our bodies.  This is why, even though we completely regenerate our skin every 27 days, we retain permanent scars where things have negatively impacted us.  Our bodies store all the memories, emotions, and insights which are too traumatic for us to be conscious of and wait for the moment when we feel safe enough to remember and become them.

The stories we fondle are connected directly into our limbic system, which acts like an anti-virus program on our electronic devices, scanning everything to see if it's friend or foe and deciding how to process it.  This system reacts long before our brain even notices something has come in or is needing to go out. This is why it's so common for us to only realize we're telling an old story once we're in the middle of it.  It's a knee jerk response on auto pilot.

So, while positive affirmations can help, changing your mindset is a good idea, and setting an intention will work to set the stage, none of these things will reach in far enough to rewrite the stories which are you.

Rewriting Your Story

While the past can't be changed, the stories we tell are almost never historical documentaries.  None of us are Ken Burn's documenting the past for posterity.  Our stories are carefully crafted like a novel or a poem and we, as the author, can change them as we like.

Where to change them is not in the mind, but deeper, in our body/soul connection.  This can be done in a number of ways. 

Rebirthing is an example of physically rewriting the story.  If the purpose is to start fresh, reset everything to neutral, or to switch out the main characters such as who is the nurturing mother and supportive father, then a rebirthing ritual is a powerful solution. 

Re-enactment ceremonies offer a means of narrowing down the story which is being rewritten.  For example, becoming Inanna who chose to go down into the underworld rather than being abducted, who found her sister/self rather than a rapist, and who voluntarily stripped herself of everything in order to heal and become rather than being tricked into changing is a powerful and life changing process. 

Another example is when supportive friends, peers or associates stand in the place of specific people in your life and allow you to say what needs to, but has not yet, been said.  They can simply listen and take things in or be given permission to offer an in-character response which is appropriate and healing but real in the situation. 

Like playing the last note of a scale, these practices rewrite the end of the story, add new chapters, allow us to see a different moral to the tale and gives us freedom to reweave ourselves.

If reenacting works from the outside in, then working Akashically works from the inside out.

In working with patients suffering from trauma of all varieties, therapists have found rewriting the narrative allows the experience to move out of the 'ever now' of trauma time and into the linear time of past events. If we are able to be in the moment with our story and give it an ending or rewrite the ending we've been given, we can incorporate the experience, glean the wisdom, and allow our authentic selves to become the hero.

One way this is done in therapeutic settings is through EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). Using alternating stimulation, whether this be rapidly moving the eyes right to left or holding two paddles which alternatively vibrate or some other method, the patient will be prompted to recall a traumatic event or a story they normally fondle. The problem-solving portion of the brain, the part which knows this story to be as unchangeable as gravity, is distracted with the physicality of things going on therefore uses its energy in figuring out what is happening. This allows the rest of the brain, the part which creates our reality, to come to the fore of our consciousness. This part of us which works with the Akashic energy or prana then puts us into the story fully and completely, allowing us to change it so we get the ending which is best for us. The results can be surprising after the fact as the resolution is often something unexpected and transformative. But like a bell, once it is rung it can't be unrung and so the story is reclaimed and retooled into something empowering.

Another way to do this in therapeutic treatments is through somatics. As our bodies are not separate from the stories we tell, they will often indicate the resolution which would be healing for us even as we're fondling the old narrative which hurts us. A Somatic Experiencing therapist can support the patient in stopping the current narrative, then moving into the body, allowing them to feel into the story. Connecting this way into the prana or Akashic flow allows the body to hold us in safe space so we can know and experience our truth. It quiets the loud voice of the old story and lets us listen to the quiet roar of our inner knowing which wants to unfold like the most beautiful water spilling over an old and crumbling dam.

This can also be done in the Akashics itself.

Each of us has access to an Akashic Temple in the Akashics. These are holy places of learning, healing, and transformation. When you are ready to discover the truth of a story you've been telling, rewrite the ending or rewrite it completely, you can see the door into the Akashics ahead of you. When you open it, you'll walk into the Akashic Temple. There you'll be met by beings, gods and goddesses, guides, angels, healers or whomever else has come to help. They will hold sacred space for you to actively rewrite the story. As you rewrite it there, it is simultaneously rewritten within you including your body right down to the DNA. 

Another way to do this is to invite a healer to your Akashic room. Each of us has one while we're embodied and only we can invite beings into it. Healers are more than happy to work with us in rewriting events, meaning, and endings to the stories we tell about ourselves, showing how we wrote them initially or accepted those which were written for us, then unraveling them so we can start fresh weaving our reality.

Akashic healers act, not as surgeons doing the work for us, but as doulas supporting us in the work we have come to do. They support us through the process, guide us along the way so we arrive safely at the best outcome and potent transformation.

Rewriting the narrative of your life, becoming your own narrator, not only frees you from old connections, past events, and well-aged trauma, but it allows you to experience yourself as empowered. If you are no longer carrying the burden of all this baggage, then your muscles and sinew, your life force and sense of self, are available to explore who you are now and who you can become.