Your Story

Can the stories you tell yourself about who you are shape your reality? Join me, Don Thompson, as I navigate the profound influence of self-narratives on our identities and behaviors, inspired by Sean Fargo's insightful worksheet. Through personal reflections, I reveal how these narratives often root in our backgrounds and parental influences, dictating our beliefs and actions. I'll share my own journey of self-discovery, shaped by a creative father, and explore how our perceptions of ourselves, from gender and sexuality to artistic expression, can evolve and transform our lives.

As we challenge the notion of a fixed self, you'll discover the incredible flexibility we possess in redefining who we are. By examining how our stories can limit or empower us, we'll encourage you to embrace the fluid nature of human identity. Whether influenced by the trade of a parent or the decision to pursue an artistic path, the stories we tell can lead to vastly different outcomes. Tune in to learn how reshaping your personal narrative can pave the way for a more mindful, intentional, and fulfilling life.

Music: Leva - 'Your Stories'

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Transcript

Don Thompson with another podcast for you today. And the subject for today's podcast will be the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. In other words, what story are you telling yourself about yourself, and what are you believing about yourself? And I'll give a little credit to Sean Fargo. I found a really excellent worksheet with some questions regarding this topic, and I'll review it. And I also have a couple of thoughts on my own. I’ll begin with those thoughts. 

Basically, I notice in my life that when I deal with people, when I deal with myself, there seems to be a story, a narrative that one tells about oneself and this narrative. This story can often, if not many times, and sometimes persistently result in a reality that manifests as the story you're telling yourself. If you keep telling yourself that you're this way, well, you'll probably end up being that way. And I know that sounds like stating the obvious in a way, but it's amazing how many people believe in this idea that they are a fixed self, that they are something, they are a particular personality that has particular traits and not all the traits they might like. You know, they might not like some of the traits, but yet they do. Persist, and they do believe that they can't really escape from these traits. And in reality, that's not really true. I mean, human beings are very malleable. They're very flexible. They're very fluid, really, as we've discussed in this podcast, in a variety of different contexts. 

And my sense of mindfulness is that it really, in essence, has a benefit that helps us to see that we are a little bit more fluid than we had thought. Now we are going to be, um, a man or a woman. But in our modern age, even that won't necessarily dictate who we are. I mean, we can alter ourselves so we can we can change our sexuality in today's modern era, if we so choose. We have that freedom. At least we do now. Maybe not always, but for the most part, people can choose and we can choose our sexuality. We can choose if we're kind to somebody, we can choose if we're mean to somebody, we can choose if we believe in one. Political candidate or another. We can believe in in a God, or we can believe in no God. We can believe in love, or we can believe that such a thing is a fantasy and doesn't exist. So there are many things that we can. We can believe and all of these things, or many of these things involve a story that we're telling ourselves. 

A lot of our stories, I think it seems to me, come out of our background, out of what our parents did, what they what our parents did will often dictate or influence what we do. And of course, this, you know, some of somebody has a trade, their parents have a trade, and they have a business and they might inherit the business in the trade, and they might carry on with that business within a trade. I mean, that's an obvious example. But there are other examples. I know in my own life, when I look back at my the influences of my life, I know that my parents were a big influence on my life and my interests You know what I'm interested in as a as an adult to this day, I would say to a great extent have to do with my parents. I did I did really feel, you know, in many ways very good about my parents. They had a lot of rough times. But I think as a rule in general, I really liked my parents. I really loved my parents. Uh, and uh, my, my father was a particular influence on me, and he was a quite a dynamic human being and very creative human being and really had a great influence on me. 

And so my story involved creativity in some way. I was like the arts and creativity. And I had some, you know, I guess, talent, a little bit of talent that that way. So I tried to and have expressed myself through artistic efforts. It's a story, you know, it's a story that I tell myself about the artist, but. The story about the artist can take a variety of different paths. You can have a successful artist, you can have a starving artist, you can have a commercial artist, you can have a sellout artist. You can have an artist that's very adamant about making sure that their particular vision is is realized. You can have an artist that bends to the will of the customer. There's a lot of different stories in our artists can tell themselves about what their art means and what what they can do relative to their art and how they approach it. So, you know, you can have a particular predilection, you might say some artistic talent or whatever, for example, but that can be expressed in a variety of different ways, depending on the story that you're telling yourself about what art means, the value of art within society. Is it really valuable? Is it only valuable if you can make money with it? 

You know, that's a big question. And that question will reflect itself in the story that you tell yourself. If you tell yourself the story that art can never make money, well, you probably won't make money at your art. If you tell yourself that art can make money, then maybe you'll make money at your art. That's one example of telling a story relative to your background, relative to a certain predilection you might have. There are many other influences. I mean, people are influenced to be doctors all the time. I can't tell you how many times I've seen that. I'm sure you've seen it too. People are told a story by their parents. Um, I lived with a young guy who was a roommate of mine at UCLA when I was in undergraduate in film school, and he was going to be a doctor. His parents influenced in that way. They wanted him to be a doctor. And he there was really no choice. He ended up being a doctor. He ended up being a pediatrician. He was quite good at it. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing at all. 

He accepted it, and he did it. He became a doctor. The story that his parents told him was very much that he was going to be a doctor. I knew it, I heard it, I listened to it. You know, when I was in high school with him, I heard it, the story, and that's what he ended up being. My parents were a little bit more flexible. It was more, I do what you want, you know, that type of thing. However, some parents are oftentimes very, very adamant about the story that they have that they want their children to fulfill for whatever reason. Maybe it's practical, maybe it's you know, maybe there are other reasons. Maybe they didn't do it themselves and would like to see it completed. This idea is completed through their children. But anyway, let's stretch to this exercise that John Fargo has laid out: I. I think it's really interesting and why we're doing this exercise. You know, why don't you just settle into you know, you're you're likely seated right now, you know, but just settle into a seated position and just relax. Relax your body and make sure that you feel comfortable in a seated position and just sort of, you know, feel your breathing, breathing in and breathing out. And notice while you're going through this exercise how your body feels, what kind of reaction your body is having to these inquiries that we're going to do or relative to the story that you tell yourself. And so you want to, you know, be aware of the positive or negative impact any of these stories might have on your physical being. 

And you know, with the idea that perhaps these stories can influence our health, you know, and they can they can do that. Um, but, you know, maybe they're positively influencing you. Maybe they're making you feel quite good. And that's also a good thing to note. And basically, what I'm asking you to do is to gain an increased awareness of this topic, the topic of the story that you're telling yourself about yourself. So let's begin by observing that story. What is the story that you tell about yourself and in your life? What is your life story? What is your narrative? Is it a narrative of success? Is it a narrative of failure? Is a narrative of incompletion? Is it a narrative that you like or dislike? And what is the narrative that you say privately to yourself? If it contradicts the narrative that you have, that you express publicly about yourself, is there a contradiction there? Uh, what's the difference? Uh, do you really feel one way about yourself and your narrative that you tell yourself about yourself or I'll never succeed, whereas in your public-facing self, you say, oh, well, I'm? Such a winner. You know, you can be honest with yourself. It's. Nobody's going to be looking. It's just you and me on this podcast. Um, unless you email me or whatever, I. I'm not going to know. This is all your story. This is your inquiry. 

So you want to observe the story and the way that it connects with incidents in your life. And you might, you know, think about this. Just ponder this for a moment. You could even take some notes if you'd like related to the incidents in your life that have really influenced this story and just try to connect them, you know, is kind of a narrative arc. I write screenplays and, um, you might say you're you're looking at the screenplay of your life and what that looks like. If somebody was going to do a biopic about you, what would they say? Or what would the events be in your life? How would you connect them? So this is a very interesting exercise. What would the screenplay, the play, the narrative of your life be should you have a chance to to tell it? You know, maybe you will tell it someday. Who knows. And maybe this could be the beginning of that telling. And that would be wonderful if you could do that. Not necessarily, but simply reflecting on your life as a narrative and reflecting about the feelings that you have towards it. It's a very beneficial thing. It's a very good thing to do, you know, to reflect on it. I often reflect on it in terms of patterns of my own life, and to try to notice patterns and whether or not those patterns or things that I want or don't want, you know, try to be conscious, try to be aware of patterns in your life that might be influencing you in a negative way or a positive way. 

And again, I went back to my parents and my parents had many, many, many, many positive influences on the way I approached things. But yet, on the other hand, I could say that some insecurities have also arisen from that situation. Um, you know, so I have to be aware of that, and I have to be mindful of that. And I have to note that. And as you go through this process, I think it's a the big thing is not to be judgmental, you know, trying to be objective about it from the standpoint of have compassion for yourself, you know, look at yourself as if you would look, be looking at a friend or talking to a friend rather than, you know, judging yourself about your story, about your flaws and your faults, or maybe what you're good at. You know, you feel good about it, of course, but, you know, don't be so hard on yourself. I guess in this exercise, be a little gentle and compassionate with yourself. You should tell your story, what what your narrative is, and you can reflect on it. You can reflect on this story. And what is it telling you? And, um, can you apply some mindfulness to it? Can you step back and take a look at it mindfully? And in doing so, can you learn something about yourself? Because everything is a choice. You know, that's a great thing about human beings. You can choose. You don't have to be locked into a particular pattern. You can change it if you want to. You can stay with it if you want to, or you could change it if you want to. It's really up to you. You have choice. At least I believe so. And I'm going to support that proposition. So I thank you for listening. As always, I enjoy giving these podcasts. I hope you get something out of it. And I certainly enjoy talking about these subjects. I learned something from it myself all the time. So again, thank you and I look forward to talking to you again soon. Bye bye.