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Humans are natural storytellers. We tell ourselves stories every minute of every day. Some of them inspiring and others disheartening – containing the faculty to make us levitate above the clouds or bulldoze our aspirations.
Have you ever met someone who miraculously stumbled upon good fortune no matter which direction they turned? Or someone who claimed the very opposite as their truth? Disaster mimicked their every move like an evil twin. What makes these two individuals attract such divergent forces?
In many cases, it’s the story they tell themselves. One might sound like, “Good things happen to me often. I have so much to be grateful for and blessings still keep coming my way. I deserve to live a fulfilling life with an endless reserve of happiness.”
The other might sound like, “I am a magnet for catastrophe. Nobody loves me. I don’t even love me. Great things happen to others, but they rarely, if ever, happen to me.”
Both stories, though may not be true at the time of delivery, eventually manifest into reality in their own ways. Consider every story, regardless of how far-fetched or absurd, a prophecy. To think it and to feel it is also to experience it. Experiences are always looking to replicate themselves. This is why “waking up on the wrong side of the bed” puts our entire day at risk of misfortunate. We expect an entire day of downhills, and so that’s exactly what we are given. Even Murphy’s law has been around since 1949, an adage stating that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. All we need to do is say the words, believe in the story, and its truth is granted.
Just the same, our “golden days” where seemingly nothing can go wrong, will continue to shine in spite of the shit storms brewing in other people’s lives. In spite of war, famine, and natural disasters. So, how does one change the story they tell themselves? Especially if their whole life revolves around being worthless, without purpose or meaning.
It’s not easy. But that doesn’t mean it needs to be impossible, either. Our stories often begin simply, with a mantra in our heads. Then, they become a belief, followed by actions that continuously reinforce those beliefs. If your mantra says, “Nobody wants me, nobody loves me,” then your belief will be that you are unworthy of love. Your action that follows might be to choose emotionally unavailable partners who abandon you without warning. Why? Because the outcome matches your story. Humans are always looking to confirm the biases they believe to be true.
We change our stories when we change our mantras – when we force our beliefs to adapt to new ways of thinking. Our actions will have no choice but to adapt, too.
Be wary, also, of your unconscious beliefs. If you believe that money makes people evil, you might unconsciously be rejecting wealth. If you believe parenthood ties you down and significantly reduces your freedom, then you might unconsciously be keeping yourself from conceiving. Beliefs don’t necessarily need to match our actions, but they are likely the reason behind every outcome. So, change them.
The best news in all of us this is that beliefs are malleable, and so are we. We can change the way we see the world and ourselves. It just takes practice. It just takes consistent, little reminders, day by day.
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Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash
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