Why Hold on to Your Old Story?

[Photo by Abby Chung via PEXELS]

I was just thinking about an old physical wound. Do you know the kind I mean? The kind that creates so much damage, you never quite heal from it? I pondered how often I’d bring up the topic of that old wound in conversation with people.

I was thinking, too, about an old emotional wound–the kind that created so much damage, it often surfaced when talking with others as well. It was a wound with a life of its own that approached people even before I did. I’m sure they could see it on my face, feel it in the energy around me.

I’m in my 60’s now. If and when we get to this stage of the journey of our lives, I’m pretty sure most of us have had at least one, if not both, of these types of wounds. Some, we’ve gotten over, but some we have not.

Today I heard some good advice, specifically related to physical wounds/damage/pain, but I think it is also VERY RELEVANT to EMOTIONAL wounds/damage/pain. It went something like this:

Don’t just think about the wound/damage/pain; What are you going to do about it?

In other words, we identify so much with an old story (my poor health or my poor self) that we tell people the story repeatedly until, eventually, it becomes a pattern to stay identified with that old story. We take comfort in that association, in that pattern. Maybe we get love or attention for it, and we need love and attention (don’t we all?). We latch onto that pain and we play back the mental video over and over again. It’s the victim story (the “I’ll-never-overcome-this” story), playing on repeat in our bodies and minds. We become a slave to the story; it takes over our lives and inhibits our ability to overcome that wound/damage/pain.

The Hero’s Journey:

If you’re not familiar, there was a book by Joseph Campbell that introduced something called, “The Hero’s Journey.” Among other things, it laid out a common story structure wherein the protagonist of a story (the soon-to-be “Hero”) sets out on “an adventure,” which essentially ends up being a challenging journey. Along the way, the person overcomes many obstacles and eventually returns home with a reward of some sort (a physical or symbolic object, or even just “lessons learned”) to share with others or keep for himself/herself.

Our lives are like “The Hero’s Journey” in that we are all in the midst of our own life story. When we go through difficulties and challenges in life, we might develop wounds/damage/pain along the way that we may not survive. BUT, if we are still here, if we are still alive, our story has not yet ended. And THAT means we still have time left to change the path of our journey by consciously doing something different than what we are doing (or NOT doing) now. We can LET GO OF THE OLD VICTIM STORY and return home with “lessons learned” for ourselves and maybe even others.

KNOW THIS…

YOU can see yourself as the HERO of your own story.
YOU can DO SOMETHING ABOUT where you’re going BY NOT CLINGING TO WHERE YOU’VE BEEN.
YOU can CHANGE what you are telling yourself and/or others.

“But, HOW?” you ask?

ACCEPTANCE: Well, for starters, you can accept that IT’S POSSIBLE to overcome the wounds/damage/pain of your past. Acceptance is absolutely necessary to even begin considering what you’re latching on to in your past.

AWARENESS: Identifying something you’re holding on to means you have an awareness of it, and THAT is super important, because if you are AWARE of something, it means you can DO something about it.

FIGURE OUT THE “WHY?”: Now, it’s time to dig in to the WHY of it all, and this is the tough part. It takes A LOT of work to dig into your “Why’s” and it’s not for the faint-hearted. You have to really want to work on it, and you have to put your money where your mouth is and actually DO the work.

You can navigate the “WHY?” terrain either via ‘self-help books’ or with the assistance of teachers, life coaches, guides, and/or mental-health professionals.

BUT PLEASE BE CAREFUL!!
If you feel at any point that you are too fragile to negotiate this emotional territory alone, then DO NOT DO IT ALONE! Seek professional help!

If, on the other hand, you’re fairly certain it’s more of a ‘self-help category’ of emotional pain for you, (something you feel confident tackling alone because you’ve already had success with self-help) then start looking for self-help books online for your particular area of emotional challenge.
It’s time to begin the journey back to yourself and to the present moment, where the past is a well of lessons learned that you can move on from, the present moment is all there really is for sure, and the future is something left to be written by YOU.

I’m on this journey myself and honestly have been for the majority of my 60-something years on this planet. There are always hills and mountains to climb, and valleys in between in which to take refuge and refuel until the next uphill challenge, but overall, “the journey within” is very much worth the effort to help me stay in the present moment more often, which, as it turns out, is the only REAL thing I know of.

ALL WE HAVE IS NOW. The past is behind us and an open road is ahead of us. Nothing is written until we write it ourselves; and if we DON’T write it ourselves, someone else will do it for us (which is not usually a good thing). The deeper our self-awareness, the more we are able to influence the rest of our journey… if you can accept that, then you are ALREADY ON “The Hero’s Journey.”

There’s always still time to change YOUR story structure to “The Hero’s Journey.”
But don’t just think about it… DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! 😊

As always, I send my love to you on your life journey!!