What’s your story? Does your narrative change very often? How does it relate to your spirit?

Everything that you do comes with a story. It’s the same with everything that happens to you. These narratives develop in real-time as each kind of event occurs.

As soon as the present moment passes, these stories can get told over and over, either out loud to everyone around you, or in your mind only to your self. Either way, with repetition, they get laid down deeper and deeper, like ruts in a road.

The stories you tell are one thing; the facts, context, and perspective are another. It may behoove you to be a bit more flexible with the tales you tell until those latter elements become clear.

As you probably know, it’s all too easy to jump to conclusions. As the old adage says, “there’s two sides to every story.” I’d say there are more than two, but that’s plenty to deal with at the outset. When it comes to your spirit, it’s the one you tell yourself that counts the most.

Some say this is what sets us humans apart from our fellow creatures. Rather than simply living our entire lives in the moment, operating on immediate input and instinct, we carry the capacity to create culture that can be carried across time and space through the tales we tell.

Belief and narrative are joined at the hip. Your dog doesn’t have to believe anything to understand that treats and a walk are part of his day. But your beliefs shape everything about your life, whether it’s your own narratives that formed them or not.

If beliefs are like your operating system, then your stories are like the individual data points that put it together. It’s only logical that being mindful of the inputs as they happen is easier and more effective than altering the ruts in the road once they’re laid down.

The spark to delve into the idea of ‘story’ today came from reading the work of A.R. Moxon. He unpacks our world in his aptly named blog, The Reframe. This is the line that jumped out at me:

“…on some deep level… story appears to be the staging ground of human spirit, and human spirit governs the limits and vistas of what is possible.”

It got me thinking about the before-and-after of every story. Behind every present moment lies a trail of evidence, history, and perceptions. These are the elements from which the after-the-fact narratives are composed. You have some degree of control over the speed at which you rush to judgement, but facts tend to be stubborn things.

Before you, however, the world is multiple choice. The future diverges from the present moment into a panoply of paths. It’s only natural to pay attention to what lies ahead, but with the future, you have a say in what story gets told.

Folks who habitually visualize a worst-case-scenario on the horizon often run into trouble. Likewise, optimists who imagine good luck ahead tend to find it more often than not. Self-fulfilling prophecies have a way of giving you what you ask for.

The dance move I’ve been practicing lately in my daily life is to pause for an instant on the turning point of notable moments and ask what sort of story will I tell myself? Will it be one that serves me well?

Next time you’re on the cusp of a moment worth noting, what question will you ask?

Much love till next week!

Merci et à bientôt!

M+

ML #685

Mark Metz
Monday Love Movement Calendar