true story. {post traumatic growth syndrome}

"we are defined by the stories we tell ourselves." 

{tony robbins}

story weaving.  story spinning.  tale telling.  one of the oldest art forms known to man.  we are all storytellers.   every single one of us has a story or a set of stories that we tell ourselves.  and stories are powerful.  they are possessive.  stories can inspire, they can propel, empower, convict & colour just as they can deflate, depress, deject, imprison & rob.  those of us who own a limiting story, in one area of our life or another, become victims of it.  a limiting story, an excuse, the reason, to not do well in any given area, can be totally legitimate.  just because it's a story doesn't mean it's not true.  it just means that fixating on it will not empower.  it robs potential, like a thief in the night.

"biography is the furthest thing from destiny.  your biography is not your destiny, your decisions are."

{tony robbins}

i remember hearing steve jobs' story.  as a young boy, unaware of his own adoption, a neighbour girl informed him that he had been "discarded" by his biological parents.  he was broken, crushed.  but his adoptive parents rewrote that history for him.  edited the story if you will.  his story became i am chosen instead of i am discarded.  i am loved not lost. both happened but which story is true?  the one he chose to believe, to focus on, to build & bond with.

most of us learn to connect through pain and so we learn to create pain when it's not there.  problems are the biggest addiction in humanity.  and if we're not careful they can be an unhealthy basis of relationship and so become an unhealthy basis of identity.  this is aptly called trauma bonding.  problems allow us to escape our fear.

"if the problem is big enough, bad enough & certainly not our fault we use it as an excuse." 

{tony robbins}  

recognize your story for what it was & erase your fear.  change your story.  rewrite it.  don't become a victim of it.

this becomes tricky as we all know stories have ugly facts.  but to go there, to live there in the ugly facts doesn't give us anything.  every story is an opportunity, no matter how dark, how evil it's origins.   the opportunity for change is always there.  there is something to learn from every story.  every life.  every biography.  and no matter how dark your story may have started, there are always darker stories, always someone who was worse off.  take your eyes off of your own story & read the narrative of someone else's.  perspective is a harsh editor.  because it's either accept the grace to live despite it or lay down in it as a grave & that will be where your story ends.  it's choosing post traumatic stress syndrome instead of post traumatic growth syndrome, mourning & grieving your story instead of realizing only you have the power to change it, to grow it, to farm it.

everything in our lives are dictated by the stories we tell ourselves, not by the stories we were given.  so many stuck in the story they've told themselves for the past twenty years, still living out of that limiting place instead of allowing the narrative to evolve, to grow, to change.  you can't access the answers as long as you have a story that says it's impossible, it'll never work, i've tried everything, i can't be that.  we all know the power of belief.  it might be true that you have lived a hard life, you lived through horrific things but that is not why you're not who you want to be today.  the only thing that is keeping me from who i want to be is the story i tell myself as to why it can't happen.  breath meaning to any dark edges of your story writing & allow it to be used to propel instead of continually victimize.  believe that you were made for more than yourself.  your story was written to be read.  i am a history writer. i choose my perspective. my story is limitless.  i am story teller... of growth.