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The Stories We Build For Ourselves

The Stories We Build For Ourselves

Written by Kate Hurley / 06.08.2019

I recently heard a radio show that told the story of a man who came to the states as an immigrant when he was a child. A teacher sahow brilliant he was and brought him to a special school, which in turn got him a scholarship to Harvard.

 The main gist of the show was that this man didn’t tell the story from the perspective of “I’m a genius, I got what I deserved because of my hard work.” He chose another story, a story that involved extreme gratefulness for all of the people that had contributed to his happiness as a person.

His wife said that he is the most positive person she has ever met. That when he gets news, even hard news, she sees him choose how he will respond to it. That he will respond to it with the attitude of “my life is beautiful no matter what.” What a concept: that our attitudes don’t have to be something that are forced upon us but are something we choose.

Listen to this beautiful quote:

“These stories we tell about ourselves, they’re almost like our infrastructure. Like railroads or highways. We can build them almost any way we want to, but once they’re in place, this whole inner landscape grows up around them. So maybe the point here is that you should be careful about how you tell your story. Or at least conscious of it. Because once you’ve told it, once you’ve built the highway, it’s just very hard to move it. ”

I heard this and started thinking about my infrastructure, the one I have built for myself over the years. The story that I tell and the story that I live in.

I have had some disappointing things happen this week. I got my hopes up- and they came crashing down. I did things that I regretted and have been obsessing over them.  And the story, the infrastructure, that I have built around myself is crashing in on me, suffocating me.

Here are some of the stories I have told myself:

I am a victim.

Everyone who I love leaves me.

No one likes what they see when they really get to know me.

My mind is not healthy.

I am alone. I will always be alone.

Honestly, some of these infrastructures are not my fault. They were built up when I was a child. The truth is, humans helped build my story and hurt me deeply, building up my ideas of who I am and what the world looks like.

But now that I am an adult, I can give myself a new story, especially if I work hard every day to change the story I was given when I was young. I may have been a victim as a child, but now that I am an adult I am a volunteer. I am the only one who can tear down the old stories and can retell them and make them beautiful.

It takes a lot of work to do this. We need to bravely tear our way through these walls that are built up around us. We must tell ourselves “God never leaves you.” “You are beautiful” “I am thankful for my life.” Even when things are at their darkest, it is our choice.

Deuteronomy 30:19 says “Today I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life so that you and your children may live.”

One of the most important questions we can ask ourselves is what am I doing today, this very day, to choose life as the infrastructure I am building? Infrastructures are built one brick at a time, and every day we add onto it, for the good or for the bad.

What story will you choose to live in today?

Category: Inner Healing Blog

Tags: Hope, Resilience, Stories

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You are stronger than you think you are. 

 

You, your hands dirtied with the soil where you till up the rocks of generations gone by. Your tears watering the ground, making the roots grow deep and wide while you are unaware. You labor, you dig, you claw this tiny piece of land where others buried their dreams and gave up trying. 

 

But not you. You keep going.You never give up. You see the tree in the seed, and you will fight until that tree is standing before you, it's long willowing arms grasping your hope in its branches. 

 

You are stronger than you think you are. 

 

You, covered in all your scars. Where your face was grazed with false imaginings that you were not beautiful enough. Where your hands were caught in fields of cotton when you didn't believe you were free. Where you were marked across your chest the day you thought that they left because you weren't worth it. Look closely, love. Look closely because those scars are gilded with gold. Those scars have become your crown. 

 

You are stronger than you think you are. 

 

You, dancing there with your face against the wind. Not a pretty dance, but a wild dance. A hold on for dear life to the hope dance. An I will never stop believing in your goodness dance. A shake the sadness off your skin dance. You, with your feet pounding against the ground to the rhythm of your unsurrendering spirit. With your knees soiled and bleeding from the prayers and the longings and the times you almost gave up. With your arms thrown up in surrender and beckoning and awe. There is burning against your back as you lift up your face, because your wings are returning, love. Your wings are returning.

 

Look at me and believe now. You are stronger than you think you are. Stronger than you think you are. 

 

 

 

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