Which of your cherished stories has finally outlived its usefulness?

Fear soaks my back, mean thoughts enter my head

We’re all attached to our own stories.

Hardened to our limited ways of operating in the world. Habituated to the way the landscape looks from there. And we hug those stories like a comfort blanket. To the point that we can’t imagine living without them.

That’s the natural tendency of the human mind. It wants us to stay within the security of the rigid patterns it already set up. To become a copy of a copy of a copy of the same archetype we’ve been chasing since childhood.

But the reality is, a personality is a product of cultivation. The authentic self is more than the just hand nature deals us at the start, but also what we choose to build from that nature throughout our lives.

Cameron’s book on the journey to enlightenment makes a powerful point about this narrative. She reminds us:

When we outgrow the stories of our childhoods that don’t match our adult experience, we have a choice. We can adhere to the dogmas of the quiet past, or we can consciously redraw the lines of our outdated belief system and find one that works for us as adults.

I often think about this when I’m at work. A minor incident or a heated conversation triggers a past pain from childhood, and I suddenly catch my mind regressing into that scared little eight year old version of myself.

Mean thoughts enter my head, fear soaks my back and I get the urge to walk out office in a huff crying, screw you guys, I’m talking my toys and going home!

Until I remember, oh wait, that’s not who I am anymore. The story that serves me today is, I am a man and a grownup and a professional who plays well with others and knows how to be part of a team. Everything is fine.

The point is, each one of us is a constantly evolving and unfolding process, not a fixed identity. We can talk ourselves in and out of any persona.

And so, we may as well allow ourselves to be gifted by a newer and larger story. One that can lead our lives in an empowering direction.

Fuller once wrote that the rigid, the fixed and the unmovable will snap, crackle and crumble, unable to bend with the winds of evolution.

If we have any intention of evolving into the highest versions of ourselves, we best learn how to bend.

To engage in what’s in front of us right now, not fall back on the identity we feel obligated to uphold.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Which of your cherished stories has finally outlived its usefulness?

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Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.
scott@hellomynameisscott.com
www.nametagscott.com

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