We tend to create stories about people and places. These stories come with expectations, scripts, and pre-conceptions based upon our past experiences, both specific to the person or situation but also very much formed by our world view. These stories in our head are not completely off base BUT they do powerfully but subtly impact our world. This is both because people often respond to our expectations, fulfill the role we’ve assigned to them, read the script they are handed but also because the way we interpret events in our minds determines how we react which in turn influences how events turn out: “A soft answer turneth away wrath but a grievous one stirreth up anger.”
At some point, if we are not self-aware, if we are not fully present in the moment as it is, we can cease truly interacting with a person or situation before us and instead we are more in a relationship with the story in our head, the persona we have created inside our mind and projected outward.
Staying mindful, learning your triggers, becoming more self-aware, listening deeply (putting your energy into understanding, not into formulating your reply), journaling: all will help you release your stories and be more open to the present moment, giving yourself and others the freedom and flexibility to evolve and change.
Closing Quotes:
“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” – Carl Jung
“Of all deceivers fear most yourself!” – Søren Kierkegaard, 1813-1855, Danish philosopher, theologian, poet, social critic, existentialist philosopher
“Explore thyself. Herein are demanded the eye and the nerve.” – Henry David Thoreau
As always, I share what I most want and need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier