"Read me a story, Grandpa". I can't wait for my 12 month old grandson to ask me this.
This got me thinking about stories. And reflecting that stories are largely called "make believe", and aren't considered real. As adults, it's easy to think that we are living "in the real world", and stories, seen as childs play, aren't part of our life, right? I don't think so. Just look at election campaigns. What are they about if not telling a story, a dream for what the country could be? How much energy gets invested in telling such stories? This is an indication of the power to influence the behaviour of adults which lies behind the stories being offered us.
It's been said that "without a vision, the people perish." I ask what sort of vision do WE have for OUR lives? What sort of stories are we accepting which power our lives?
The musical, "South Pacific" offers a clue. The song Happy Talk includes this advice - "Happy talk, keeping talking happy talk. Talk about things you like to do. You've got to have a dream, if you don't have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?"
We live in a digital age where everything has sped up and change seems constant. There's energy on the move - the energy of Life creating something new. Change brings up feelings like anger, fear or sadness, and as a result of these feelings, it's tempting to make up a story to explain to ourselves why we're feeling as we do. Then as a result of the story we've made up, often a horror story, we're likely to feel another emotion. This is called mind generated emotion, which is frequently much more intense than the original feeling we had as a result of participating in the energy of change itself. This is the way mountains are created from molehills. Wouldn't Happy Talk be more useful?
Intense change is often called a crisis. Such times include both danger and opportunity and the feelings that go with each. We have a choice about how we view such times, what sort of story we'll create to explain to ourselves what's occurring. And those choices will create our experience in the future. In this way, we create our own life experience. Powerful, aren't we? We get to choose the experience of our lives!!!
A mentor I've never met, Grace Van Duzen, said "it's all a continuum of victory. It's all about what can Spirit do next to raise consciousness?" What a wonderful way to view each circumstance. This is really helping me amidst the range of changes unfoldin
g in my life right now.
As you live into the changes happening in your life, consider these:
- Take care with the stories you make up. Your choice will change your life
- Be at peace with the feeling of uncertainty, which is the nature of change. It's all about victory.
- Train yourself to look for the opportunities - it's much more fun
Here's to the ease in Life
Dr Andrew Horwood
Program Director
