Throughout my many years of battling depression, I spent so much time and energy focusing on everything that was wrong or broken within me, that self-acceptance was non-existant. I had the unshakeable belief that whatever was causing my constantly recurring feelings of hopelessness was hidden in my past. And that the minute I would uncover that root cause, the veil of darkness that was covering my life would magically disappear.
So, every moment of my life was lost in scrutinising every aspect of my life: events that had happened, conversations I could remember, feelings I had felt… but most of all, I would focus on what DIDN’T happen. What did I NOT say in that crucial moment, what did I NOT decide at that crossroad, how did I NOT show up at this time in my life. All in all, I was focused on my inner flaws. Analysing and deconstructing everything I believed I was lacking as a human being. And in the process, unknowingly beating myself further and further down in that dark pit of despair.
When I began healing, and understanding that there was a very good reason for the ways I had been feeling, my life began changing. I started seeing hope again, feeling joy and enthusiasm about life (and myself!) again. It was elating and life-changing, and I believed that everything would be different from that moment on…
So when those all too familiar feelings of desperation and defeat began showing up again, even if only in brief passing, I was taken aback. In fact, it surprised me so much that I immediately began questioning everything I now knew: What if I wasn’t “healed” after all? What if all this “transformation journey” was simply a trick from my mind to make me fall from an even higher place this time? What if I had dared believe in something that would actually never happen?
All this internal spinning is what I now refer to as “buying into old stories”. It is the work of our protective mind, which is so focused on sparing us from pain and misery, that it will do just about anything to bring us back to where we were. Because when we’re in status quo, stuck in one place, it believes we don’t run the risk of failing and falling. We are safe in status quo (that is at least the way of our protective mind).
We all have those stories, which were most often passed on to use in one way or another in childhood, and that we have masterfully embellished and strengthened on our own. Those are the stories that pop up unknowingly whenever anything “happens”, to offer us a plausible explanation of that happening.
This can be an external “happening” (such as a stranger slamming the door in our face as we enter a store behind them), or an internal “happening” (such as waking up with an inexplicable feeling of sadness). Because if there is one thing the human mind will ALWAYS need, it is a plausible explanation for any event.
Try to imagine for a second that you looked up to the sky one day, and it had all gone green. I guarantee you that it wouldn’t take more than a few seconds for your mind to come up with an explanation of some sort: “I must be dreaming/hallucinating”, “There’s a dangerous chemical outbreak somewhere and I must seek refuge”, “ETs must have entered our atmosphere and created this”, etc. Whatever the explanation, your mind simply needs something to hang on to, in order to make sense of the world.
Since we do this so naturally several times a day, we rarely recognise the subjectivity of those stories. Instead, we allow our stories about one event to build a whole foundation of stories, only reinforcing how believable they are. So, to use our example from above, every time a stranger slams the door in our face, we reinforce whichever story we’ve been telling ourselves: “Once again, I’m invisible and even strangers don’t see me! Why can’t people even hold a door for me??” or “People are so unfriendly in this place, they all lack common courtesy. How will I ever find my place here??”, and on, and on, depending on your own personal bias and sensitivity.
Or to use our other example of waking up in the morning feeling inexplicable sad, we may resort to “Here we go again! I’m really not capable of being happy, am I? What the hell is wrong with me??”. Or perhaps worse, our protective mind may compulsively be reviewing any small detail of the previous day, looking for a plausible explanation: “I really didn’t like the way my colleague looked at me yesterday in that meeting. I’m sure he really doesn’t like me. Well, I don’t like him either! In fact, how can I continue working with him every day? I hate my job! I hate my life!”. All this drama being completely self-created in search of an explanation for “why do I feel sad?”.
And the more all of this happens, the more we hear our inner stories, the more they becomes reality for us, and a “truth” we don’t even think to question. So, if someone comes along and points out “Oh, don’t take this personally, it has nothing to do with you – this person who didn’t hold the door for you is surely just in a hurry and didn’t think twice about it”, we are not very likely to believe them. Instead, we are now ready to pull out the list of all previous occurrences, and PROVE our story to them.
You get the picture, so let’s go back to my journey.
Had I allowed these invisible stories to take over when they showed up and began “explaining” why I was feeling unpleasant emotions again by telling me I was doomed and should accept my fate, I would have been right back where I started. And all the inner healing work I had done would have been “swallowed up” by my own protective mind, which would have found a way to transform the whole story. Instead of “I finally discovered the root of all my pain and suffering, and I am now ready to be free!” it would have been something like “Don’t buy into the lies telling you that you can heal, because you cannot! All it will do is allow you to fall from an even higher place. But fall, you will.”
And I almost went there. But luckily, I sought help (in the form of a coach), and was able to recognise my own defeating stories, and understand their hidden power. Because that is the greatest gift about seeking external support: the trained and unbiased look from a coach or therapist will shed light on what you take most for granted.
Understanding the power of our inner stories was such a milestone in my own journey, both in healing myself and in helping others. It helped me realise the incredible importance of heightening our awareness, and of stepping into the role of observer whenever we feel out of alignment (we all know how that feels). Because the more we are able to observe ourselves, the more we can look at our life through an objective lens, and realise how biased our own reactions and explanations actually are.
It is the eye of the observer that will show you that this stranger who slammed the door in your face was in fact simply someone who was upset. When stepping outside yourself, you may recognise that this person may have been really angry at something or someone, and so caught up in their own world that they didn’t even consider holding the door for the person behind them. In fact, through observation, you could even have compassion for this stranger, and empathise with them because you have surely felt something similar at one point in your life. That is when your “story” loses its credibility.
And through that same observer’s lens, you could also see that this story of “no one even cares about me enough to hold the door for me” had nothing to do with this stranger, and everything to do with a deep wound within you of feeling insignificant. And it is in that very moment that you can take the power out of the story, and reclaim it for yourself. Because you can now choose: will you buy into a self-defeating story that keeps showing up every chance it gets? Or will you instead give the part of you that is in pain and doesn’t believe in her significance all the care and attention it deserves?
Stories are simply stories. They are not our truth and not who we are. And we have the power to create new ones at every turn.