What If Your Stories Aren't True?
by Allison Watts
We all have stories. We have stories about ourselves, stories about others, and stories about the world in general. Once we believe a story, we collect evidence to prove that our story is true (which makes us feel that we are right) and we ignore evidence to the contrary. This is usually not conscious…
My whole life, I had a story about my mom. It was the truth for me and my experiences were all consistent with this story (set of deeply held beliefs). I experienced her in a particular way every time I interacted with her. I never experienced anything different. Then one day, something shifted in our relationship. I had been doing a lot of personal development and had begun to understand myself better. In light of this, my perspective and my behavior changed… and then SHE changed! I still don’t totally understand this.
I’ve asked myself many times, “Did she actually change or did I now see her differently?” Did I somehow “energetically” free her up to be different or is she the same and only my perception has changed?” It may be a little of both, but I fully believe that changing my perspective was most of it (at least 95%). I literally changed our entire relationship just by a shift in me and how I saw things. How many other places in my life could I do this? Are there places in your life that you’d like to shift… places where you continue to experience something other than what you want?
In my last article I mentioned that there are ways to change our stories (beliefs) by questioning them and developing other possible meanings. When we’ve believed a meaning/story for a while, neural pathways become deeply engrained in our brain. There are ways to engrain new neural pathways that we consciously choose instead of continuing to believe the old ones (that we likely didn’t consciously choose). When we start to do this, we see that the other meanings are just as likely as the one we have believed all this time. Changing our story/beliefs helps to open us up to other possibilities and see things differently. It gives us choice and power. We can choose whatever story we want.
As promised, I’d like to give you some of the practical tools I’ve used to be able to do this:
- Study with Debbie Ford http://www.debbieford.com/. Start by reading The Dark Side of the Light Chasers.
- Ask yourself the 4 questions from Byron Katie http://www.thework.com/thework.php/. Start by reading Loving What Is.
- Ask yourself the 4 questions in the Sedona Method http://www.sedona.com/
- EFT/Tapping http://www.garythink.com/
- Etching: This is something I learned from Debbie Ford. Etching is another way to reprogram those neural pathways (It works a lot better than simple affirmations). The best way to explain it is:
1. Pick a statement with emotion that will empower you in the area you most need to work on right now. (ex. I am so excited that I am losing weight and feeling healthy.)
2. Twice a day, 10x each, feel the feelings while you etch the words into your subconscious (draw out the words in your mind’s eye, like you were carving them into sand or clay.)
3. If the statement you are etching doesn’t feel quite right, your next session “tweak it” to fit what feels authentic.
Be blessed. Have a great week! I’d love to hear which tools work for you and how they’ve helped you.
Allison
