Our Story Books

"A year ago, bundled up in my rental car parked on a tiny Greek harbor in the dark, I am talking with a coaching client / friend.

She needs to make a big decision and when I close my eyes, I can hear that something thick is in her way, something that has little to do with logistics.

She talks some more. I listen some more.

Then, as is often the case when someone makes the space for us to truly explore our own nooks and crannies, something important bubbles up, warm and soft, perfectly ready for me to catch it: she shares with me that she had often been told that she was noncommittal,  or as some of her friends put it, “a quick quitter.”

I can hear the weight that these opinions have had for her. I can almost see the tight tapestry that their strands have woven, over the years. A rich, protective and familiar tapestry that was now getting in the way of her heart’s bright light and of what it was trying to tell her.

So I make a suggestion. A quiet, small and quite huge suggestion.

I ask her to drop the story.

This suggestion made her laugh and in her laugh there was relief as if a window had just opened up onto a sweet horizon. Suddenly my little car felt a few degrees warmer, too.

This morning, I receive these words from her:

“I keep reflecting on what a journey the past year has been. In one of our very first coaching conversations, I talked about a story I carried - that I was noncommittal or as friends said a quick quitter.

Your advice was drop the story.

I dropped the story and within a year I am engaged.

Isn’t that fascinating!?"

What a change we can make with the words we use and the stories we tell - or choose not to tell.”

Our stories. The stories we have made - or most likely have adopted - about who we are and who we are not. About our skills and our defects. So many stories. Stored in our very own Story Book.

In my classes, we call these “the tissue papers.” The thin and often numerous tissue papers that get in the way of us shining our light brightly. Often times, there were not placed there with malice or an intent to hurt us. They just floated our way and took hold.

One of my stories was that I was not good at math. Or numbers of any kind. Therefore, I was not good at money. This was actually a convenient story as it absolved me from dancing in the world of financial abundance, which kept me safely tucked away from the things I had seen such abundance do to a person, as I was growing up.

Of course, shopping at the food bank turned out to not be all that convenient either and I can physically remember the exact moment I dropped that story. Or maybe it dropped me.

One moment it was there and one moment it was gone.  

All of a sudden, I was (and still am) able to do math in my head, to look at spreadsheets and analyze them almost at a glance. Not only that, but I am now able to connect with how much I love playing with numbers and yes, money. Especially when it comes to making it do pirouettes and add ease and happiness to many lives.

There are more stories in my Story Book, and I bet you have your own, too.

Today, I invite you to check in with yourself and with your own Story Book. What’s in there and  is it being a good friend or is it getting in the way of your life?

And then, I invite you to very simply … allow some of these stories to let go of you.

Wishing you a lovely rest of the day...