Storyteller.
I rolled out of bed at 5:30 yesterday morning, and got hit with a dose of reality. The night before, I’d written a piece for this work that I was really happy with. I felt like it was one of the better ones I’ve written, and I found a picture that I felt really captured the spirit of the piece.
I grabbed my phone to see if it was resonating with people, hoping that I had managed to touch or inspire sometime to have a better day.
And the post only had 1 reaction. 1 like.
And to be honest, for a moment, I was pretty bummed out. Although I try not to write for myself, there’s times when I feel particularly attached to a piece.
It’s kind of like putting your child out into the world, to see if other people love that little person as much as you do. It can be hard to realize that sometimes what meant a lot to you didn’t mean as much to others.
So I felt a little sad, and then the storytelling started.
You know the storyteller don’t you? It’s that little voice in your head that gives you a narrative for everything that happens in your life. Although it was still early, the Storyteller had gotten up with me, and immediately began telling me that this was a bad day, that my instincts were useless, that I can’t write, and that I should just give up and not try to write anything anymore.
If you let them, your own personal little Storyteller can really screw up your day.
But that morning, so dark outside that the room was only lit by my phone, and so early that everyone in the house (including the dog) had the good sense to be asleep, I remembered that I can tell stories as well.
I remembered that sometimes my Storyteller lies to me, and that although he’s trying to protect me, I should really take what he says with a grain of salt.
So I started my own story.
Which started with me being ok with the fact that right then, this piece wasn’t getting resonating with people in the way that I hoped.
My story also had in it the part where I came to the understanding that I had written a post that will do better as a paid boosted post to a slightly different audience than I am usually reaching out to.
My story was about how this was a useful experience that I was learning from, rather than a story of my weakness, my foolishness and my failure.
I decided that I liked my story better.
Everything that happens to us gets fitted into some kind of a story in our heads. The question becomes which kind of story. The Storyteller will usually tell us one to protect us from risk, to prevent the possibility of pain in the future, and to keep us carefully enclosed in our own, warm little zone of comfort.
But if we’re smart, we’ll write our own stories.
Full of daring and risk, of failure and success, of heartbreak and happiness, of loss and of love. Stories that lift us up to be the person we have dreamed of being, rather than the person we’re afraid of becoming.
Stories that define our desires, and detail our dreams.
Every life is made up of stories, and in the end, your life is one big story.
Make it a great one, so that in the future when someone tells your story, you’ll give others the gift of surprise and wonder.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings