We all carry the stories of our lives in my heads, and mine has often been a sad story, one of struggle and lament. I am working to change that story. I don’t like it much. I like my new stories better.
If you change your story, some of the people around you may get upset.
When I write about fear, I can feel some people bristle at the idea that there is choice to our stories, that the stories we tell about ourselves can change the way we live. We love our struggle stories – I sure love mine, I’ve written whole books about them. Easy for you to say, I can hear people think. You’re a best-selling author. What about my mortgage? My job? The kids I have to get through college? My aging parents? My dwindling bank account? We love our struggle stories, and are very reluctant to give them up, perhaps because we feel the world will forget that we are anxious.
Nobody’s life is perfect, and I share many of these same challenges, of course, best-seller or not. What I’m learning about myself is that the more I change this story, the more my life has changed along with it. Compassion is not about listening to complaints. It’s about avoiding judgment and helping in health ways, I think. When I was a reporter, I interviewed the Rev. Billy Graham who taught me never to squawk about the price of gas or groceries. Or my life. If you do, you will be angry much of your life. I listened to the part about gas or food, but not the rest. I am thinking of him now.
I believe we all have struggles, challenges, fears. I never assume that anyone – movie stars, politicians, CEO’s – have a perfect life free of struggle. Mine are no more worthy than anybody else’s and it is arrogant and narcissistic for me to project them onto other people. Nobody needs to hear my struggles, my whining.
And I think compassion is remember this: Noone gets through life free of trouble, and we all end up in the same place, no matter how much money is in our ERA’s, or how underwater our houses are. Struggles stories just attract more struggle stories. And they accomplish nothing but misery. I also know that stories are important. Our stories are our lives. I choose mine carefully now.