By Ahsan
No one could explain the reason why she started crying in the middle of the country fair.
It was a beautiful sunny day. There was a rush of people all around, children laughing and families enjoying the rides and delicious treats like mango milkshakes, spicy corn on the cob, and funnel cakes, topped with strawberries and drizzled with maple syrup.
Elanor was a beautiful young woman. She had big expressive eyes, curly hair, a radiant smile, and she came from a mixed heritage, half Italian and half Japanese. And she had a great personality on top of it all. From the outside in, you could say she was blessed: an excellent reputation as a person, family, friends, a decent career and interests, and hobbies that gave her meaning.
But that was not the real story.
Elanor wished she could be someone else. Everyone else she knew enjoyed their lives and liked themselves. She could not bear the emotion of feeling inadequate and not being lovable. The life she lived was mostly one of feeling anxious and awkward with fleeting moments of temporary happiness.
In her mind, she needed to get away from the people whom she felt never really valued her or truly loved her.
To her friends, neighbours, and coworkers, she was a polite but timid person. But, in reality, Elanor could never get over how her friends ditched her in the first week of grade 9 and started their campaign of mental abuse. They convinced her that she was weird and that no one could ever like a person like her. And so, Elanor, for obvious reasons, as you will soon see, became the “shy” person that the rest of the world knew her as.
Perhaps, you can see what Elanor could not see.
She was the victim of her high school bullies. Emotionally, she was fragile. This much is true. But most importantly, she told herself the story that they wanted her to believe for 14 years, day after day. Had Elanor rewritten the event of her grade 9 life in the second week of grade 9, she would have lived a very different existence.
Unknown to the vast majority of people, our lives are influenced not by events or people but rather something else. The challenge we all face is that our lives are ruled by the story or stories we keep telling ourselves and the meaning we attach to them. But why is this so?
Let’s try something together: stay silent and stop reading this article for one minute.
Are you back?
What were you thinking during that one minute? I doubt it was nothing.
We all have a voice in our head that speaks to us non-stop from the time we open our eyes to the time we drift off to sleep. That voice is your constant companion; you cannot turn it off. It keeps talking to you and seems to have a mind of its own (LOL). However, you should understand that 80% of the thoughts it generates are mostly negative or meaningless, and the other 95% of it is predominantly random.
Unfortunately, people have what is called a “past.” Usually, in childhood or adolescence, something terrible happens that leaves a life-long effect on how we live the rest of our lives. That past becomes our present. By retelling specific stories and the meaning you attach to them, your life can either become heaven or hell.
These stories rule our life and reinforce their shadow on how we live our life, good or bad.
Ask yourself if this is true for you?
If it is, you will never break free of the story’s grip on your life unless you do something about it.
The positive stories we tell ourselves can lead to amazing things.
The negative stories may become outright dangerous.
Perhaps, all Elanor needed to do was say to herself that these girls are trying to manipulate me and rather than believe them, I will move on and make new friends even if I only find one who genuinely likes me for who I am. In this way, she would have given her mind a new meaning to the event and shrugged off the whole trauma she felt in that first week of grade 9.
Here is what you might like to do.
Try to rewrite the meaning of the story that is ruling your life.
Live the life you truly deserve. Not the one you are stuck within the present moment.
Actions:
Become aware of the voice that talks to you all day long and don’t believe at least 80% of it because most of that dialogue is nonsense.
Sit with a journal and write down the stories that you are telling yourself that you know are not preventing you from living in peace and joy. Identify the story that helps others to live joyfully and consider why can’t you also be that way?
Resolve to rewrite the story, especially the meaning of what you attach to it. Get creative and find positives, even if there are traumas and tragedies in the story. What happened 35 years ago, however bad, is now over. It is the past. This is a fact.
Repeat that new meaning every day so that you allow your mind to heal and move on. People mostly endure life; very few of us are truly living.
Remember that just like taking a shower every day, so that you can refresh your body, you need to also take control of your mind and the stories and their meanings daily. This is how to enjoy the fragrance of life.
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