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I’m sitting here sipping my coffee writing this newsletter and looking forward to spending time telling Elyse’s (the protagonist in my fiction book) story later. For the past month, I’ve been starting my week with a writing group. It makes a difference in the story I tell myself. I have never considered myself a “writer,” yet for the last seventeen years, I have written a weekly newsletter, and I also write blog posts and academic papers.
The story I told myself was that I didn’t write books and wasn’t the archetypical struggling artist, so I was not a writer. Last year, I started to write fiction. A first for me. It’s still new, and I’m clumsy with it but better than a year ago. The story I’m telling myself is it’s okay to be a beginner. To learn and stumble. To ask questions and make mistakes. I’m giving myself permission to learn and honor my own process. I’m trying to be gentle with the story I’m telling myself. Words matter. The ones we say and the ones we think. Your mental chatter can lift you up, encourage you forward, or hold you back, bury you in fear, and discount the positive. What are the stories you tell yourself? What does the chatter in your head say to you? When you try something new, is there a litany of – you’ll look foolish, people like you can’t do this, you’re never any good at XYZ. Often, what we tell ourselves is very harsh- things we would never dream of saying to another person and often things that fly under the radar of awareness. We aren’t paying attention to the backstory that’s shaping our actions. How can you shift the story you’re telling yourself? A small shift can help you get clarity, take action, try something new, or shift your energy. Try something as simple as Today I am willing to look at things with new eyes. I’m the type of person who tries new things. I get to choose where my energy flows. Let me know what your story is and what you want to try.
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The Stories We Tell Ourselves: Unlearning Fear
