Letters From A Better Me author Rachael Wolff has written a new blog post on her feelings about the stories she spins and how important it is to act as an outside observer when hearing the stories in your head.
Daily Aligning with Love, Abundance, and Peace #88
I’m grateful for awareness of the stories I’m spinning. If you’ve been reading the last couple days of this blog, you may have noticed I’m going through something. I’ve been navigating being the mom of two teens and dealing with a situation that really isn’t very pleasant. My feelings and emotions have been all over the place. I keep bringing myself back to a loving place, but it hasn’t been lasting all day. Yesterday, it wasn’t until God sent his messenger that I stopped spinning. Yesterday, I mentioned a growth spurt coming on, well it’s here. Now when these things come into my life there is a lot of disruption and jiggling that happens during the transition. Some days feel absolutely dark, some days my mind gets filled with stories (not all good). Some days, I might not eat or sleep. It’s rough.
Yesterday, my big lesson was on the stories I was telling myself. Now, these stories come from a deep place that is ready to come to the surface to be healed, but there are layers of shame, guilt, fear, lack, and separation attached to them, which is why they started spinning.
As much as I know it’s none of my business think of me, I also know that I may have some deeper messages I’m telling myself that get triggered under certain circumstances. I started stories based on the Leave them before they leave you trigger. Does anyone know this one? Many of the stories I was telling myself were to prove how other people didn’t like me as a parent and like my kid for his poor choices. I even spun the story to involve individuals I’m close to. Yesterday morning, I got a text from one of them (God sent) and told her everything I was telling myself. She got it. With her help and some other God sent messages, I was able to do something about the situation that I didn’t feel like I had the power to do before. Yesterday, I wrote, “Today, I commit to being open to signs leading me to close doors to fear, lack, and separation.” Later that day, a door closed. That’s how fast things can happen when we put our intentions (prayers) out there.
You may wonder why I tell you about these experiences. It’s because I don’t want anyone to put me on any kind of pedestal. I’m on this journey like everyone else. I will have great days, weeks, and months where I feel FULLY connected, and I will have days and weeks where I work for that connection. Thank GOD, I have got to the point in my journey that it no longer goes beyond the weeks, but it used to go years. Life is a journey, and we can make what we want of it. I choose to keep working with aligning with love, abundance, and peace daily because it helps me live every day a little better. It also gets me out of my head much faster.
Today, I’m seeing how when childhood triggers come up, I started weaving stories. I got into a protective Mama Bear mode trying to protect my cub from things I experienced in the past. I didn’t even see how much I was spinning until I talked to that friend yesterday. I couldn’t believe the thoughts I was having. This is why it is so important to stay conscious of the stories we weave and try to tap into where those stories come from and where they take us. It’s never about the situation in front of us when we do this. It’s often something from our pasts that made us feel small, powerless, victimized, judged, shamed, etc. I’m so grateful I was able to stop the stories from going down a much darker road. This experience was Divine intervention, because I prayed for help the night before and in the morning the text message came. It can happen that fast!
Today, I will pay attention to stories I’m weaving. Yesterday, showed me that even with all my practice, when I’m triggered, I can still lose control of the story. Today, I’m committed to really listening to the stories that are playing. If they aren’t serving me, I will tell myself new ones to help me let the old ones go. If you want to do this with me, here’s a trick: When you listen to the stories going on in your head, try to listen like an outside observer. It may be easier to write them down, then look back at them like it’s not coming from your own head.
When we are thinking about how other people may view us, the truth is we have NO idea what is in their head. We can only create stories about it, and if we belief a small part of the story we are telling ourselves, we make it true in our heads. Here’s an example: I was weaving this story that other people thought I was bad mom and I didn’t just think of the one person who thought I was a bad mom, I thought well since she thinks I’m a bad mom, all these other parents must think I’m a bad mom too. Since I was questioning the quality of my motherhood, I started attaching to the story and making it true that this WHOLE group of people were thinking that. Now, they might and they might not think that, but the point is I only got emotionally caught up in the story because I was questioning my choices as a mom.
I spun stories trying to defend my actions, when I wasn’t feeling secure about the actions I was taking. If any of you reading this are parents, this is nothing new. Parenthood is a challenge to navigate. When I judge myself harshly, I attaching to the fear, lack, and separation. I then in-turn create stories that project more fear, lack, and separation. When I am embracing myself with love and compassion, I connect to the energy of love, abundance, and peace and connect to stories of kindness, love, and compassion. If you’re not a parent, you may see this in other places. Just pay attention.
With Love, Abundance, and Peace,
©Rachael Wolff 2020
Letters From a better me
How Becoming an Empowered Woman Transforms the World
THE EMPOWERED WOMAN follows the belief system that is best explained in a quote by Byron Katie: “The most attractive thing about the Buddha was that he saved one person: himself. That’s all he needed to save; when he saved himself, he saved the whole world.”
The letters work in different ways depending on the chapter and part of the book.