What's your story?

I finally feel like writing again. Election season is always stressful for me even though I love doing election work. What stressed me out was the not knowing what the outcome would be. Now that we know, we can move on and prepare ourselves for what may come in the next few years.

But I don't want to talk about politics right now. What I want to talk about are our stories. What is your story? I don't mean your biography - where you were born, where you went to school and all that. I mean - what is the story you tell yourself (and sometimes others) about who you really are. Your strengths and weaknesses, what you like and don't like, what you're capable of or scared of - what things shape the person you see yourself to be. What is THAT story?

You might wonder why, as a health coach, I'm asking this question. And I'll tell you - if you want to make changes in your life, you have to look at why you haven't changed yet. Why aren't you eating better? Why aren't you hiking like you've always wanted to? Why haven't you gotten around to writing in that journal you bought last year? Why are you burned out and overwhelmed and worried that you'll never have your shit together? One major reason just might be the stories you are telling yourself about yourself.

Here's are a story about myself .... I'm funny but a lot of my humor is self-deprecating. You know, put yourself down before others get the chance but make it funny so no one gets uncomfortable. People laugh when I say "Can you figure this out for me? Numbers and I don't get along. I was a lawyer for a reason!" So the story is that I can't do math because I'm just a words person. But honestly, math kinda makes me uncomfortable because I'm worried that I'm not good enough at it and I might make a mistake.

Here's another one .... I'm very independent and have been since I was a kid. Mostly because I had to be. So I don't like to ask for help (except on math stuff because see above). But really, I don't like to ask for help because when I was growing up, I didn't get the help I needed when I asked or maybe I was never taught how or encouraged to ask. So I got used to doing things on my own and just .... don't ask for help even when I really need it. Basically, I'm afraid that I don't deserve help.

When you break down those stories, what you see is that I think I'm not good enough and that I don't deserve support. And I repeat those stories to myself and others in order to protect myself from the discomfort of the feelings underneath those stories. No matter how many self-help books I read, if I don't change those stories, I'm going to have a really hard time changing my circumstances. Now that I've identified the stories though, I can go about changing them and reminding myself that I am absolutely good enough and I deserve help when I need it. Change won't happen overnight, but the next time I'm about to say "Numbers and I don't get along ..." I'm going to stop and challenge myself to do the hard thing. Because it's ok if I make a mistake! And also, it's ok to ask for help without first denigrating my own abilities.

What are your stories? What are you telling yourself about your circumstances and how they can't change because of something you believe about yourself that isn't true? How can you change the stories you tell yourself so that you can change your circumstances? Please know that this isn't an easy exercise to do and takes time as well as patience with yourself. But it's good to take the time to really listen to our own stories and determine whether they are truly helping us or if they're holding us back. And if you want some support with discussing those stories and how to change them in order to take better care of yourself, I would love to work with you!