Story Telling

We all have a story to tell.  We spell them out in our daily lives.  Mine would make a great book.  It only makes a great book if I continue to overcome conflict. Sure, there's been a lot of overcoming in my 33 years, but if I were to give up and throw it all out today, would any of it really matter?  And if my story told of a person who rarely, if ever, learned from their mistakes, who never grew.....would you even want to read  it?  We empathize with people who hurt like we hurt.  We are inclined to stop reading their stories when truths becomes lies; when they repetitively give up on overcoming in order to cling to familiar comforts.  It hurts.  It's sad.  And it's not a book you look forward to finishing.

In a great story, the main character takes risks.  They have dreams.  They falter like everyone else.  But they keep getting back up and chasing after their dreams.  They wrestle with experiences in life.  They grow in character, and their morals begin to take on an entirely new shape.  They move forward, staring down fears.  

There are most definitely parts of my story I'm not proud of.  I haven't always been very true to myself.  There are choices I've made that I can't take back.  Those often sting worse than the inevitable curve balls life has thrown my way; at least those were not of my own doing.  It makes them easier to swallow on some levels.  

How do you find grace to forgive yourself when your story isn't making any sense?  From where do you draw hope when your story feels too cumbersome?  What if you plan your story, and as it plays out it takes so many unexpected twists that you must turn to Plan B or Plan C?  What if you don't have a Plan D?  What's next?

When we learn to embrace the struggle, we are practicing self-love. We are loving ourselves right there in the context of our messy lives.  It's not saying, "I will overcome this or achieve that, then I will be content."  It's choosing to accept that you won't always be proud of yourself or the things you have done or not done.  And vowing to love yourself anyways.  It's exploring why you aren't satisfied and taking action to add or remove pieces of the equation.

I used to feel defeated when my story became wrought with conflict.  I wouldn't want to look in the mirror and see the person I had become.  I didn't hold up well under the pressures of life.  Sometimes I still catch myself falling prey to this kind of thinking and/or feeling.  It's easy to do when you are aware of your own weaknesses; and most of us are.

So what changed?  How did I learn to start living a better story?  Well, I always had hope; although some days I relied on other people to hope for me when I couldn't hope for myself.  And I learned about grace.  I learned that all of us have deep hurts that we try to tuck away into some dark corner of our hearts, all the while hoping they will remain lost in the shadows. And I started unpacking them.  It's a daunting task.

Imagine yourself sitting in an attic with stacks of old boxes covered in dust and full of memories.  Perhaps you have stared at the boxes each time you entered the attic, and each time you were overwhelmed by the nauseating feeling that began building up from the depths of your belly.   

One day in an act of courage you decide to start going through the boxes; one at a time.  Some days you find yourself laughing and smiling when you pull out articles from your past.  Other times you find yourself in tears as you come across things that stir up long forgotten dreams or reminders of what was, but is no more.  And you keep unpacking.  Maybe it takes you a month to get through a box.  Maybe it takes you a year.  You might have weeks when you won't feel as if you can even approach  the attic, because the last time you did old wounds were torn open, and they seared with pain as fresh air swept over them.

You might invite friends to unpack with you.  Some of them will turn you down.  Other days still, you will unpack by yourself, and in the solitude of that confined space you can open windows to feel a breeze.  And as you do, light will pour in.  You will see that the attic wasn't that scary after all.  There's a lot more room now too.  The lack of clutter is comforting, and invites you to relax.  

My attic keeps becoming easier to live with.  It feels more like a part of the house, rather than some dark place I try to avoid.  My accessible space expands and offers room for more.  More love.  More people.  More experiences.  I have to fight the urge to fill it with all the things my heart desires; and there are plenty of those.  But so many of them just take up space and begin to fill my house with clutter once again.  

I don't want that.  I want to keep unpacking.  I want to experience the joys in each box, even if it means walking through the sorrow each box holds as well.  And it's going to hurt.  I'm going to cry.  But I'll also laugh.  And every day I will learn to love more and more.  And trust.  And fully live.  

My story will be beautiful because I invite other people to read it.  We will laugh together.  We will cry together.  We will wonder and marvel and rejoice.  When I look back I will see all the joy and I will smile; because I engaged in the process.  I unpacked.  I got rid of the junk.  And I asked myself what treasures were really worth hanging on to.