What's Your Story?
Some of you may know that I've attended quite a few Tony Robbins seminars in the past. Last week I did a free event he had called the Time to Rise Summit. One of the things he covered was a good reminder to me. It's something I did initally learn at one of his seminars, but I had forgotten over time.
Your Story
We all have a story about our lives in our heads. It's the way you think about your life, and it's the frame for how we see our lives. One of the exercises Tony has you do is realize what your old story was and then describe what your new story is.
A Little Background
I've been trying to figure out how I wanted to write a blog post the last month or so. I have several drafts I haven't published and I just couldn't quite figure out how I wanted to phrase what I wanted to say, or even completely how I felt about it. I felt a bit stuck and Iike I couldn't quite see the whole picture. Part of it was feeling uncomfortable seeing social media posts after New Years. I saw many posts that had people excited about the new year and that they were blessed in 2023. I found I couldn't relate to these posts at all, and it made me feel weird. I used to be the girl who did those posts. But that wasn't how I was feeling at the start of 2024, not even close.
Quick Recap of the Past 3 Years
It's not been an easy 3 years for me. Here's just a quick run-down so you have a little background. I was pretty blessed for most of my life until 2020. Not a lot of bad things happened, and lots of good ones did. I had lost 2 grandparents, but other than that, I hadn't lost many people I knew. And things in general went really well.
Well in 2020 that changed drastically. Here's just a quick rundown of the things that have happened since then..
COVID - my least favorite time where everything I loved to do was no longer allowed. Also this was a terrible time for my business, and pretty scary at the time.
Lost my other 2 Grandparents and my husband lost 2 Grandmas
these were more expected because of their ages, but it's still always sad
Lost 2 dogs
again, they were 14 and 15, so expected, but hard
Broke my hand while 8 months pregnant with our oldest daughter, then shattered my ankle 4 months postpartum (broke it in 6 spots) needing emergency surgery to reattach my foot essentially (sorry squeamish readers)
Found out I have primary hypoparathyroidism - low parathyroid hormone steals calcium from my bones to supply calcium to my blood
This lead to me having OSTEOPOROSIS at 32 years old!
Lost 2 aunts and 1 uncle - One aunt was only 50 and my uncle was 63
Lost my dad, he was 65, he was my biggest cheerleader and one of my very favorite humans of all time ❤️ 💙
My Old Story
Very honestly I had no idea how to navigate all of this grief and these loses, I still don't really know, but I'm learning a little all the time.
Until last week this was my story:
The last three years have been unimaginably hard, I've had loss after loss. So many bad things have happened in a row. I just need a break. I can't handle this. I'm overwhelmed and exhausted every day. I'm SO tired. I don't recognize myself.
What Is Life Like in that Context?
As you can imagine, when you view life through this lens, it's hard. It feels heavy. There isn't a lot of clarity, direction, peace, calm, or even a feeling that things will be ok. It feels uncertain, and like you're just waiting for the next bad thing to happen.
I'm not saying I didn't have good times in these years. I had lots! My two beautiful daughters were born and they are magical and wonderful. They are my bright lights. I had many good times with my family, we had time to travel with my dad before he passed away, of course those trips were bittersweet because there was the undercurrent of knowing these were final memories with him that we were making. I still had moments of joy and laughter, and fun. But, there was a heaviness that I felt I always carried with me.
I didn’t feel like myself, or that I even remembered who I was anymore. When my dad passed away my family was all going through old videos to see if we could find any videos with my dad in them, so we could hear his voice and see him when he was happy and vibrant. I found one from Christmas 2019. It was my immediate family, and my husband and my sister in law. Every year for Christmas we do a “program.” Before any gifts are opened, everyone has to do some type of song, or poem or some kind of entertainment for the group. That year my parents had bought helium balloons and were breathing in some helium and then singing We Wish You A Merry Christmas. Of course it was hilarious. My dad only knew words to the first verse, so he stopped singing quickly, while my mom continued on. They couldn’t figure out how to get the correct amount of helium, their timing was off. And then we proceeded to all take turns with the helium and singing or saying something.
There is a ton of laughter in those videos. I can hear myself talking and laughing as I’m taking the video. I watched this shortly after my dad passed, and I cried. Because when I heard my voice and my laughter in those videos, I later told my husband, I couldn’t remember being as happy as I sounded then. And I used to be that happy all the time. But for the last 3 years, I hadn’t ever felt that level of untethered, complete joy.
And I missed that so much.
A Good Reminder
When Tony Robbins started talking about our stories, it reminded me that my story I've been telling myself is a heavy way to walk through life. A lot of hard things have happened in a row, no question there, there's been a lot of grief. However, as Tony says, what's wrong is always available if you look for it… so is what's right.
My New Story
It's time for me to have a new story, so here's mine (for now, until I update it in the future 😀 ):
The challenges I've been through have made me stronger. I have clarity about what I want in my future. There is abundant joy and good times to come. I have a great supportive husband. I have two wonderful girls. I have an amazing family. I’m surrounded by love.
Quite a different lens to see your life through than my old story isn’t it? How do you think I’ll feel about my day to day experiences with this view? I’ll very likely notice different things than I did before, feel more gratitude and joy, find more meaning.
What’s Your Story
Now it’s your turn, I invite you to do this exercise with me. Take a minute and think about your story. What is it? Maybe say it out loud or write it out. That’s your old story. What’s your new story? Say that one out loud or write it down too! Maybe your old story is already empowering and one you like, great! Feel free to just tweak it or add any improvements if you like.
I am guessing we all have a part of our story that could use some tweaking. I know at different points in my past I had stories like “I can’t find the right guy for me,” “it’s too hard to make a business work during a pandemic,” “I can’t take any more bad news.” You get the idea. Time to let those old stories be in the past and write new stories for ourselves that make us excited about life.
