Letting Go Of The Stories That Do Not Serve Us

[boxofdelights]

Andrea Gibson writes, here, about a problem I struggle with: the stories we tell ourselves, over and over, knowing that they harm us but not being able to stop:

For most of my adulthood I’ve been deeply interested in how stories impact our lives. Not so much the stories we tell as writers and artists, but the stories that live deep down in our nervous systems, and don’t necessarily serve us. The stories that chronically nag at our minds and unconsciously breed doubt, insecurity and fear. The stories about our unworthiness. The stories about the ways we are not enough or too much. The stories about how others have failed us, or how we have failed ourselves. The stories of how our lives would have turned out so much differently if only. “If only” is the saddest phrase in the universe, and one of the most painful “stories” to burden our spirits with.

For them, it works to write the story down, to build a fire with friends, and to put the story into the fire. For me, that doesn't work at all, not even as a metaphor. It takes so much work to pin the story down in fixed form on paper. Putting the paper into the fire releases the story from the paper, not me from the story; it jumps straight back into my head.

I tried putting the paper into the compost pile, thinking of compost as a sloooooooow burn; every time the story tried to jump back into my brain, I would tell it, "No, you live in the compost pile now. I can see you there." But eventually that paper decomposed, and the story moved back into my brain.

I'm going to try and tell some of those old stories here. That might pin them down away from my brain. I'll let you know how it goes.

Comments

[lilysea]

I noticed that one of the stories she burned was

The universe doesn’t have my back

to which I'm like, the universe genuinely DOESN'T have anyone's back!

Earth has rainfall and fertile topsoil and edible plants and edible animals - anything else that humans get is thanks to people/society, and people/society let a lot of people fall through the cracks.

The universe is neither malicious NOR benevolent - it's an inanimate chunk of hydrogen, helium, rock, ice, and gas, with a few pockets of biological life.

[boxofdelights]

Andrea talks about God in some of their poems. They were raised Baptist. I don't think they identify as a Christian now, but it doesn't sound like they identify as an atheist either.

I agree with you, the universe doesn't have my back -- but it is so amazing that the Earth just happened to create intelligent life, it really seems like it does!

[lunabee34]

*hugs*

It is so hard to exorcise those stories. The only thing that has worked for me is time.

[bibliofile]

Argh, those stories, I hates 'em.

Good things that different things work for different people. And for different stories, even! I find that, sometimes, writing things down helps kick stories out of my anxiety-brain cycles.

Metaphorical methods seem to work best when your brain is almost done with them, anyway. I mean, the metaphorical gesture is a way for a final sendoff, or maybe acknowledging that you're done? I sure wish it worked earlier in the personal processes, though. It'd be a very handy tool. (But then it might also mean one has no conscience, so, yay?)

[cimorene]

With you 100%.

And I don't think this is necessarily an atheist viewpoint. It's just evidential. Like even if you want to assume an omniscient and omnipotent power behind the whole thing, you have to look at reality and it's blindingly obvious that good and bad things happen apparently at random and with no reference to deserving. Even if you rationalize that everyone who suffers and dies ultimately does so for some greater good, it's necessarily beyond their understanding or desires. Which stretches the idea of "having your back" to a ludicrous extent.

[kore]

I actually quit keeping a journal, years ago, when I had notebooks dating back to when I was like five or six?? (I would always end the page with a big wooden road sign fingerpost, carefully shaded in, with "BYE!" on it. No idea why) because it just felt like I was telling the story of how my life sucked over and over again. Figuring out a different story, or at least a different method of narrative, sounds....good.

[silveradept]

I understand where the thought is coming from, and the idea behind building understood a new story and trying to obtain that instead of older ones. It also, presented that way, elides what was likely a lot more work to adjust habits, prune toxicity where possible, maybe even make physical changes so as to make it easier to get rid of those stories and build new ones.

(And I wonder how well the metaphorical method works when you live in a world that keeps repeating those bad stories back at you and insisting they're true.)

That said, if that's the kind of thing that works for you, and helps you reset patterns you don't want, then go ahead and do it.

[seleneheart]

That's really powerful and something I've never thought of - my internal stories. I don't know how to release them either. Burning seems like it would have the same result you experienced. There's a reason why they're dug so deeply into us.

[sonia]

These "fix it" solutions like burning stories or cutting ties haven't worked for me either. I find I need to keep company with the part of me holding the shame and painful stories, rather than declaring them bad and wrong and just adding more shame. It's a long work in progress!

I love all the comments and discussion that this sparked already and I'm looking forward to more of your posts about this.

[lcohen]

i have told a lot of my stories here and overall, have found it to be helpful. if nothing else, writing it down allows me to look at it, and sometimes i see something from the outside that i didn't see while it resided in my brain.

*hug*