This is the fourth and final part of this series on the power of stories in our lives. Please check out where it all started, and then read about the Secret Stories You Tell Yourself and The Lies You Tell The World.
At the last Men’s Leadership Training weekend intensive I attended, I was confronted by Wisdom.
During a break, I found myself lying on the ground with my hands locked in my hair. Conflicted thoughts tumbled ceaselessly through my mind. Wisdom came up to me and asked if he could put his hands under my head.
“What’s going on for you right now?” he said.
I slid my hands down my face and looked up at him.
“I don’t know who I am. If I stop trying, stop moving, stop doing, then I have no idea who I am. If I let it all go, who am I?”
“Maybe you’re nobody,” he laughed. “How would that feel?”
For the first time, I began to see my True Story.
Integrity and Authenticity
Living your true story is a journey to narrow the gap between living your truth and how you are currently living your life. You must mend the rift between the stories you tell yourself and the stories you are telling the world.
To live your true story, you have to fully be yourself in all that you do. No posturing, no partial engagement and no half-in/half-out.
Integrity literally means to be integrated: every part of you is congruently integrated. When you are a different person with your family than you are at work, you are not living authentically or with integrity.
Why is it so hard to just be ourselves? Most people can be themselves in the easy moments, but when they are confronted by stress, it all falls apart.
We are controlled by our stories, forced to do instead of be, and conform to patterns of behavior that were set in place at the beginning of our lives.
How can we create integrity with our internal and external stories?
Let them go. When there are no stories to live up to, you are free to be.
Letting go is so hard to do. Who are you when you let go of your stories?
Maybe You’re Nobody
The thought of being nobody hurts. I was terrified of letting go. If I am not the things I have been told I am, or what I have defined for myself, who am I?
I have all these conceptions that being nobody rips worthiness of love out of me. If I don’t do anything to deserve love, why would anyone bother? A life without love sounds lonely and terrible. Why deal with that pain?
To be free.
There is freedom in realizing that you are nobody. As nobody, you can let the stories go. Your true story can come out because there are no more expectations of who or what or where or how you should be.
When I sit with this fact, I feel oneness throughout my being. I am more open to the flow of love and possibility in my life.
Living your true story removes every reason why you can’t or why you should do anything. You are open to be.
You are open to be.
Being is hard. It is difficult. It is challenging like you wouldn’t believe. There are moments where I am completely removed from what being is, what living my true story is, even after encountering it.
Why is this?
Every day of our lives we are subjected to expectations. Expectations come from friends, family members, work … everywhere. When we meet these expectations, we get love. Love feels good.
When we fail to meet expectations, we are shunned or punished. Pain sucks.
Expectations are the stories that the world is telling us.
The longer we live according to these stories, the more we make them our own. We wrap our entire concept of self in the stories that someone else wrote.
Extracting your self from this takes time. Your daily habits enforce the stories and every regular interaction you have follows a pattern written by these stories.
Living your true story means choosing to remove yourself from these patterns.
How Do You Live Your True Story?
You practice. Living in integrity, with authenticity, and in a way that tells your true story (your truth), takes practice.
You must realize that you won’t get this perfect. One of J.D. Roth’s favorite phrases is, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” This is true across all our lives.
“The perfect is the enemy of the good.”
- J.D. Roth
I’ve spent some time coming up with a practice that is realistic and useful in attempting to live our true stories. Here are the steps that I have taken in my own life when I feel myself being pulled by the strings of my stories.
- Recognize the pattern. What story is leading you in this moment? Do you interact with certain people in certain ways? I know I do. I’ve got separate patterns for how I interact with my parents, my siblings, my co-workers, my girlfriend, and strangers. Noticing this allows me to move on to the next step.
- Reflect for a moment. Is this in line with your true story, or are you following a script? When you stop to reflect, you are raising your awareness. The more aware you become, the better chance you have of living your true story.
- Respond consciously. In every moment, you have the power to choose how you respond to the world. As Jayson Gaddis says, “Every moment is an opportunity. Are you going to show up or are you going to check out?” You can choose to follow the script or to rewrite your story.
- Receive feedback. When you stop operating according to the scripts you have with people, sometimes they won’t know how to respond. They might forget their lines. Be open to how you are impacting them, and be present to the moment, even if it leads to conflict.
Every moment is an opportunity.
How you live your True Story is up to you. The IF is also up to you. Every moment gives you a chance to choose whether you are following your comfortable pattern or whether you are consciously choosing your life.
When you live your true story, you are the most perfect and beautiful you possible. I urge you to stop hiding the best parts of yourself, and share them with the world.
Live your True Story.
Photo by guldfisken.
This four post series has not been comprehensive by any means, but has hopefully provided deeper insights for you into the stories and patterns that we live with.
I sincerely appreciate your company through this series and all the feedback I have received. I would love to hear if this series has resonated with you or not. Is there anything that you feel I missed? If you have anything to say, please feel free to share in the comments.
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