YOU MIGHT BE THE BAD GUY

I’ve noticed in my work that a lot of people strongly feel they’re discrediting their past or abandoning their trauma by choosing to tell a different story today.

(I was this way in the past.)

My dharma teacher used to say “I challenge you to hear something this time differently than you have before.”

Because, of course, we’ve been taught that “knowing” gives us value… So, when someone begins to deliver you a piece of … insight? Information? The first thing our brains want to do is go “OOOH! I know what that is!”

Maybe this time, after that happens, you could ask yourself, “What else could be true here?”

I notice that most people I help or have helped are insistent on continuing to tell “the story of how it happened and why things are this way.”

I’m content to hear your story once, but when you repeat a non-serving story ad nauseam, all you are doing is solidifying that as true in your mind.

Hear this upcoming part differently—

Your story might go something like this:

“Well, I’m this way because when I was “x” years old “x” person said “x” to me and that made me believe “x” about myself because “x” happened, and then all of these people did “x””

I used to do this. And when I realized that every time I told that story I reinforced the beliefs associated with it, I stopped.

It was hard to stop. But I stopped.

I’m going to say something a bit blunt:

When you insist on retelling a non-serving story, you are the bad guy.

When YOU re-tell the story of “why things are horrible” and then start spouting off all kinds of facts that validate the idea that you’re a victim… You’re the bad guy.

You. Not your mother, your brother, your most recent ex-boyfriend, your phys ed teacher, or your former shitty ass boss. It’s YOU.

Because I’ll tell you… those people don’t give a rat crap fuck about you. They might not even remember the pain they caused you. They’re hurt people hurting in a corner somewhere or, fuck knows, maybe they’re dead.

If they told you some “here’s some hate yourself narrative” and you keep re-telling it, over and over, your speech solidifies that in your unconscious mind. The only person who is hurting you… is you. You are taking yourself and bitch slapping yourself over and over.

So… May I propose… you stop telling the story.

Tell it once? Only if it’s worthy of a mention.

And then, be here today. Love today. Exist today.

Tell a new story TODAY.