Illuminate the Committee in Your Head – Day 13
Illuminate the Committee in Your Head Day 13
By Stephanie Foley
Clinging to Our Stories
“Often, the benefit of clinging to our stories is that they give us a false sense of security and purpose. After all, who are we if we’re not the wise authority figure, the creative rebel, or the nurturing parent?”
~Alberto Villoldo, Ph. D.
Do you have any life memories that almost feel dreamlike or like a different life? Maybe you changed jobs and the drama and characters of the old job have fallen away. Maybe a loved one has passed on and that chapter of your life feels different than the one you are living now. These are examples of story lines in our lives. It is helpful to think of life in chapters to begin to recognize that you are living a story. When the story changes (job, relationships, location, etc.) it may or may not coincide with a change of your perception of self. How identified are you with your story? What if you could conjure a level of detachment from a current life story similarly to how you might currently feel detached from stories about you as a baby. Those stories are about you, yet you don’t take them quite as personally as a current story.
To detach from drama or get out of the triangle of disempowerment (from Day 7) one must experience a shift in perception. We will look more deeply at perceptual states in a week, but for now just consider the perception of a snake vs. the perception of a hummingbird. A snake slithers on the ground making deliberate decisions based on survival instinct. A hummingbird flits in the air and navigates thousands of miles every year in migration – a mythic journey of sorts – without guaranteed food sources. The snake’s perception of a grassy field or an ocean is vastly different than the hummingbird’s perception of those same scenes. Similarly, your level of perception determines how attached you are to your story.
