Thursday, July 11, 2013

If you want a new ending, tell a new story

Do you remember the last time you got caught talking to yourself? There you were minding your own beeswax, unaware of anything but the sound of your inner-turned-outer voice,  when someone walks into the room and catches you in the act. It happens to me more than I'd like admit to, like the day I was doing a little reminiscing at the copier. "Are up talking to yourself?" Lenny snickered as he crept up behind me. "No," I snapped. "I'm counting copies. Don't you have something to do in the mail room?"

I had been revising a scene in my mind with an offending co-worker, mentally substituting  "take that" for my lame "oh yeah?" In the end I got the last word but it started me thinking about how easily my mood can go from sunny to stormy with just one thought, and how that thought could rule my day. Pesky thoughts are eventually dismissed, usually around the time you've burned through all your friends on speed dial. Life-long patterns of negative thoughts, however, have the power to derail us for decades. They turn into belief systems and that can become a sizable challenge to reverse.  

We are a hardy bunch. When discomfort and pain become prolonged, we learn to adapt our lives to accommodate the dysfunction. Living without enough money year in and year out, for example, leads to clipping coupons and shopping for off-season bargains as a way of life. There's nothing  wrong with that -many turn it into a game - but in the quiet hours, when the root feeling behind the action is one of fear or sadness or depression, it's time to let go of  a belief system that is self-defeating and replace it with a life-altering foundation for success .

One step you can take immediately to turn your life around is to stop telling the same story. Author and spiritual counselor, Carolyn Myss, calls it bringing out your woundology. In the above example, ask yourself if you've been telling your story of misfortune over and over to anyone who will listen. When your friends are going to dinner, do you say you can't afford a night out then follow up with what a tough year it's been and just when things were looking up, you got slammed with an unexpected expense? The subject could be money or unrequited love or weight loss, it doesn't matter. As long as you keep telling the same story of frustration and desperation, the Law of Attraction will deliver to you more of the same story.

You have the power to change that using the same principles of the Law of Attraction that delivered you to a dead end (the Law is funny that way, it has no investment in the outcome). You can reverse any  negative trend - and even life-long patterns - by starting to tell a different story. My friend Abby refused to join her contemporaries in complaining about how slow business was when the economy went bust. "Business is good," she'd reply then go about her work day, expecting business to be good. When others were forced to close, she was expanding.

Abby's good fortune wasn't luck or timing or favoritism. Nor is yours or anyone else's. It's the deliberate use of one of the fundamental laws of the universe: Like Attracts Like. All creation begins with thought which pulsates into being through words. The final step in the creative process is to add feeling but the words we speak impact the feelings we have. Do you understand the link? Can you see how important it is to be conscious of the words you are choosing and the story you are telling yourself?

In the beginning, your new story may feel a little shaky to you. Years of erroneous thinking about your finances or weight or love life aren't going to vaporize into happy endings after a few tries. But stay with it and they will. Start small with phrases that are believable to you..."I'm beginning to lose weight, I know love is on the way, I always have more money than I need in the moment" ...and build on them as the changes occur. In very short order, the rest of your life can become the best of your life.