The Power of the Stories We Tell Ourselves

                                       I believe we come to a new story                                                                                        when the heart is ready."                                                                         Carrie Newcomer

In her song, “Writing a Better Story,” Carrie Newcomer encourages us to write a better story for our lives than the ones we have been carrying in us. We wake every morning with a blank page, and on it, we can write about the old story of who we are and who other people are, or we can write “something truer and deeper and more life-giving.”

In order to write a new story, we need to have hope that the story is even possible. Carrie says that hope is a choice that we all can make. We can choose a story of love or one of fear. It is in our power to choose a more hopeful story and to live it every day.

That choice is not so easy when the world around us encourages and spreads stories of distrust, division and fear. How do we break out of the hold that our culture has on us and live a new story of love and kindness and allowing of other people as they are?

We need to change the lens through which we look at the world. There is enough evidence around us to support a belief in a dangerous world full of people whom we can’t trust, and there is enough evidence to support the opposite view, that the world is full of good people, living their lives with kindness and compassion and caring for each other.

We all choose which view to embrace and, therefore, help to expand it with our own lives.

The biggest mistake many people make is to assume that they are powerless to change the world. When we take a step back and see it from a higher perspective, we understand that the actions of every person are like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, together, creating the whole picture.

We each have control over the piece that we create.

This brings us back to the story we are each writing. That story becomes our piece in the puzzle, so let’s be conscious, every day, of what piece we are choosing to add to the picture.

What story am I choosing to write today?

By asking that question every day, we remind ourselves of the power we have to make a difference in the world with the way we live our lives.

Carrie Newcomer reminds us:

     There is power in our personal stories of courage and good intention.  There is strength in our collective stories, the ones that are grounded in compassion, service and kindness.

                   Let us build a new collective story of healing and the rise of a new power on earth,                                   based in love, supported by love and extended in love.       

     Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

Our thanks to DailyGood for this story

Carrie's article and song: "Writing a Better Story."

"Writing a Better Story" Lyrics

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We’re grateful that you are on this journey with us.

With love from our hearts to yours,

Pat and Larry