Truth Tool - Rewriting

The Truth Tool Rewriting grows out of and works with the Truth Tool Questioning. Yesterday we used the example of a woman "snubbing" you. Whenever things like that happen we begin to tell ourselves stories to give meaning to the encounter.

When we realize that this is what we are doing, we also realize that since we are the author of the story we have complete power to change the story. We can make it into anything we want, so why not make it positive?

Tools of the Trade

I hope you've been paying attention to the stories you are telling yourself. I also hope you are determining whether what you are saying is the Truth and nothing but the Truth, or an Illusion, what you think should be instead of what is? If your story is not the Truth then you need to drop it and how to do that brings us to the subject of Truth Tools.

Truth Tools are strategies that help us get rid of the vexing thoughts that plague us when we are in the Pit of Illusion

Truth Tools are meant to help us move out of Illusion and into a neutral position where the Spirit can then help us Live in Truth. But one of the first things we learn as we begin to use the Tools is that one tool can't do it all.

Just as a carpenter building a house needs more than just a hammer, you and I need more than one Tool to help us Live in Truth.  If one tool doesn't work in a situation,  you try another until you find one that works.

Some of the Truth Tools I’ve identified and use are:

Anchoring

Humor

Music

Rewriting

Questioning

Distraction

Good Courage

Affirmation

Whenever you feel negative emotions such as fear, worry, stress, anger, self-pity, sorrow, or envy pushing you into the Pit of Illusion, pick one of the Truth Tools and use it to get rid of the negative emotion. Once the negative feelings are gone you can move into the positive.  It is a lot easier than trying to go from negative directly to positive. Once in the Realm of Truth you can experience  happiness, joy, love, and peace which are always available when Living in Truth.

Cows and Cuds

Rumination is a fun word to say. Say it out loud and see how it rumbles around in your mouth as it tickles your tongue with soft vibrations and finally exists your mouth in a slow swishhhh.

The word ruminate comes from the Latin ruminari which means “to chew the cud.” In other words, a cow ruminates. Or to put it more graphically, the cow regurgitates a cud, which is food it has already swallowed that has been semi-digested into a cud, and then it chews on it—again. Sounds pretty disgusting, but before that disgusting scrunched look on your face goes away think about how much ruminating you do. Yes, YOU! People ruminate, but instead of a wad of regurgitated grass in our mouths, we ruminate with regurgitated words in our heads. This is what storytelling is all about.

Besides meaning “to chew again what has been chewed slightly and swallowed” the word ruminate also means “to go over in the mind repeatedly.” The problem with rumination is that it is usually regurgitated negative stories that we tell ourselves over and over again. “I can’t do anything right.” Or ,“My parents shouldn't have mistreated me.” Or, “I’m not a very good parent.” or "My neighbors shouldn't be so messy," or "My spouse should appreciate me more." I don’t need to list more, you get the idea.

Rumination is terrible when we tell ourselves stories based on lies like these. But the Good News! is that unlike cows, we don’t have to ruminate. When the old stories, the word cud, begins to regurgitate we can spit it out and refuse to chew on it. The best way to do that is to replace the old cud with something new. For example when the old cud, “I can’t do anything right,” comes up, you spit it out and instead chew on the idea, “I made a mistake, but I’ve learned from that and it won’t happen again.” That thought tastes a lot better, and it will lead you on to brighter and more delicious things.

Negative Storytelling only generates Unnecessary Pain and accomplishes nothing good. So spit out the story and Live in Truth.

Shooting Down the Should Sharks

We have season tickets to a local theater and love going to the plays with some friends. For years I've called this couple before the run of the play, determined when we could all go together, and then made our reservation. But the other day I got a text from them saying they had made their reservation for the next play and if we wanted to come with them this was the time they were going. Well, the time was a weekday matinee when Mr. J works and so we couldn't go. As I read the message I began to feel the vexation rising in me. "They know Mr. J works and can't go at that time. They shouldn't have done that. They must be trying to get out of going with us. That was rude after all these years that I've taken the time to include and even do the reserving for them. They must not want to be friends with us anymore." (Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera! You get the idea!)

As those Should Sharks began to swim through my mind, I realized what I was doing and that it would not accomplish one single good thing. All those Should Sharks would do is cause me pain, and so I changed the story I was telling myself to, "Since they are both retired they must have forgotten that Mr. J is still working. They just didn't think about it. And even if they did think about it and don't want to go to the plays with us anymore, then I don't want to be hanging on to our relationship if they no longer enjoy our company. Everything is fine."

Granted, this is a small, inconsequential problem, but it illustrates how we create meaning out of the things that happen to us. Something happens and we begin to tell ourselves a story. The simple Truth is that they reserved tickets at a time we couldn't go. Why? I have no idea, and by making up a negative story I cause myself Unnecessary Pain. All I have to do is deal with the simple Truth. In this case I decided to live with it, and reserved our tickets at a time we could go. No pain. No vexation. No Should Sharks because I invented no story. (Or at least I didn't cling to the story I had begun to tell myself!)

Changing the Stress Story

This has been the craziest, busiest summer I've ever had. In the last two months I've been in the province of British Columbia, Canada, and the states of South Carolina, Tennessee, California, Alaska, and Washington-with a few stop overs at home in Utah. I'm feeling dizzy, but I've loved every minute of it. I've met wonderful people and seen some beautiful country. The travel has renewed and refreshed me, but as you all know traveling has its frustrations and so it has given me some unusual experiences in which to use the Truth Tools and practice Living in Truth in ways I don't get in my normal routine.

It has reminded me that when under stress one of the best things we can do is change our story from "I don't like this," to "Wow, what an opportunity to grow and practice Living in Truth." It is amazing how a simple thing like changing the story we are telling ourselves makes such a big difference in our lives.

Truth Tools at the Dentist's Office

Yesterday I had a tooth pulled. It is the second tooth since Grizelda that has shattered so that it needs to come out. It was causing a lot of pain so I’m glad it’s gone. But the good thing is how much the Truth Tools helped me yesterday. The oral surgeon offered to put me out, but I opted for a local and then used the Truth Tools to stay calm and actually found the whole process very interesting. After extracting the tooth, he put cadaver bone in the hole. After the bone heals and the bone transplant takes, there will be enough bone foundation to put in an implanted tooth. It is a strange feeling to think I have someone else’s bone in my mouth, but at the same time I’m very thankful for the scientific advances that allow for such a procedure.


I’m also grateful for the Truth Tools. Instead of coming out of the procedure groggy and in a mental fog, that takes me a good two days to shake off, I walked out feeling just fine. As he drilled and pulled and cut and scraped, I Anchored. The drills make a fascinating music and he kept explaining what he was doing so that, like I said, it was actually very interesting. The way he deftly put the stitches in was also amazing. It was obvious he'd done it thousands of times. That’s where the Storytelling Tool came in. Instead of filling myself with stories about how things could go wrong or it might hurt or any other negative story, I told myself a story about learning new things and how fascinating it was to watch someone who is so skilled at what he is doing.

Truth Tools work! Now I just need to use them to keep myself from being too self-conscious about the hole in the back of my mouth when I smile. They can’t do the tooth implant until the bone heals which will take about three months. Until then I have a missing tooth. My insurance won’t cover a temporary tooth, so I’ll be toothless. I can let it make me very uncomfortable or I can live with it. I’m opting to live with it. I’ve got Tools to help me do it!

Stop the Story

I've been rewriting my book, Living in Truth and Avoiding the Pit of Illusion. I wasn't happy with the way it was, and the revising has been a laborious yet insightful process. Today I've been working on the chapter on Storytelling and reviewing it has reminded me of how important it is to stay within the realms of truth. So often the simplest things trow us into the Pit not because of what happens but because of the story we tell ourselves about what happens.

Something like burning the beans for Thanksgiving dinner happens and instead of simply deciding whether we can fix it (make a new pot of beans) or live with it (not have beans as part of the meal) we tell ourselves a story about how stupid we are or how clumsy we are or how we are constantly making mistakes. Or we blame others. If they hadn't been so noisy we would have heard the timer. Or if they'd help out more we wouldn't be so over-burdened that we couldn't keep up with it all and so we burn things. These are all stories, and none of them is the truth.

When we tell these kinds of stories we are dealing with an illusion instead of with reality and it causes vexation which is unnecessary pain. Dealing with an illusion is like dueling with a ghost. You can shoot and shoot and shoot, but the ghost is never going to die.

But when we acknowledge the truth and decide whether to fix it or live with there is no unnecessary pain. We move forward without being vexed and all we had to do to achieve that peace was drop the story we were telling ourselves.

Tell a Good Story

This past weekend I attended the Orem Storytelling Festival. It is one of the biggest and best storytelling festivals in the nation and it did not disappoint. It was fantastic! I laughed so hard at some stories that I cried. At other stories I’d recognize my own foibles and would learn something new. Over all, I was reminded of how powerful stories are. As a matter of fact, al of us are storytellers and the stories we tell ourselves are what shape our lives. Therefore, it is interesting to stop and ask yourself what stories you tell.

When we feel self-pity or envy or any negative emotion that is directed at other people, we find ourselves telling stories to substantiate our negative feelings.We have to be constantly inventing stories to keep the negative feelings burning within us. Things like, “Ever since her husband got that new job she thinks she is too good for the rest of us” or “Every time my father opens his mouth it’s to praise himself.” It may seem like an innocent thing, and you may ask, “What does it hurt?” It hurts you. It fuels your vexation and causes more Unnecessary Pain.

How your friend acts or what your father says or what anyone else does or why they do it doesn’t mean you have to be miserable. Let them live their life and you live yours. And despite what they choose, live yours happily. When you find yourself telling negative stories, change the story. Tell yourself a good one that will make you laugh or at least make you smile. Life is too short to be wasted enduring Unneessary Pain created by negative stories!

The Art of Rumination

I’ve talked about storytelling and how it relates to Living in Truth several times on Good News! But I’ve never talked about rumination. The word ruminate comes from the Latin ruminari which means “to chew the cud.” In other words, a cow ruminates. Or to put it more graphically, the cow regurgitates a cud, which is food it has already swallowed that has been semi-digested into a cud, and then it chews on it—again. Sounds pretty disgusting, but before that disgusting scrunched look on your face goes away think about how much ruminating you do. Yes, YOU! People ruminate, but instead of a wad of regurgitated grass in our mouths, we ruminate with regurgitated words in our heads.


Besides meaning “to chew again what has been chewed slightly and swallowed” the word ruminate also means “to go over in the mind repeatedly.” The problem with rumination is that it is usually regurgitated negative stories that we tell ourselves over and over again. “I can’t do anything right.” Or ,“No one likes me.” Or, “I’m not a very good mother.” I don’t need to list more, you get the idea.

Rumination is terrible when we tell ourselves stories based on lies like these. But the Good News! is that unlike cows, we don’t have to ruminate. When the old stories, the word cud, regurgitates we can spit it out and refuse to chew on it. The best way to do that is to replace the old cud with something new. For example when the old cud, “I can’t do anything right,” comes up, you spit it out and instead chew on the idea, “I made a mistake, but I’ve learned from that and it won’t happen again.” That thought tastes a lot better, and it will lead you on to brighter and more delicious things.

The Stolen Axe

There are some wonderful Taoist stories that illustrate what happens when we tell stories that send us into the Pit of Illusion. This story brings back a lot of memories of myself before I learned to Live in Truth.

A man went out to the wood pile one morning to chop wood, but could not find his axe.  He searched frantically in every place he normally left it, but it was in none of those places. As he searched he noticed his neighbor’s son lurking lazily about the neighbor’s well.  “Ah ha!” said the man. “Surely this young man has taken my axe.  Look at the way he shifts from foot to foot as if he is afraid I will know. And the guilty look on his face. Surely he has taken my axe. But he will not get away with this. I will make him pay for his thievery.”

All the rest of that day the man fumed and plotted what he would do to the boy, and he slept little that night as he thought about his terrible neighbor who had raised a son to be a thief.

The next morning, still vexed with thought, the man went out to his garden to pick some vegetables and there by his shed found the missing axe and remembered that he had left it there.

As he began chopping wood, he again saw the neighbor’s son walking about the well. “My how the boy has changed,” said the man to himself. “The guilty look has completely left his face.”

Words and Truth

I’ve written on Good News! for a long time about Living in Truth and now I’m discovering that my study of  words overlaps the things I’ve learned about Truth in many places. For example, I found this old Zen story that shows how we fall into the Pit of Illusion because of the words we choose (stories we tell) to explain the events in our lives.

In the story two Zen monks are walking along a muddy, puddle filled road when they happen upon a beautiful young woman who can’t get across a particularly large and deep mud puddle. As he realizes the predicament the woman is in, the older monk lifts the woman in his arms, carries her across the puddle, sets her down, and then continues on his way with the younger monk following.

The two walk silently for hours, as monks are wont to do, leaving behind the dreary mud filled puddles and entering a beautiful green mountain side with spring blossoming trees, buzzing bees, singing birds, and colorful flowers nodding in the breeze. But the younger monk is so deep in thought he notices none of it.

Finally, after walking all day, they stop for the night and the older monk asks what has preoccupied the younger monk so much that he has not even been aware of the beautiful surroundings they have traveled through.

Fired by the long hours of deliberation, the young monk scolds, “You know that a monk should never touch a woman, and yet this morning you carried that beautiful woman across a puddle!”

The older monk smiles, “My young brother, I put the woman down hours ago. Why are you still carrying her?”

The Power of Stories

I heard the forum speaker at BYU today, Micheal Flaherty, speak. He is the president of Walden Media, the film company that according to their mission statement has the goal of “rekindling curiosity and recapturing imagination through the development and production of family films and literature.” They are the producers of such films as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian; Charlotte’s Web; Bridge to Terabithia; and Holes.

Flaherty's dedication to promote goodness and virtue were impressive, but he said something that I had never heard before and loved. He said that the Savior in the New Testament is asked 183 questions and only responds to three of these with a direct answer. In response to the other questions he tells a story or poses another question.

Write your story!

I’ve long known the power of stories. I also knew the Savior told lots of stories, but I had never realized that so many of the stories are answers to questions. That made me think about my own life. How many times when I have a question I want the Lord to answer has he given me an experience (when recounted that is a story!) to answer my question? I think that is one of the reasons the prophets have asked us to keep a journal; so that we will recognize the stories (experiences) that are the answers to our prayers.

I have been very lax in my journal keeping lately, but today I am making a commitment to record more of the stories of my life!

Secondary Messages

Recently I had one of those awakening moments—you know, a moment when you suddenly realize that not everyone sees life like you do. You’d think that by my age I’d have exhausted those moments, but the other day after teaching a student came up to me and said, “But the real meaning in that verse is. . .” as if there could be only one meaning. As he spoke to me I realized that he really thought that the statement made by Nephi could ONLY have one meaning.

For years I’ve been obsessed with looking at what I call secondary meanings. To my way of thinking everything in life has multiple meanings, especially the things we say. When a mother says to her child, “Put on your gloves. It’s cold outside” the first meaning is obvious. It’s a simple command. But the secondary message can be one of many things. Hopefully it is “She loves me enough to care about whether I am warm or not.” However, past experience or tone of voice can change that secondary message. Maybe the child perceives the secondary message to be, “She just wants everyone else to think she’s a good mother.” Or, “She spent all that money on gloves and she just doesn’t want it wasted.” Or, “She doesn’t think I can take care of myself. She doesn’t trust me.”

Understanding that what we read and what we say can have multiple meanings changes how we interact with the world. First, when someone reads a verse of scripture and gets something out of it that we didn’t we don’t need to dismiss it as “wrong.” Every verse in scripture can teach us many things. Second, when we interact with others we need to stop and think about the secondary messages that could be attached to what we are saying or doing. When a child is struggling to cut out a paper doll and you suddenly say, “Here, let me help you,” your intentions may be very loving, but the secondary message may be “You are incompetent.”

This isn’t a principle that only applies with children. Any communication with spouses, friends, coworkers, or family carries secondary messages with it. If we learn to look for the possible secondary messages when dealing with others, we can make our communication more effective. And when reading scripture? By looking for secondary messages, we learn more. And when we are the recipient of a message? We should realize that the secondary message we are attributing to the person may be true, but then again, it may not!

Mirror Addendum

Wow! I just found this and couldn't wait until tomorrow to share it with you. I found a scripture that says exactly what I was talking about in the last post on storytelling and how when we pass judgment it is often because the thing we condemn the other person for is the very way we think or react. The verse I read is in Romans 2:1, "Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things."

The NIV Bible says it like this: "You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things."

Beware of Mirrors in the Stories We Tell

Yesterday I was looking for a book on Amazon and reading the various reviews of the book. Most of the ratings for the book were five star but one review was only a three star so I read it first. The reviewer talked about how good the book was, said the research was sound, but then said that the book was ruined because the author threw in a lot of historical research just so he could brag about the important people he had known and worked with.

The next review I read was one of the five star reviews. This reviewer said the same positive things about the book, but then added a comment about how the book slows down a little as the author explains the historical research in an effort to give credit to the scholars who have not been properly acknowledge for their contribution to the field.

Interesting example of Storytelling! Same book, but two people assigned their own meaning to the inclusion of the historical research. What Storytelling often reveals is not fact (neither reviewer can know for sure why the author included the research). Instead Storytelling reveals what our motivation would have been if we were the author. If we are the kind of person who would brag, then we think that’s what everyone else does. If we are the kind of person who would want to give proper credit to fellow workers, then that’s what we think everyone else is doing.

When we judge others we usually use our own criteria to make the judgment. So a statement of judgment can say as much about the person making the statement as it does about the person being judged. Listen to the stories you tell about what others are doing and watch to see if your own motivations to do things aren’t mirrored in the story.

I know I find myself in my stories about others all too often! So I laugh at how ridiculous I’m being and drop the story. Isn’t it wonderful we can all grow and change!


PS This is the last day to enter the book give away!

Avoiding Fiction in Real Life

We haven’t talked about Storytelling for awhile and lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how the stories we tell ourselves affect our lives. We write our own stories to explain why other people are doing the things they do. For example, your neighbor isn’t as friendly as usual. That is the simple truth of the matter. But as human beings, we like meaning and so we begin spin a story about it why she is so offish. Too often those stories are negative. We think things like, “She is so arrogant. She thinks she’s so much better than other people.” Or “Oh no, I’ve offended her. What have I done?” Or “She must not want to be friends anymore. She never did like me very much.” But it is just as likely that the story could be that she isn’t feeling well today, or she’s preoccupied with thoughts of the family finances, or she’s worried about a child, or she just received bad news concerning her mother’s health. When someone is offish there could be hundreds of reasons. But when we live in Truth we don’t create a fiction, we simply deal with the Truth—today my neighbor isn’t as friendly as usual.

But there are other ways—much more insidious ways—that we create unnecessary pain for ourselves by writing stories contrary to truth. These are stories we tell about ourselves and these stories tend to define our lives. That’s why they are so dangerous. We tell ourselves that we aren’t pretty or handsome, or smart, or talented, or athletic. Usually these stories are told as a comparison with someone else. We aren’t as good as the neighbor down the street because she bakes whole wheat bread for her family. We aren’t as pretty as a friend. Our home isn’t as fashionably decorated as our cousin’s. The list goes on and on and we’ve all done this! But each of these things is simply a story. It doesn’t matter if we aren’t as pretty as a friend. The truth is we are all pretty in some way. We might not bake bread, but tell me where in the scriptures it says you have to bake bread to be good? The truth is we are good in many ways.

 Life is meant to be full of joy and goodness and to a large degree the amount of joy and goodness we experience is determined by the stories we tell ourselves. Right now tell yourself a true story about all that is right and good about you. Avoid any fiction that might come to mind. And if you say there is nothing good, you are lying.  Every son and daughter of God has a “genetic” inheritance of all that is good. So stop writing fiction stories and stick to the Truth. The Truth is you are a beautiful, talented, capable son or daughter of God. Bask in that wondrous story.

PS Remember the book giveaway. Just one more day to enter!

Storytelling

This weekend I had a delightful time at the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival. I listened to many of the 12 professional storytellers work their magic to transport me to Gettysburg or Half Dollar, West Virginia. Some stories made me laugh and some made me cry. Some were so funny they squeezed tears right out of my eyes and caused my sides to ache for hours afterward. I love it.

My time at the Storytelling Festival has caused me to think about the power of stories in our lives. Jesus taught in stories—we call them parables. We warn and admonish each other by relating our own experiences in the form of stories. And we read the stories of people we admire and learn from them. Stories are powerful. Stories our parents told us about their lives, shape our lives.

But the most powerful stories of all are the stories we tell ourselves. Why? Because we believe them. Whenever something happens to us we begin to shape the meaning of the event by telling ourselves a story. The emotions we experience and the attitudes we carry into the future about that event are determined by our story—a story we write. We trip and fall and we can explain it with a funny story about how clumsy we are or we can make it dire with tales of someone else’s incompetence that caused the accident or even make ourselves out to be the victim of someone’s malicious actions. The positive story allows us to move on. The negative story holds us captive in the Pit of Illusion and makes us miserable for as long as we tell the story to ourselves and others.

We are all storytellers and the stories we tell can empower us or they can exhaust us. Realizing we have a choice in this matter helps us to choose stories that will facilitate goodness in our lives instead of letting negative stories ruin our lives.

Revising

Sometimes our negative stories cling to us like a static silk scarf. Usually the reason they cling is because we are going about ridding ourselves of them in the wrong way. The only way to make darkness go away is to replace it with light. It does no good to say, “Go away dark” or “It shouldn’t be so dark.” Instead you simply shine in the light and suddenly there is no darkness.

The statement that there is opposition in all things means that for every bad something there is a good something. Look for the good! Dwell on it! Enjoy! Rewrite a new positive story. Don=t cut corners here. Fill the mind with the positive story so the negative doesn’t have room to grow. Retell your old negative story by concentrating on the positives in the story. (There will always be some!) Attribute positive motives to the other person. See the situation in a new light.

Almost any author will tell you that the secret to good writing is in the revision process. Perhaps the secret of good living is also in the revision. The milk spills and the negative thoughts start to form, but you can rewrite the thoughts. “Those kids make my life so miserable” can with a little effort be revised to, “These kids certainly keep my life interesting! Never a dull moment at my house!” and “They don’t even care how much work they make for me” can be changed to, “I wonder how many times my mother did this for me? Bless her heart! I need to thank her.” “Don’t they understand we can’t afford to waste milk like this?” can become, “As long as I’ve paid for this milk, I might as well enjoy it! I’m going to have a little fun cleaning this up.”

Some people dismiss this as being Pollyannaish and unrealistic. You can call it whatever you want, but if the milk is already on the floor, why add to the pain by thinking negative thoughts? Give me one good reason! Why wallow in the negative thinking? Why stress yourself or give yourself ulcers? Just revise the story and enjoy. The truth is the milk is spilled. The meaning or feeling we attach to that truth can fill us with unnecessary pain or free us from pain. It is a choice.


picture: img234.imageshack.us/img234/5320/rewriting5ij.jpg

Stop-Sign Strategy

I’m on the airplane flying home from Austin and am happy to report that there is a gray-haired man behind me who does not kick. :-) So nice!

But back to strategies. . . When you find yourself writing a negative story about a situation, you are generating unnecessary pain and driving the Spirit right out of your life. The strategies we are talking about are designed to stop the negative story writing so that we can replace them with positive stories.

Brigham Young once said, “When you are tempted, buffeted, and step out of the way inadvertently; when you are overtaken in a fault, or commit an overt act unthinkingly; when you are full of evil passion, and wish to yield to it, then stop and let the spirit, which God has put into your tabernacles, take the lead. If you do that, I will promise that you will overcome all evil, and obtain eternal lives. But many, very many, let the spirit yield to the body, and are overcome and destroyed” (Discourses of Brigham Young, selected and arranged by John A. Widtsoe, p.70).

President Young is talking here about sin, but the beginning of all sin is negative thoughts. So if we can stop the negative thoughts and change them to positive thoughts, our actions will always be positive. The key is to find the strategies that work for us and then learn to use them.

So the second strategy (the first was Anchoring) is that whenever you find yourself writing a negative story imagine this STOP sign in your head or make a picture of a an actual stop sign and put it in a place where it can remind you such as a mirror or in your purse--anyplace you can find it fast or see it often. Then use the mental or actual picture to help you stop and rewrite negative stories.

The Stories We Tell!

We’ll talk about more strategies to help us break the spell negative feelings can cast over us later. But before we do it is important to realize that all of us are storytellers. As human beings we have a driving desire to understand things and to attach meaning to the things that happen to us. Therefore, when we go through experiences of life we interpret them. We tell ourselves stories about the things that are happening to us. These stores can generate either positive or negative feelings within us. But the important thing to remember is that we are writing the stories. We are the one making them either positive or negative.

For example: You pass a friend in the store and greet them warmly. In return they nod at you and move on. At this point you begin your storytelling. You can think, “How rude. At least she could have responded with a greeting,” and continue on writing this story. Or you can think, “She must have something weighing on her mind. She wouldn’t normally have acted like that.” And continue on writing that story.

If you tell yourself the first story, you create unnecessary pain. If you tell yourself the second story you live in peace and love--pain free! It is a choice—not a circumstance. Think about it. You really cannot know what is going on in the other person’s life. To take offense at what happens doesn’t accomplish one positive thing. It only causes you pain.

For the next few days, watch what stories you tell yourself. It is a very interesting experience to listen to your own self talk and realize what you are doing. Let me know what you discover!