Re-writing Those Darn Old Stories

I just wrapped up a 5-week Compassionate Communication class. The last session of the class always focuses on self-empathy. That theme runs throughout the entire class, but we take a whole session at the end to delve into topic and practice. We identify some of the mean messages we tell ourselves- the ones that judge, criticize, shame, and blame. One of my teachers calls it the Path to Self-Destruction, or if taken to its greatest extreme, the Path to Suicide.

Somewhere along the way most of us have internalized unkind messages so deeply that we now hear them in our own voice and we believe them. Even when we develop habits that may serve our well-being (eating healthy foods, getting enough sleep, exercising), we might do them with an undertone of shame, blame, or threat to ourselves.

In the class, after identifying the self-violent messages, we notice the feelings associated with the message and the needs beneath the message. Seeing the needs, we name some strategies, small steps we might take to meet the needs that we’ve uncovered. I’ve noticed that sometimes people identify strategies that are just as unkind as the initial messages they’re working with- those “should,” “have to”, “need to” messages, or straight out demands, “Do this!” The strategies are still coming from a place of self-judgment, rather than self-understanding and compassion. In those cases, we may dig a little deeper into the person’s feelings and needs and then work together to brainstorm other ways to meet the needs that incorporate self-kindness.

In The Artist’s Way, one of the weekly tasks is to work with this (slightly modified) mantra: Treating myself like a precious gift makes me strong. I love this mantra. I use it when I notice myself getting all self-judgy. Recently I found myself in a storm of self-judgment, questioning my value to other people, and deeper than that, my value, period. Then I remembered my mantra. I wrote it in my journal enough times to move me out of the story of unworthiness and stagnation and into one of worthiness, one with a new plot line. In the new story, I was my own hero. I was kind to myself. I remembered that my worth is not dependent on anyone else’s opinions or actions toward me. I took action to meet my needs. I re-wrote the story. It felt good!

The tricky part about these stories is that when we re-write them, we may think we’ve done so with permanent ink. We celebrate! Then we look at the paper to see the ink fading to invisibility, and the old story appearing again.

It may take us by surprise. It may make us weary. “That again?” And we so we do the work again, re-write the story again, perhaps with new plot twists, perhaps with the ones that have been successful before. 

We’re all works in progress. Re-writing the story is an ongoing process. It’s a practice. It’s an experiment. We can do it alone, but I think it’s best when we find the right people to write with, the ones who can support us in becoming our own heroes and to whom we can offer the same.

Shall we write together?