Dear friend,
I hope this little message finds you well and savoring the possibilities of this day The other day, I was cooking while my nephew, Miles, was playing. My house is set up so that as I cut vegetables by the sink, I could see and hear everything that was happening in the adjoining room. Here is what I witnessed…Miles had Star Wars figures, some Little People, a farm puzzle, and the orange pillow from the couch spread out across the room. Several of the figurines were talking about how ‘all of the friends’ were going to go to the ice cream shop WAY past the farm. But how would they get there? Rather than biking or walking, Miles decided they would fly. The great news was that they would all fit perfectly on the Millennium Falcon where Han Solo and Chewy would happily be their pilots. The adventure went on and on and on and with every twist and mid-flight turn, it got more and more exciting. Miles laughed and leaped and finally pretended that everyone would have incredibly large soft serve ice cream cones. I loved this story and Miles did, too. I spend a fair amount of time with Miles and other little kids around his age who tell great stories like these all of the time! Their imaginations run wild and everything is possible. It is AMAZING, and, it never fails that in the stories they tell, something good always happens to the tellers of the stories! Since eavesdropping on Miles’ adventure, I have been thinking about the stories I tell, because I tell myself a lot of stories (and I bet you do, too). What do I mean by the stories we tell? Imagine any day of your life at its beginning. Imagine checking your calendar to see what the day holds. Perhaps you have a meeting or a play date is set for one of your kids or you are giving a presentation or going on a date or applying for a promotion or following a new recipe for friends you are having over for dinner. What do you say to yourself about how these pieces of your day are going to unfold? Can you imagining screwing something up, failing, things going wrong really fast, falling short of what you once hoped, feeling silly for even believing something was better possible, being unworthy of what is being offered to you, a disaster happening, the worst-case scenario, any and everything going wrong, feeling not good enough, like you shouldn’t even try? I bet you could fill in the blank with some of your own terrible imaginings that aren’t listed here! What happened to us? When did our stories change? Why did they change? Can we change them back? The truth is whether we are imagining unhappily or happily ever after, we are TELLING OURSELVES STORIES which often become self-fulfilling prophecies. We see what we know and go looking for it. Let’s get creative. Let’s start telling better stories. RIGHT NOW! Let’s use our imaginations to foresee days filled with joy where we live into our profound potential and love ourselves, our people, and the world EVEN MORE. Let’s tell fun delightful stories about with the infinite ways our days can unfold and seek out adventures that expand the edges of our imaginations! Love, Dawn
This post was originally featured on choosingwholeness.com