A few weeks ago, “YogaGirl” blogged at As a mantra of fact … about ceasing to tell stories about oneself that function as barriers to what you truly want to do. Here’s part of what she said:
One of the themes of my retreat last weekend was “Stop Telling Your Story”. Not those wonderful yarns you can spin about childhood or momumental events in your past that provide the makeup of who you are..but those stories you use as excuses, defenses, walls to put up between yourself, other people, relationships, the outside world, etc. I’ve got a particularly annoying volume of them. My classic one as of late is:
I miss teaching yoga. I used to teach *so* much yoga when I lived in
Texas. After moving home to Oregon I found that everywhere I went, I was asked to teach everything but yoga. Now I hardly teach any yoga, especially after having to give up my 2 long standing studio classes in order to take on some cycling classes at the local gym where I coordinate. ((( WHINE ))) I’m only able to rotate on the weekends or have the occasional sub opportunity. Maybe I’ll just use this time to be more of a yoga student than a yoga teacher for now. Blah, blah, blah, blah, BLAH!
The upshot was that YogaGirl took the initiative to find a yoga class to teach.
I would contend, however, that what she did was not to stop telling her story but to change her story — from the story of someone who feels that she really misses teaching yoga to the story of someone who is teaching yoga. That change-your-story/change-your-life philosophy has become my mantra.