The Power of Your Story
rough on me when I was little,” or “The economy shifted,” or “My spouse doesn’t support me.” Could you really say anything like this to your maker with a straight face? Now imagine offering these excuses and rationalizations to someone who endured unthinkable cruelty or tragedy like a war, or a concentration camp, or cancer. Maybe you’ve endured an equally tragic life, but the odds are, your story is more typical than tragic; you endured your parents’ divorce, or you’ve had a lot of expenses, or you always felt shy and had low self-esteem. I’m not discounting your difficulties, only asking you to think about them relative to going through the worst that life can throw at you. And even if you’ve experienced the worst, I have seen people endure epic struggles and still pull through to achieve the seemingly impossible. And most of them overcame their dark past because they refused to let the tragedy and hardship define them. They created a different story for their lives. So when you tell God about how you never have achieved your career goals because your parents were highly critical of you, doesn’t it make you resent this story? Aren’t you sufficiently angry at the story that you’re motivated to change it? Well, I surely hope so. SAY IT OUT LOUD Because of the process we have gone through so far in this chapter and how we have framed “your story,” another way to rid yourself of your old story is to simply say it out loud and lis- ten to how silly it sounds. Say it several times, over and over, and listen to yourself articulating it repeatedly. Say out loud, “I don’t have a good life because [fill in the blank with your reason].” Here’s what I say: “I can’t reach my goals because I’m dyslexic and can’t read well.” Yes, I’m embarrassed by my story, but that’s the point. I know your story may have been traumatizing in the past, but when you say it out loud as an adult you start to hear how misguided it sounds. Again, your life might be worse than anything I can imagine, and I’m not in any way trying to
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