WELLNESS-For years I told a story of illness, depression, and suffering. It wasn’t entirely my fault since my chronic sickness began when I was a child so it was all that I knew at the time. My story involved asthma, earaches, allergies, and just a general malaise about life. I was often drugged with cough medicine and antibiotics so that I could heal what was ailing me but ironically, it was doing more harm than good. My pain story also involved being bullied and taunted from as far back as I can remember. Not the best story to tell but it was the only one that I knew at the time.
We all have stories to tell. Some of us love to get into the nitty gritty detail of how hard life has been for us. Others tell a lighter, more empowering tale. Our ability to develop and hash out the storyline comes from years of planning, experiencing, and developing the various characters and dramas along the way.
If we want a different life experience, we MUST tell a different story! Most likely, that plotline we’ve been reciting since youth no longer serves us. In fact, by telling the same story over and over again, we are perpetuating duplicative experiences and challenges that we have already lived out. Maybe it’s time to tell a new story.
Sometimes we begin slowly. For me, I started to realize early on that my story of illness was no longer serving me and that I deserved to feel better. I began to research, experiment with my body, and find experts who could help me along the journey towards healing.
While all of this was vital to my growth, the very first step was to become conscious of the story that I was telling and then slowly, make changes to my script.
Initially, it was very difficult because it’s much easier to fall into old habits, patterns and ways of being. Sometimes it’s actually more comforting to suffer than to thrive I learned.
But as we begin to catch our thoughts, ask ourselves if those very thoughts are serving us, and then replace them with more positive and loving thoughts, we gradually begin to shift and we start to re-write the storyline of our life. We begin to get vocal about our new and improved health, the wonderful opportunities that are coming our way, and all that we have to be grateful for. We start to verbalize all that we want to become even before it shows up in physical form because we now realize that in order to achieve all that we desire, we must believe it before we see it.
I understand that it can be fun to complain to friends and tell a story that makes us look and feel like a victim. Somehow there is comfort in sharing our pain with others. But perhaps it’s time to tell a completely different story, one of openness, positivity, and fulfillment. We are in charge of the words that go down on paper, nobody else. Who would you be if you began reinventing yourself and thriving? What would your life look and feel like if you were to become the person that you most admire? Maybe, just maybe it’s time to tell a different story.
(Jay Bradley is a Youthful Aging, Wellness & Lifestyle Expert Living in Los Angeles. http://www.JayBradleyLifestyle.com. He is the Best-Selling Author of LIVE LOOK FEEL, The 12-Week Guide to Live Longer, Look Younger & Feel Better!)
-cw
Pain Stories
