Ready for our second mindfuck? Let’s talk about why we cling to our stories. Why, why, why? We cling to our stories because we actually benefit from them while they are also causing us suffering. Huh?
Usually the main payoff is the lack of need to change and the ego’s glory of being a victim. People are inherently lazy, and most people do what they do because they HAVE TO DO IT. Not because they want to. Pop psychology 101 says humans align with pleasure and move away from pain. Humans are also creatures of habit and most fear change.
Your Ego
The ego is the self. The ego has a super powerful drive to stay alive. It will just about do anything to ensure its survival. In this case it will even fight off the very healing you are trying to accomplish when you feed the demons. It needs to be right. Let me provide an example. Ever argue with someone and in your heart of hearts you wanted to stop fighting and find common ground? Why didn’t you stop fighting? Probably because your ego insisted that you were right (had more knowledge, had the better argument, whatever) and thus you felt you needed to be right. You HAD TO HAVE that validation. Your ego has played a big trick on you, it has tricked you into thinking that if you let go of your stories you will lose your identity. Well if I am not the victim, the xyz, then who am I?
Who am I?
Every character in your story presents false evidence of who you are. When you insist in seeing others in only the role you feel they play in your story (parent, employer, student, sibling,) you lose out on the opportunity of seeing who they truly are.
What defines a role? A role is a hodpodge of beliefs and expectations (this could also be called a mentality). When these expectations are not met by others we have a strong emotional reaction (usually a negative one). When we scrap our roles we can just do and just be (the power of now). We no longer take things personally because we transcend our ego’s incessant need for both validation and attention (easier said than done I know).
I want to say again that NONE OF THE STORIES ARE TRUE. They are just tales you have created to explain reality from an egocentric point of view. They live on (as do the demons) because you continue to live in the past (in the present, living in the past in the present, sounds weird but very true). You continue to be the guy who was hurt by his parents, who was cheated on by his ex, is an underappreciated employee, etc. Even the new empowering stories are not really true. They will help you navigate the path of life but they are not the path itself.
You can reinvent yourself and create a story that is empowering, one of hope that will not only change you but how people react to you.
A final thought
Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
This is a classic example of how the true self is always coming through and why roles that we identify with that our negative are toxic to our very existence.
