When I lived on Kauai, I rented a room in what turned out to be in a haunted house. It got so spooky and so many weird things happened that my roommates and I called in a Kahuna to clear and bless the house. After the Kahuna came and cleared it, she told us to “never think about the spirit in that house again, or you will invite it back.” This was clearly great advice, but very, very difficult to follow. (Just try NOT thinking about that ghost that has been haunting you!)
The interesting thing is that I have found this advice to be true about all kinds of things, not just out-of-place-spirits. In my experience, our words and thoughts actually attract the very thing we are trying to exorcise.
Have you ever noticed that the more concern you express over the economy, the more concerning it gets? Or when you complain about the bad qualities of a loved one, those qualities become all you can see? Or when you complain about yourself, you seem to keep repeating the very things that you are upset about?
It is imperative that we pay attention to the energy that we are “inviting back,” or inviting to stay, in our lives by the stories that we keep telling over and over and over again. Every time we relive a story of being a victim or trauma or drama or powerlessness or anger or depression or defeat, we fuel the fire of that experience and keep it alive. Then, rather than happening to us once, it is as if it has happened hundreds of times as our story telling triggers and amplifies the emotions of the experience. Then, rather than a simple event that happened, it becomes a part of our psyche and belief system of who we are.
Equally fascinating to pay attention to are the stories that we make up! When someone does something that hurts us, or something that we can’t quite understand, we almost always make up a story that puts us down. “I’m not good enough, thin enough, sexy enough, rich enough, successful enough, lovable….etc.” We make up stories, sometimes quite elaborate, to fill in the blanks of what we do not know. Then, rather than just holding the story as a hypothesis, we hold the story as the truth and we even make major life decisions as a result of a story we made up. We make up stories as to what someone is doing when they aren’t with us, why they didn’t call or email, what they are thinking, what they want and what they don’t want. We often add to the story a piece about our own value (or lack thereof) to the other person. In other words, we make meaning from events that may not be based in truth at all, and then live our lives as if the story is 100% true, even though we totally made it up.
Intellectual Foreplay Questions to Consider:
What stories do you keep telling?
Who would you be, or how would you be, if you stopped telling the story?
What stories do you make up?
How are the stories that you have made up impacting your self-esteem and your relationships with others?
The Invitation: Become a lightning rod for what you want. If you are going to make up stories and live in alignment with them, make up stories that inspire you and support your goals.
Love Tip of the Week: We often think that our words and thoughts are just expressions of the truth, or of what we see and experience, but the opposite is often true. What we see and experience is a reflection of our words and our thoughts. If you don’t believe me, simply try consciously changing your words and thoughts and see if a changing reality doesn’t follow close behind.