Stories
Susie and I are now back in the UK and trying not to listen to the news too much. Many have asked us how the trip was and it was fantastic touring Australia. We met up with long lost relatives, I took Susie to my old school in Northern New South Wales, to the converted bank we lived in on a one street town near Armidale, to Newcastle where I lived for 4 years and to the yacht club where I started my racing career. Lastly we spent two days in the seaside town where my family ran a business.
Many of the old buildings were still there, but after 50 years it felt as though there was no trace of the time I spent in Australia; it was as if I had no past. So I get that on one level the past does not exist, but what I do have is my stories. This is a good reminder that we are story-telling creatures and basically by the life we are leading we are telling a story. Each of us has a core story, which sets up so many of our life experiences; of course it appears as if others are behaving in ways to which we are just responding, but once we are able to look deeper and have an awareness it soon becomes obvious that we are telling a story with a recurring theme.
Recently we spoke with a friend about how she was telling the Disappointment Story which showed up in continuing incidents where she felt let down and disappointed by others, or where she believed she disappointed others.
Considering how creative we are there are many different stories out there: the Heartbreak story, the Unfair Story, the Chaos story and the Dark Story. Once we win the awareness of the negative story we are telling we then need to consciously choose to tell another story. Instead, could we tell the Success Story, the Happy Story, the True Love Story? It is all up to us.
On our last day in Australia we visited the museum in Sydney to see the First Nations or Aboriginal Exhibit. We witnessed astounding artwork, and we learned they speak a lot about stories and, as the world’s oldest continuous culture dating back some 60,000 years, they have many, many stories about the nature of the world and our existence, stories that have been reverently handed down through the generations. One exhibit showed fossilised footprints from 20,000 years ago that prove the movements of their ancestors and how totally they identify with them, as their stories and their ancestors’ stories come together in what they call The Big Story or Dreamtime, that gateway to the divine.
We have been inspired to take time to reflect and ask ourselves, what stories are we telling by the life we live? How do we get the people around us to play different parts in our story? What scripts have we handed them, and then judged them for? Would we choose to create a new affirming story and let it lead us forward, plus free the people around us? We suggest this is an exercise we can all benefit from.
With love
Sue and Jeff