All of us tell stories. It’s human nature to try to make sense of our lives.  Our stories are colored by our experiences and things we have been taught. A lot of our stories come from our childhood, when our brains weren’t completely developed.

But we aren’t children now. As an adult, we are able to choose our thoughts on purpose.

Often, we don’t. We stick with the stories that have been in our minds for a long time.  Those stories are easy and comfortable.

Even the stories that hurt us or are holding us back are more comfortable to the brain, because it takes work to believe something new.

And often there is a reason we choose to keep believing them.

What stories are your favorites?  Brooke Castillo calls them “wubbies.” Those soft, comforting scraps of an old blanket that a toddler carries around.  On Instagram this week I compared it to a pacifier….something a baby gets used to and thinks it can’t live without, even if it is starting to cause problems.

Some common stories I see people cling to are ones like :

My mom paid more attention to my sister growing up, and she still does!

My husband doesn’t know how to deal with my grief, I don’t even think he misses our baby we miscarried.

We can just never get ahead, every time we try to move forward something else happens.

Everyone else gets pregnant so easily, there is something wrong with me. It’s not fair.

We never want to judge these stories.  There is a good reason your brain wants to keep them. Ask yourself why your story is serving you.

Really think about it.  This can be challenging because there are often layers in front of the true reason.

That’s where a life coach comes in. I love helping people figure this out.

A lot of times the reason we cling to them is simply because letting go of them seems scary. We don’t know who we would be if we didn’t have that identity.

Another reason we don’t let go is because we don’t think we can. We have believed our story so long that it seems like just a fact.

But today I just want to encourage you to wiggle at some of those stories.

A fun exercise to do is to create the title of a movie about your life.  What would it be?

Or the title of the movie of your loss experience. 

Perhaps the title of your life in the last five years.

The title of your relationship with your spouse.

The title of your story of motherhood.

When you look at these titles and your stories, what emotions come up?

There is no need to change it, just explore. 

If you want someone to guide you, it’s one of my favorite things to do. Email me any time amy@smoothstonescoaching.com