Raise your words

 

 

 

We are story weavers, we all weave stories. Two weeks ago, I asked ‘What is your story?’ and I wrote about the stories we weave together and how we can stop getting entangled in them, by recognizing they are stories and by not taking them personally.
We don’t only weave stories about others and our relations with them, we also weave stories about ourselves. We have an image of ourselves, that is built of layers and layers of story lines. All story lines are interwoven, they are part of the cloth we are weaving. Some parts are almost felted, the places we touched over and over and over again, confirming the truth of our stories every time we thought or talked about them, or agreed to them.

Words have power. The words we think and the words we speak. They stick to us. Words bring us down or lift us up. They are the threads that create either a non-descriptive or a fabulous cloth.   What does the fabric of your stories look like? What threads do you use to weave your stories? What colors do you pick  and what patterns do you create? Do you love the materials and the colors you’re working with. Do you love the cloth you are creating? Or do you do the best with what you have, working with scraps given to you by others? What I am asking is, what does your language look like? Which words do you speak to yourself? In silence or out loud? What stories do you tell yourself on a daily basis? How do you describe yourself? Your life? Life? Do you use your language intentionally to create your best life? Is it rooted in love and abundance? Or do you regurgitate language you have been taught, speaking words rooted in fear and lack?

The story I told myself, unconsciously, for most of my life, was one of defeat. I was convinced that I was undeserving, unlovable and unworthy. I did not know it at the time, but my thoughts and words reflected these beliefs, confirming them on a daily basis. I was weaving a cloth with threads of powerlessness, fear, unworthiness, guilt, blame, discouragement, worry and doubt. I was creating a garment of despair and undeservingness. I was so entangled in my own story that I was blind to the possibility of weaving a different story.

What I have learned is that when the cloth we are weaving doesn’t suit us anymore, we don’t have to examine every thread we ever used, nor do we have to undo all our previous work. The most effective way to change our story is to stop thinking and talking about what doesn’t work and start thinking and talking about the things that do work. Then miracles happen. When that idea seems too bold to you right now, there is another, more gradual way. Examine the story you have woven around yourself, find a disempowering word or sentence that keeps recurring, that is holding your story in place. Listen to the tone of your voice, whining or too harsh. Replace that one thread in your story. Find a new strand, pick a color and material that you love and introduce that into your story instead, one thread at a time. Literally replace that overused word or sentence with a new word or sentence, a mantra, and keep saying it to yourself, gently, soothingly, until it has become part of you. Then find the next thread in your story that you want to upgrade to a better quality.

Raising your words is a gradual process. You can’t go from “I can’t” to “I sure can” or from “this will never work” to “I trust that all will work out for the best”, or from “I’m such a loser” to “I love to learn, next time I will do even better”. It is about consistently replacing your old words by finding more uplifting or soothing ones that work for you. Raising your words is about unlocking your true self, your best self, it is about wanting to live a better life more than being content with complaining about the one you are living right now. Raising the quality of your words, will raise the quality of your perception. And when our perception shifts, our  reality shifts; things that weren’t possible before, not only become possibilities, but probabilities.

The story I am weaving today is a story I would not have believed possible only a few years ago. It is a story inspired by my best self. Today, I am using threads of love and worthiness, of appreciation and gratitude, of happiness and positive expectation. I am introducing threads of limitless potential and overflowing abundance. I am learning to pick strands that I love for no other reason than that I love them, I am learning to pick vibrant and bold colors, feeling more at ease with them every time I use them. I have learned it takes courage to weave a story that allows your best self to shine through. It takes courage to start weaving a different story, to use different colors and create bold patterns. It feels awkward. It may feel like you’re faking. And the story weavers around you may not like what you’re doing, they may even feel threatened. To change your story you need a heartfelt desire to live a better life, determination to go on even when it seems useless, and compassion to speak softly to yourself when you mess up, for ‘it is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.’

What I know for sure is that the cloth you are weaving today is the garment you will be wearing tomorrow. If every day you add a bit more color, you’re clothes will have a different feel in days, a different look in weeks and be made over in a year. Namasté.

 

photo by Mira Pavlakovic

 

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