As human beings, we’re intensely social animals. A side effect of that is that we love stories. Stories arguably form the backbone of society. One of the oldest traditions we have is sitting around a campfire and telling a story to help us forget the things that are growling in the night, watching and waiting for the fire to die. We look for stories everywhere, and if we can’t find one, we’ll create one.
Tell a story long enough, and it becomes legend; longer still, and it becomes an archetype, something so deep-seated it shows up in the oddest of places, intentionally or not. Sometimes, we make up new stories – but are they really new, or just a new veneer on an old foundation? How many different retellings of Romeo & Juliet have existed?
(I’m reminded of a time in my high school language class, when we had just finished reading the original Romeo & Juliet. One of the other students said “It wasn’t bad, but the story is such a cliche!”)
So many people don’t even think about the importance of stories in our societies, and that includes the stories we tell ourselves. The stories we tell ourselves about us can have a huge impact on our lives. Are we the plucky protagonist, remaining optimistic against all odds? Are we the cynical antihero? The love interest? The defeated and downtrodden worker?
Do you see how important these things are?
To paraphrase a popular quote, that which we repeatedly tell ourselves we are, we’ll become. If you repeatedly tell yourself a story where you have no choice in any of your actions, where you can’t control a damn thing in the story (from setting to outcome & everything in between), what effect do you think that has on you? It’s not likely to make you feel badass and empowered! It’s more likely to keep you complacent and not quite miserable, but not really happy, either.
Refusal of the summons converts the adventure into its negative. Walled in boredom, hard work, or ‘culture,’ the subject loses the power of significant affirmative action and becomes a victim to be saved. His flowering world becomes a wasteland of dry stones and his life feels meaningless – even though, like King Minos, he may through titanic effort succeed in building an empire or renown. Whatever house he builds, it will be a house of death: a labyrinth of cyclopean walls to hide from him his minotaur. All he can do is create new problems for himself and await the gradual approach of his disintegration.
Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces
We need to pay attention to our stories, how we tell them, what they say – what we say – about ourselves and others. We look for things that back up our beliefs (and thus our stories), and tend to ignore evidence to the contrary. If we tell ourselves “I’m not good at this and I never have been,” we’re telling a story, and we’re going to look only for evidence that supports our story. If we tell ourselves “People who make a lot of money are all evil,” then we’ll only see evidence that supports that.
These stories limit us. They can create a victim mentality, and get us stuck in a rut.
But. But!
If we tell the right kind of stories – “I’m not good at this now, but with work, I can be,” or “Effort matters more than luck,” – they can unlimit us, free us from our mental shackles.
Watch for the stories you tell, out loud or in your head. Watch for phrases like “This always happens”, “This never works”, “I should have known, because…”, “It’s been like this since…”. These are stories; they might be fact-based, they might be assumption-based, they might be limiting or freeing. It’s up to you to figure that out & figure out what you want to do with them – discard them, rewrite them, or leave them as-is – but at least be aware of your stories.
Since it relates back to Campbell, stories, and the hero’s journey, I wanted to share something that the luminous Jen Louden said when I was interviewing her for Take Back Your Creativity* to close with:
“I believe that anybody listening to this is a leader who needs and is wanted desperately to help save the world. So if there’s days and times and moments when you can’t find the courage to go into the unknown and create your good stuff, think about the hero/shero’s journey. The hero and the shero, they do it for the collective. They go into the broken, the dark, the unknown, because they’re gonna bring back treasure for everybody else. And sometimes that will get you going when nothing else will.”
So – what’s your story?
& check out Shenee on Twitter: @sheneeh
*If you’re loving the look of Take Back Your Creativity, sign up for the mailing list so I can send you a discount when it goes live!
