Reflect

Close your eyes for a moment and envision yourself carrying a large suitcase through life. In it are the stories you tell about yourself — the joyful ones and the painful, all stuffed in haphazardly, making it hard to zip the bag. We haul this around because, as Kaitlin B. Curtice writes, “Stories are as magical as they are mundane; they make up the very essence of who we are as human beings.” But once in a while, it’s time to reorganize our overstuffed bags and leave some things behind, especially the worn out stories that keep us from joy. While we can’t filter out all the tough stuff or unlive our lives, we do have a measure of control over the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Relinquishing a narrative that no longer serves us can sometimes take professional guidance, but other times, with a little attention, we may find we’re simply ready to release an old story to make room for new joy. “I’m not creative,” “I’m not a math person,” “I can’t dance,” “I don’t look good enough to…,” or “I’m too old for…” — these are the very stories that make that suitcase cumbersome. To live fully in the present, it’s sometimes necessary to lighten our loads, one limiting story at a time.