Listen carefully;
What is the story you tell?
How does it serve you?
Human beings are storytellers. It’s our nature. In fact, it’s one of the defining traits of being human.
We tell stories about events we experienced, those we didn’t experience, and events that haven’t yet happened. We tell stories about how the world works, about our culture, about groups, other people, and ourselves.
We tell stories about who we are and why we do things or don’t do things, why we think a certain way. Why something happened or didn’t happen.
We tell stories with words, pictures, numbers; through a glance, through movement, and through sound; in our waking lives and in our dreams.
The stories we tell and the stories we are told shape our beliefs about what’s “right” or “wrong,” what’s expected of us, what’s acceptable, what has value, who belongs, who to trust, and whether to trust at all.
It is the nature of the human mind to weave a narrative, to link two separate events together by ascribing causation or motivation.
We use stories as a mechanism to create meaning, to make sense of the randomness of life.
Often, we are not even aware of the stories we are telling. Many of the stories we tell are the same stories we were told. The story might not even be ours; we may have inherited the story.
We may have lived inside the narrative for so long that we don’t even realize it’s a story.
Until you make the subconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. — Carl Jung
What stories are you telling?
Today’s new moon solar eclipse in Gemini invites us to look and listen more closely to the stories we tell and that others tell us, and to challenge the narratives that we are living in.
Mercury, the planetary ruler of Gemini, rules this new moon eclipse.
Mercury is the Messenger. Gemini is the storyteller.
Eclipses reveal what is going on in the background, in the places we are not consciously aware of — what Carl Jung called the “shadow.”
The stories that exist in shadow often have the greatest influence on our experiences and actions.
The eclipse in Gemini is our opportunity to see these stories with greater clarity.
Truth doesn’t matter
Once we bring them into our awareness, we can assess whether the stories serve us.
Often we are tempted to assess the truth of a story, but whether it’s true doesn’t matter. Ultimately all stories are lies. Each story is a perspective on a situation; it cannot capture the full experience.
Whether the facts are correct or not, the question is whether the story serves us.
Change your story
If a story doesn’t serve us, we can change it.
We can’t change other people’s stories, but we can change the stories we tell about other people. And we can change the stories we tell about ourselves.
As we change the stories we tell about other people or experiences, our relationship to those people and experiences change.
As we change the stories we tell about ourselves, our relationship to ourself changes.
What are stories are you telling? What narratives are you living within? Are they serving you?
If not, you can choose to change your stories.
Change your story, change your life.
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