What's Your Story?

"That's the story of my life."

"It's the same old story."

"That's my story, and I'm sticking to it."

Have you ever heard yourself using any of these expressions? Is your story about the life you want, or is it a story you feel like you're stuck with?

Before we met each other, each of us had spent most of our lives in what we now call victim mode. We felt like we had little control over the things that happened to us, so we spent a lot of time complaining. The complaining didn't really help our circumstances any, but at least it made us feel a bit better - or so we thought.

Then one day, we were offered a new perspective to consider: What if all our complaining was actually an excuse to avoid taking responsibility for changing our circumstances and creating the life we really wanted to live? What if we actually had the power within us to control our own destiny, and we just weren't using it very well?

With these questions in mind, we started paying close attention to the people who had the kind of lives we'd always dreamed of having, and we noticed that these people very rarely complained. Instead, they spent their time, energy and focus on things that would improve their lives, as well as the lives of others. Once we'd been exposed to this new awareness, we realized we could never go back to our old ways, so we set out to learn as much as we could about this intriguing phenomenon, and to put into practice a new way of being.

As we started out on our path, we found that it was not as easy as we had thought it would be. It required us to retrain our minds to think in a whole new way, and to start doing things in ways that were not only different, but were actually the complete opposite of what we had been taught all our lives. At first, it felt like we were alienating ourselves from our friends and family, and most people didn't seem to understand what we were doing or why we were doing it.

Despite all these challenges, we stayed committed to our path. Somehow we just knew it would all be worth it in the end. And as we kept making the choice to stay committed, we started to feel more connected to the people in our lives. Not only that, but we started to notice that more and more people were feeling inspired by us, and coming forward with heartfelt offers to support us in our mission. This made it easier and easier to stay on our path, and we really started to enjoy this new way of being!

Eventually, we began to see clearly on the horizon the fulfillment of our dreams. As we neared the home stretch, the vision of that finish line so close ahead gave us a powerful boost of energy and enthusiasm. Then a strange thing happened. The finish line disappeared. This new way of being had become our natural way of being, and we were no longer chasing the dream, we were living it. Now when we looked at ourselves in the mirror, we could see that we had become those people whose lives we had wanted to have. And in turn, we were now inspiring countless others to live their dreams as well. What a great feeling!

So why are we sharing all of this with you? Because we know that there are some of you out there who are getting tired of complaining -- tired of living in victim mode. Some of you are right on the verge of a new awareness that you may actually be able to create the kind of life you've always dreamed of living. Some of you are starting to consider the possibility that you may just be the author of your own story -- that if you don't like the story of your life, you may just be able to change it. Starting right now.

If you feel like you might be one of those people, maybe it's time to start asking yourself some questions - questions like: What is my story? Have I been telling the same old story for a long time now, like for weeks...months...or even years? What if I were to stop telling that same old story, and start telling a new one? What kind of life could I create for myself? What could I inspire others to create? What kind of a difference could I make in the world?

This is the story of our lives. We're making it up as we go along, and it just keeps getting better!

Many Blessings,

Keith and Maura

 

 

 

Follow Keith Leon and Maura Leon on Twitter: www.twitter.com/KeithLeon

Comments

[OtayPanky]

03:28 PM on 09/28/2007

Just for the record, Keith and Mona Leon's ideas are simplistic to the point of being dangerous, despite the performanc­e art in my posts above.

Their new age sources, whether THE SECRET or Byron Katie, or any of the countless channeled entities that seem to be floating around these days - are just not fully baked.

Have baked would be about right for some of those sources - raw and rotten for others.

There really IS a mature metaphysic­al perspectiv­e, wherein we actually get to TRANSCEND our story. But that comes only after we've done the honest work of OWNING our story - including the unpleasant parts we'd rather not admit to.

As Jung said, "the way up is down".

The problem with all this puerile advice being peddled these days is that it does not honor the difficulty of the journey, nor the need for rigorous honesty in order to make progress upon it.

It also does not recognize that truly owning a story of oppression­, injustice or abuse - whether of an individual or a people - is a gift for all of us. If Bayard Rustin, MLK, Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks and countless others hadn't been willing to fully OWN their story of slavery and then a century and a half of Jim Crow, the south would still be stuck in it.

Sorry Keith and Mona. Your perspectiv­e just won't cut it. Forget Michael Beckwith, Joe Vitale and all these SECRET snake oil salesmen and saleswomen­. Spend some time with The Buddha, Jesus and Lao Tzu. These are (some of) the real grownups in the room, otay?

[MarilynBB]

10:04 AM on 09/24/2007

Accepting responsibi­lity to be the main character in our own life story is a great way to get out of the victim (child) role and start being personally responsibl­e for our life. Hoping that someone else will rescue us, create the special moments or make us happy is childish thinking. Accepting that we need to discover our own joy and overcome the negative limiting thinking we have been conditione­d with is mature thinking. It is much harder than the simple words of "think positive" imply. Changing our belief system is a challenge that takes many forms. Sometimes we need to stop relationsh­ips with people who reinforce our limits and ending relationsh­ips can be very difficult. When it is stated that a change in thinking is all that is required it is too simplistic­. Personal growth take hard work and can be filled with very difficult decisions.
Thanks Keith and Maura for bringing this topic up for considerat­ion.

[OtayPanky]

01:32 AM on 09/24/2007

I had another really INSPIRED thought here - thanks to Ken and Mary's TRULY insightful comments.

Bear with me here, while I tease this one out, OK?

You know how the whole country is wrapped up in another one of those racial discussion­s over the Juno 7?

I mean there must have been 30,000 people down there this weekend - and right there on TV I saw a NUMBER of them wearing WHITE HOODS.

Now - I'm not COMPLAININ­G about any of that, just OBSERVING. But it all got me to wondering: WHY are we still fussing and fighting, my friend, when life is very short and there's no time?

And then it hit me: how much of the so-called civil rights movement has been about dreaming and visioning a better future - and how much has been about COMPLAININ­G???

There's been a LOT of complainin­g - and (with all due respect) a LOT of it comes out of the mouth of that civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Senior.

Sure, King was Mr. "I have a dream". But he was also Mr. "I have a beef". So when we made a holiday out of him, we enshrined the beef, right along with the dream.

And that's exactly Ken and Mary's point - and the point of THE SECRET, too. Keep on complainin­g, and what' you're complainin­g about will NEVER go away. Those complaints attract negative energy, which creates more things to complain about.

Every time we have a Martin Luther King day, we're replaying all those old records about how sucky everything is in this country.

I'm not complainin­g about that - just observing. But maybe it's something we want to stop (the Martin King birthday, I mean - so that we can stop complainin­g during every one, and at other times of the year, too).

And that goes double for Malcom-Ex. That one had too many wives and girlfrieds all together! You know someone wsa complainin­g their BRAINS out.

[Zackdog]

03:48 AM on 09/23/2007

Thank God people only complain and tell stores about what they are going to do. Can you image how bad it would be if everyone did what they said they were going to do. There is already too much trouble in the world caused by "doers" and "world savers". Why do you think there is a war? Some one visualized it. There are already more books then people who want to read them. If everyone that had a story about "I ought to write a book"did, there would be no forrests. People that encourage others to live out their dreams, have a special place in hell. They have to bunk with the idiot doers in overcrowde­d cells full of all of the junk they created.

[OtayPanky]

12:50 AM on 09/24/2007

Zackdog: There is already too much trouble in the world caused by "doers" and "world savers". Why do you think there is a war? Some one visualized it.

===

WOW! That's REALLY a good comment on the other comment! A 100% different POV than Myrna and Daniel's.

[OtayPanky]

09:29 PM on 09/22/2007

Keith Leon and Maura Leon: Then one day, we were offered a new perspectiv­e to consider: What if all our complainin­g was actually an excuse to avoid taking responsibi­lity for changing our circumstan­ces and creating the life we really wanted to live? What if we actually had the power within us to control our own destiny, and we just weren't using it very well?

===

Wow, this is REALLY exciting stuff!

You DO have the power within you to control your own destiny. Oprah's been talking about it. There's this book - you might have heard of it - called THE SECRET, that talks all about this.

You guys are the BEST. Thank you so much.

The truth is, all this complainin­g merely perpetuate­s the problem! Why are we having such a terrible time in this country? Because people are complainin­g! Why won't Bush bring home the troops? Because people are complainin­g!

If only people would stop complainin­g about what they DON'T want, and start visualizin­g what they DO want, everything would work out just fine.

Thanks once again for being a bright shining light in all this darkness (not that I'm complainin­g about the darkness - just noticing it, is all).

[newpantaloons]

04:50 PM on 09/26/2007

One of my favorite old-time hippy books were the "Seth" series. One of his comments that always stuck in my mind was: "You can never have peace by hating war, you can only have peace by loving peace". I think of that comment often lately.

[OtayPanky]

11:02 AM on 09/29/2007

Seth doesn't live in Samsara - we do.

And in Samsara, we can only have peace by loving peace enough to pursue it AND hating war enough not to let others pursue it.

Go back and read you some Ghandi. His own vision of pacificism was CONDITIONA­L - based on his perception of his "enemy" as being essentiall­y virtuous has he was. That's why he advocated it against the Brits.

But, he said, when it came to a full blown psychopath like Hitler, he didn't see "loving peace" as the answer. He knew that would just give Hitler more bodies for the ovens.

Forget Seth. Forget Abraham. Forget THE SECRET. It's all puerile jibber-jab­ber. Good for hippies, mebbe - but not for adults.