The Story You Wrote with a Biased Pen — Your Novel

The nature of your thinking and how you feel about yourself determines how you live.

We are born spirits that soar — light, playful, joyous and blissful. But inevitably, many of us are dragged down by the nitty-gritty of life. We take on roles and responsibilities, overload on stress and worry and crumble beneath the weight of experience and circumstance. By the time we reach adulthood, our personal gravity can become so strong that we can lose sight of our own capacity for happiness and fulfillment. When peace of mind diminishes, we forget what it feels like to feel free; we are overwhelmed with the responsibilities we have assumed and our lifestyle follows suit.

Henry David Thoreau once wrote, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them." I echo this sentiment; it feeds everything I do in my personal and professional life.

Desperation (quiet or otherwise) is the psychological antithesis of liberation. It is born of early experiences that bind our feelings, needs and drives through guilt and shame, thus creating tension and anxiety. This all inhibits the ability to genuinely relate with others and promotes a downward trend in various ways.

These experiences compromise our development and limit healthy relationships with others and ourselves. And the cycle goes around and spirals downward until the story changes or willpower runs out.

Is Your Story Supporting You?

Each of us has a story about ourselves that we have written (so to speak) that defines our experience and for most people defines who we are. This story is just that — a story.

For some, this biography is more accurate and positive, based on what actually happened in genuine relationships with others; and from it they learned to interpret events in a constructive way. Even if a particular event is not positive and seemingly negative (as many events in our lives can be), the story created is supportive as it is viewed as a situation in life, not as a self-reflection. This enhances how a person thinks and relates. In other words, bad things can happen and not be a reflection of who we are or what we are worth.

For others, the opposite takes place, and these unfortunate life experiences are interpreted negatively, greatly influencing how a person thinks and relates to others. Because they don't have supportive people helping them to see the difference between situational and personal causes, they create a biased story that does not support a balanced, healthy, high-achieving life.

A positive, self-reinforcing story requires that the key people in our early lives have consistently provided us with empathy — the ability to understand and respond to the unique experiences of another. The result of many empathic interchanges is an understanding self-voice. However, if we are not provided with this type of relating, the story written becomes a novel — a fictional story that we use to cope with difficult circumstances.

The Key to a Supportive Story

One of the central themes of this book is the value of being in genuine relationships with others, and for one simple reason: experiencing empathy in relationships with others is the means by which we grow and get to know ourselves.

Empathy is an ability that is absolutely essential in being able to understand others and maneuver through the minefield of relationships. When received, it allows us to form a truthful picture of ourselves, thus being the key component in developing a resilient sense of self.

If empathy was or is still not present in our lives and we are not in authentic relationships with others (and ourselves, for that matter), the likelihood of a fragile sense of self is high. This brings with it emotional challenges, because emotional fitness (which develops in relationships with others) never developed with enough strength to cope effectively.

To compensate for this, we build a cover-up story to relate and appear stronger than we really are which leads to the cultural addiction discussed in the next chapter.

Each chapter in a fictional story about ourselves leads to more inaccuracy and becomes the seeds for low self-esteem, poor self image, errant thinking and perceiving and, inevitably, what you'll come to know as "the downward trend."

The downward trend happens when dynamics like these, lead to negative consequences that accumulate to the point where it becomes progressively more difficult to change course — like a plane going into a downward spiral.

Living overwhelmed leads to exhaustion and fatigue which often result in the overweight condition and health complications. This typically happens emotionally and manifests physically, depending on the circumstances.

The central point of this chapter is this: your story, how you are thinking, is the driving force behind how you live your life. A false or unsupportive story does not serve you, because what is in doubt haunts you and drives you — particularly the unresolved emotional experiences that you cope with by creating more chapters in your novel which reinforce your lifestyle.

The concept of "story" is as powerful as it is because contained within it is the entire idea of identity — your drives, wants, desires, needs, emotional pains, traumas, etc. Even your values, beliefs and rules about life and who you think you are all wrap up nicely in your story.

As a novel, these character aspects of...