This is episode 43, Storytelling About the Past.

Have you ever told a story about the past? Or, maybe someone in your family told it about you? And in that story, you did something silly, or odd, or embarrassing?

When that story is told, it's just another reminder of our weakness or frailty. Or, maybe about our mistakes.

And the brain, which likes to draw conclusions quickly to save its energy, the brain screams out, “Yes! We really were silly, or embarrassing, or made a major mistake, and we always will.”

This idea that our brain likes to add to the story, that it will always be this way, it's something called an “automatic thought.”
Stories About the Past Create “Automatic Thoughts.”
 

The brain loves to feed us automatic thoughts.

The interesting thing is that mistakes are just things that happen on the timeline of life. But they aren't the definition of who we are.

In fact, we can look over the past, the stories we have told about them and stories that others have told about us about past events, and we can actually change those stories and begin to see those experiences mistakes or life events totally afresh. In other words, we can change the past by changing the stories we tell about ourselves.
Tips to Try
In today's episode, you'll learn about stories we tell about our past. We can find new meaning by exploring automatic thoughts and taking control in the present.

When a challenge confronts us, we can get new results by asking reflective questions like these

* What am I doing to create this problem for myself, or how do I escalate it?
* Am I giving up my control over the situation?
* Am I giving up my power to other people on purpose? Am I blaming others? Am I making excuses to justify why things are the way they are am I avoiding or putting off actions?
* What is my role in the problem?
* What is the benefit I'm getting when things stay this way?
* What is it costing me to keep things this way?
* What would I rather experience?

Once we can see the space between  challenging situation we're experiencing and how we'd like things to be, we can take action.

Here's to being the best you this week!