You Are Not Your Story
It is deeply heart-opening when people who read Embracing the Stranger in Me: A Journey to Openheartedness share how the stories in the book resonate for them in their own journey. And then they thank me for being so courageous to share those stories as they feel they have glimpsed into my own vulnerability. All true. And it has generated a curiosity for me about what my relationship with this book is – because it doesn’t feel quite so courageous from my perspective. This book has its own life, energy and flow – thankfully and interestingly.
How are your stories working for you?
And I get to remember, again, what I already knew and now know more deeply. I am not my stories. I am not my book. I am not the stories other people tell (or think) about me. And, you are not your stories. They do not define you – unless you choose to let them. Of course, they shape you. And, you have choices as to how they shape you – looking at life through the human tragedy or drama perspective or from the soul journey perspective – that which we are seeking to learn or experience at the soul level.
There are moments in my life that are seared into my memory as pivotal moments. One such memory, complete with date, is March 1998. I was halfway through a severance period, having been royally fired from my job, in the middle of a divorce and having bought a home, for me and my two young boys, predicated on a salary I no longer had with no idea what I was going to do next to support myself. I was in the highest anxiety of my life – to that point. I could only focus on what was right in front of me – the next moment, maybe the next day, but certainly not weeks, months or years down the road – because otherwise the stress was overwhelming to the point of being debilitating.
I was sitting in my kitchen, making a choice of which book to pick up and read – the practical What Colour is Your Parachute or the transformative The Dragon Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. I didn’t know it would be transformative when I picked it up, but it was. I was transported to another world. Mesmerized. It moved me to tears and to laughter. And I understood maybe for the first time: I am not my stories. I am not my failure. I am not my divorce. I am not my job loss. These are things that have happened in my life. I have a choice as to how I view them. The Dragon Doesn’t Live Here Anymore offered me a different, expansive option for how to view these things that happened to me. The author, Alan Cohen, offered that I had attracted these things into my life. If I had the “power” to attract those life altering “negative” things, I had the equal and opposite capacity or power to also attract more life affirming circumstances into my life.
What I understood is that I had been increasingly drifting away from the things I hold true in my life, the things I valued – or said I valued. My actions did not always support my beliefs and what I thought I valued. I was in increasing dissonance and did not know how to live a fractured existence anymore. At the time I felt like I was looking out a picture window at my life as it unfolded, I was so dissociated from my experience and my existence. And I did not have the skills to know how to navigate it – or relationships – in a healthy way. It made me believe the human tragedy/drama perspective – that I must be a bad person, maybe even evil. Otherwise, why would these things have happened to me?
In this one day, I was liberated. I was invited into choice. I wish I could say it was only a generative upward vortex from then on but of course it wasn’t. It was, and still is, a human journey, fraught with the rollercoaster of emotions and experiences. It took me another decade to surrender into the journey with a greater degree of fullness and I’m still learning about surrendering.
The book was and is intended as an offering of stories for others – for you even – in your own journey. An invitation to journey on, journey deeper, journey more lightly. An invitation to view your stories in a different way from different perspectives, ones that generate more expansiveness, spaciousness and choice. An invitation to trust what you doubt, to know someone has navigated similar waters with varying degrees of success, sometimes at peace and sometimes in turmoil – because this is life and this is how we grow. To understand that life is more than just the physical experience and to trust the non-physical as you experience it, as you surely do. To treat yourself with compassion, love and forgiveness and to invite that into your relationships – all of them, even the ones where you would prefer to hold onto a bit of resentment.
When you live your stories as if they are you, you disempower yourself. When you understand your story shapes your journey but is not you, you show up more fully in your strength and your power and it is a thing of beauty to behold.
Kathy Jourdain
33 comments:
It is pointless to promote books or learning on this site. It will be condemned as a conspiracy theory by those who refuse to read it.
If you are satisfied by harebrained New Age self-help twaddle, you'll love Jourdain's book.
However, if you are coming from an ACOG background, you'll likely be triggered by many of her assumptions that will only resonate with ex-ACOGers who have left orthodox Christianity behind along with Armstrongism.
Jourdain takes the approach that people attract what happens to them. If you were molested in WCG, you brought it on yourself, by your past karma if not by your present actions. If you were beaten by parents trying to apply WCG child-rearing techniques, you chose that, too. If you missed out on needed medical treatment or valuable education, that's your fault, too! Of course, Jourdain points out the flip-side of that approach, which is that you can change your attitude and use your internal power to attract good things rather than bad. Still, it's an approach that will resonate with only a small percentage of WCG/splinter exciters.
The point being that "You are not your story" which is a concept that if understood could help many folk put their experiences into perspective and reclaim their lives. I would not endorse or believe everything of course, but the point made is very valid. Karma may be a bitch or may not exist. That is not the point of the concept of one not being defined by the sum total of all their hurtful or even good experiences.
I could just as easily point out that a Bible literalist takes the approach of assuming everything in the Book literally happened, which it did not and that what they base their lives on, at times, are mythological tales that lead to some pretty heavy theology and guilting along with prices to be paid for sin, i.e., The Lake of Fire etc. Yet one can find guidance and comfort in the scriptures if they realize that not everything in them is true or actually happened in real life circumstances and history.
Besides, the concept of "A New Heavens and a New Earth" can be seen as just as much "New Age" with lions dwelling with lambs and little children leading them both can also fall into a semi "Woo Woo" way to live one's real life. IMHO
PS I say get help wherever you can. I do not endorse much scripture as a way to counsel people as it relies on personal fear, guilt and shame to motivate when there is much more positive concepts to do so that are never taught in scripture. Love your neighbor as yourself comes about as close as it gets but loving oneself, in most churches, is considered right up there with vanity, jealousy, lust and greed.
It is true that most COG experiences are not going to go very far outside boxes to consider the nature of their own nature, the lessons learned for positive growth and living they have experienced no matter how traumatic or even the views of others on how humans function in the real world with all that can come our way along the way.
I know full well that my own WCG experience could have been some completely other life experience with different players, mates, children, friends, drama and such. Had I not gone into WCG I would have been drafted to go to Vietnam and I ain't no soldier. First day..."Hey hey! Come here...let's behave and talk this over.....POW!" End of story.
In every case, I read and have read lots taking what, for me, were grains or nuggest of truth and good advice to get through. This is good, I like this. It resonates with my experience at the moment. Good stuff. This bullshit, not interested and not for me. I also found one can do this with the Bible as well once one gets over the idea it is "God breathed" etc. It is more "Man Huffed" in reality and there are things I like about it and much I don't. That's how reality works when people share their views. There are parts of the Bible that strike me as written and said by a psychopath God and even from a child, never took all that seriously as literally true. At least I would have hoped they weren't literally true.
I always had a problem with Deity that demands to be worshipped, praised, honored, bowed down to and feared. That is not the kind of parent I'd be proud to say I came from. On top of that add the need to love the smell of meat offerings and having an army of sycophantic priests mindlessly doing whatever they were commanded to do and I'm not interested. Of course the Priests were terribly interested in it all because it kept them in good meat, nice clothes, a place to live and off the streets of Jerusalem where the rabble that was expected to trust and obey for there evidently was no other way to be happy in YHVH. Growing up in all things religious is a marvelous thing and there be few that find it easily. It can be one of our most painful awakenings.
Dennis - when they found the book of the law in Josiah's day and read it aloud to the king, do you have any speculation on what it was they actually found?
Reading the first 5 books of the Bible would have taken a long time.
The part that was read must have had the curses for disobedience.
Or do you think this was written or added later?
I always had a problem with Deity that demands to be worshipped, praised, honored, bowed down to and feared.
If your daughter stole an apple from the refrigerator, then ran to her room in fear and embarrassment to hide her sin, would you:
a) Burn her for all eternity for her momentary lapse of conscience.
b) Extinguish her existence after burning her to ashes.
c) Make her atone for her theft by working to buy you one or more apples as restitution.
d) Forgive her, and apologize for the fact that dinner was already delayed three hours behind schedule when she took the apple.
Mainstream Judaism says (c) is the right choice. Jesus Christ would lean strongly toward (d) as much as is feasible.
How sad it is, then, that most of Christianity would administer a forever punishment for a momentary indiscretion. Is it any surprise that so many are troubled by the typical Protestant version of Jesus' message: "Come into my loving arms to find peace and joy and safety, or I will BURN YOU FOREVER"?
I will sum up the book in a sentence...
Today is the first day of the rest of your life!
I have always been suspicious, as are others, of "finding the book of the law". How convenient they matched his reforms. Some feel it was written not long before it was "found." In other words a Book of Mormon stunt. This story has a human feel to it.
The Lake of Fire
I no longer believe in the lake of fire, but I often found the concept comforting. It meant that we would be rid of jerks and such (who make life miserable) once and for all. I wouldn't want to be in the kingdom with those jerks around. Those who never had to suffer from jerks too much see the lake of fire as a negative.
Funny how we are told the bible is reliable because of how many copies there are. But they found just ONE copy, apparently, of the book of the law! Does this mean the law (whichever law it was) is not to be trusted?
Ask the average person "Who are you?" and they will generally come up with what they do for a living such as "I am a doctor", "I am an accountant" or "I am a mom". They always end up telling you what they DO not who they are. As Dave Pack, "Dave, just who are you?" and I guarantee he'll come up with something like "I am an Apostle, I am the Head of RCG" which again is not who he is, (Or even what he is) but rather what he does. Ask Thiel and you'll most likely get "I am a prophet and head of the one true Church," which again is not who he is but what he imagines himself to be or do.
I have asked people to tell me who they are and you often get something like, "I have cancer" which again is not who they are but what they have. People often identify who they are with what they have, what they do, what they don't have or how they feel.
Even in AA the answer might be, "I am an alcoholic" to which I would also say that is the challenge one has but that also is not them.
In the COG experience one might answer with "I am the pissed off former member," or "I am the put hard upon by the church guy." When asked in the past who I was, I'd often say "I used to be a minister" until I got to realizing that also was just something I did and it was not the answer to the question "Who are you?"
I have only met one person who made the break between what they did, had or did not have nicely when I asked them not only who they were but how they were. I knew they had cancer. She said, I AM FINE. My body is having a challenge with cancer however." That sunk in. She separated her being from her illness. How many folk do you know who if you removed their illness, pain, story or title would be left floundering over just who they were in life? Lots! How many of us here on Banned might not quite know how to define ourselves without the church experience? Most...
When my car gets a flat tire I don't say "I have a flat tire". Well some will but they don't mean it literally. Rather, I'm fine, my car has a flat tire. I am not the car. I have a car. I drive a car. But I am not the car. I'm the one who drives independent of the car no matter where it goes or where it won't go.
Try this instead. Without saying anything good ( I am a doctor) or bad (I used to be in a cult that f'd me up bad), tell me who you are? Most will struggle with the question giving definitions that either are good things about themselves or bad things which is not what we're going for here.
Finally after getting frustrated with their own inability to answer according to the rules one is simply left with "I am me." That's it! You are you. I am me and it's ok. Our stories are different. Our stresses or successes are different. Our perspectives, interests and tendencies are different. But all one can be, if they can get past the experiences and the story is themselves. I have a story. I have an experience, I have a flat but I'm not the story, the experience or the flat. I am just myself. And that is something the COGs have a hard time allowing in others. It is why men like Pack, FLurry, Malm, Thiel and Weinland simply can't stand the concept as others would do well to be like them...har har.
I’ve always been a chameleon, blending in and out of all manner of lifestyles, and classes of people. Dealing with the public and being an entrepreneur does that to you.
It also makes it so that you don’t just have one story or narrative, you’ve got many. You’re collecting them all the time. I liken life to a V-8 engine. Not all of the pistons are at the same place in their cylinders at the same time, they alternate sequentially in order to move the car forward. I give max attention to whatever of my life’s “pistons” is on the power stroke and providing the most positive result.
You have to take the pragmatic approach to life in order to keep from being bogged down. When positive results pour back to you, you know you’ve hit the right combination. Most people of reasonable intelligence are able to read the results and react accordingly and adjust on their own, without the interference of ministers who want to get into the middle. Most Armstrongite “know it all” ministers retarded the lives of the members of their congregations, and kept them in their places as opposed to stimulating growth.
BB
I’ve always been a chameleon ... being an entrepreneur does that to you.
This is the way to be disingenuous and more deceitful than a weasel.
It also makes it so that you don’t just have one story or narrative, you’ve got many.
There is only one truth. But never let the truth get in the way of a good narrative.
Dennis,
I believe you are exaggerating your point in 3.56 PM. People defining themselves by their occupation is universal. The Bible frequently mentions a persons occupation. So it's not just a recent phenomenon. The bible mentions major sins of various individuals and groups, again defining who they are.
Sometimes it's the majority rather than Dennis Diehl that's right.
You have to take the pragmatic approach to life in order to keep from being bogged down.
Yep, don't get bogged down by scruples.
Dennis, re your 3:56 comment. Your words made me think, which is good, but I do not agree with you. Basically it is just rhetoric, sounds like something a counselor would say.
The bit about cancer. I have survived terminal cancer, heaven knows why, luck, God, medical treatment which I did have but that only went so far. Anyway when I had cancer and was supposed to be dying that was who I was. There seemed no point in rising above it when I would be gone soon. I did go to support groups and counseling with other dying of cancer people, and they did come up with that line about being a spiritually well person or whatever. I said, I don't care about my spiritual or emotional state I just want to get rid of this cancer and live. I did get better, as I said I don't know why. Then the next thing, 'you were saved for a reason', more irritating rhetoric.
For someone who is an alcoholic, while they are suffering that is who they are, hopefully they won't stay as that person.
I am more in agreement with the 'chameleon' label which Biker Bob talked about. Without knowing the answers to lifes big questions, like what is our purpose here, we either have to manufacture one and convince ourselves, or just take on the temporary identity thrust our way. Cancer sufferer, parent, alcoholic, preacher, old woman, piece of carbon floating in the universe?
@ 5:52 ~ Jealous much? ;-)
BB
We each have our own reality filter through which we process events. This is our own version of the truth.
We are deluded if we think we are without bias.
Anonymous 930. I understand your point. I have told this before so will be brief but it really impacted the way I thought until this came up. Or at least the way I did not think until then.
At My first Sabbath at my new church in Kentucky a woman came up to me to introduce herself and said "Hi Mr. Diehl, I"m the one who committed adultery." That struck me pretty hard as to how she viewed herself or who she thought she was. I took her to a side room and said, "First of all, let's not ever again say that ok? What's your name? She looked at me and began to tear up. I could see a load lifting as if she needed permission from probably the ministry which I symbolized to let that label of who she was go. I asked her if she understood and what was her name etc. We had a brief hug and I said I was pleased to meet her. It never came up again. This is the kind of not who someone is I mainly am referring to.
I did admire the woman who told me she was fine but her body had the cancer challenge because , to me, she had separated the two . Most will tell you, "I am the one who has cancer" There is a difference in perspective and perhaps even a difference in how the person heals.
This is good stuff - thought provoking. I like what Dennis brings to the table. And I think it’s both - I am me and I am the things that define me - my actions - and I can change. We get stuck in life at times when we allow our circumstances to define us instead of rising above and moving past the difficulties.
Dennis, do you not realize that "you are not your story" comes from the Eastern idea that you are an endlessly reincarnating soul, whose job is to get release from those reincarnations, and who in order to do so must accept not just that you are not your story, but that "I am Dennis" and "I am an aging man" and "I love some people and don't love others" are also parts of your story that must be discarded? That may work in an Eastern context, but applied to Westerners who don't believe in reincarnation it ends up being a monstrous philosophy that does far more harm than good.
730
Nothing I am saying has any connection to the idea of reincarnation. It's about the words and experiences we use on ourselves
@ 7:30 ~ Life circumstances change, often throughout the course of ONE lifetime, and to adapt and be successful, we reinvent ourselves, molding ourselves to deal with each new set of circumstances. Our previous “story” informs us and strengthens us for our current story. Some out there probably believe that being chameleonic is being disingenuous. Not true. By being a chameleon, we are rather taking resident strengths and elements of our existing personalities and abilities and applying them to the new set of circumstances.
One of the constants in life is change. We evolve and adapt as humans, or we deteriorate. Our self-identity grows, and our life story, our personal biography, becomes more complex. I say, don’t be limited by your story which was a snapshot of one given point in time. in the past. Recognize what your story is now, and do your best within your current snapshot in time.
There ARE factors which can become permanent, and therefore your “story” as others perceive you. If a person loses a limb, or is convicted of felonies, these are things which you cannot change. Some people languish for the rest of their lives in the face of such events. Others come up with effective work arounds, blurring or overcoming the limitations, and their achievements in the face of adversity are considered remarkable and exceptional. The important factor is learning how to not let elements of your past story (though you internally recognize and own up to them) limit you in your present one. That is actually a Biblical principle with broader applications as well. God says he will remove Himself from our sins as far as the East is from the West. We need to be able to say: “That was then, this is now”.
BB
@ 8:14, 5:52, etc. If you are some dude here looking for a date, you need to realize that I don’t swing your way. Your obsession with me isn’t going to go anywhere. No “happy ending” for you.
BB
I think Dennis nails it with self definition. I remember early in my ACOG time when I heard the answer being "I am a human being" my typical addition to myself mostly, "made in God's image." One time a pastors son was harassing me about how he would get his dad after me, I responded that my dad will go after you and your dad if you keep this nonsense up. He asked who my dad was with his eyes widening. I told him God, as he is the father of the fatherless. Conversation ended. Yet, all the time in the WCG I was still a nobody, but never let someone get to me as to whom I am.
When I heard that above about the answer to who I am, I got that from a relatively conservative Christian minister who I never heard or thought of dabbling in eastern mysticism or anything of the like. I appreciate Dennis' story about the lady in Kentucky, if only all the ministry did that with our lives and just give us the opportunity that repentance allowed us. Frankly, ministry that allowed someone to attend and still remind them of past faults and sins is really signs of a sick mind and anyone here or anywhere who would think differently I would judge us subhuman.
The WCG ministry pastards would love to keep us in the church paying 10 or more percent of our pay and then never giving us a chance if that would matter anyway with their continual guilt and condescending attitude. I think a good post for this would be Dennis' comment about who we are and then all of us to answer that question. Just a thought. Thanks Dennis and thanks for Ms. Jourdain being brave enough to write such a great story. J
Back in the mid ‘80s, i was working at a family business in which the Dad and founder mostly hired his kids and their friends, who were their high school ‘s athletes. I was hired on merit, but soon blended in.
Anyway, occasionally, over beers, the guys mentioned a classmate, whose nickname always brought laughter. They called him PYP, and from the stories, he was apparently picked on and laughed at because in 8th grade, during leglifts in PE, he suddenly suffered an attack of diarrhea, and earned the nickname “PYP” for “poop your pants” Nobody ever used his given name after that.
One of the guys later told me was that the cool thing about PYP was that his family moved during his Junior year, and that once he changed high schools, at his new school, he became somewhat of a stud, and was well liked.
The lesson is, sometimes if you find yourself confined by your current story, you’d best make some changes so that you can write your new one. A change in venue can provide a fresh start. Most people, if they search diligently enough, can find an environment in which they can thrive.
Sometimes, one insightful activity while surfing the internet, is to Duckduckgo (not trackable) your name, or the names of people whom you know. Cliick on to their “My Life” file. This will tell you their reputation and life’s standing. I guarantee that you will be amazed at the people who you know who have criminal or court records, and other problems which cause a 1 or 2 rating rather than a 3 or 4 (4 being the top).
BB
Didn't Wolverton's Bible Story suggest that "Josiah's book of the law" was part of what we now know as Deuteronomy?
@5:52 ~ Jealous much? ;-)
What in the world gives you that idea! Nothing to be jealous of!
@8:14, 5:52, etc. If you are some dude here looking for a date, you need to realize that I don’t swing your way. Your obsession with me isn’t going to go anywhere. No “happy ending” for you.
Get over yourself. Nobody is obsessed with you except you.
Prove someone is lying and they call you a homo. How's that for i) lying again, and ii) being homophobic.
BB
I agree with your change in venue point. I for one, was very differently perceived by people outside the church, than by those inside the church. Inside the church, there are those who hold others captive to a image. Ministers are notorious for this.
They religiously spread their twisted, self serving view of others. Sometimes it became a group thing. Losers ganging up on their betters.
Do you even know what the word “if” means???
I didn’t call you anything, I am not homophobic, and I didn’t lie, troll, so you didn’t prove anything. Your problem is that you can’t get positive reactions because you have nothing constructive to contribute. My guess is that the least vile of your posts are allowed to get through for our entertainment. Apparently, when your worst posts are rejected or deleted, you email them to Dennis.
BB
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