More on Story Telling

 

You are never going to kill story telling because it's built into the human plan. We come with it.

Margaret Atwood

Hmmm!  I am about to write a list of events down that "I" was a part of   ...or more accurately, witnessed, in the last little while with the soul purpose of relaying them to one selected individual who handles these types of things on a regular basis.  

Now part of me instinctively goes back to wanting to spruce these details up with melodramatic flair...to selectively pick the goriest or most sensational details out of the pile of stuff that has landed over this little clump of flesh I call "me".  I might actually follow my story teller's compulsion and write it out like  a great drama with "poor little me"  starring in it, but then I will do what I did with February 12th's entry...strip it down to the simple facts. 

Yes, telling story is a way to release trauma and pain. It does serve a purpose. And as Atwood  quotes above, it is a natural part of being human. 

Removing story, however,  is probably even  more therapeutic in the long run. Removing "me, my, and mine" brings us away from this idea we are seperate characters in this play and helps us to understand the impersonal nature of suffering. Removing a lot of the unnecessary narration and detail...as perceived by ego...gives the story a different texture. Stepping away from the "star role" in the drama and becoming the witnessing audience instead also puts a totally different perspective on things. 

Story telling, as natural as it is for us,  can take us away from actually experiencing Life as it is...keeping us locked in the drama the mind creates , caught up in the "words" rather than allowing us to 'be" in this moment, right here and right now. It can close us up. 

The absence of the need for story or the  process of removing story  keeps the heart open rather than closed...allowing all the circumstances, energy and feelings of life to just flow through us instead of getting jammed up through rsistance in details that knot up our insides. We have the space, then, to be compassionate and kind rather than closed up and suspicious.  We don't have the need to push things away, or pull things closer to us and cling to them.  We don't have the compulsive tendency  to attempt to  manipulate and fix our outer expereinces so Life is more bearable. We don't get lost in the idea of past and future and we settle into our now. We just love Life as it is instead of fearing it.

That is what I want...to be open, compassionate, kind, loving, joyful and enthusiastic about Life.  Why can't I tell a story about that?

All is well in my world.