“If an idiot were to tell you the same story every day for a year, you would end by believing it.”

— Horace Mann

It probably is true that when we hear the same message again and again, regardless of the source, we begin to take it seriously.  There is no need for anyone to be nervous.  I have no plan to point fingers at specific idiots who have been telling me stories.  Rather, I would like to take a look inside ourselves and consider the stories we allow to play in our own minds.  What repetitive stories do you carry that  seem believable simply because you have told them to yourself again and again?  Where did these stories originate?  Do you need them, or is it time to let go of them and leave them behind?  How do these repetitive messages hold you back from being the person you truly would like to be?

Often, our self-talk originates in childhood.  We learn through our interactions with others to follow rules that we believe will make us more acceptable to others.  ”I’d better not show you this part of me, or you will laugh and I will feel embarrassed/sad/angry.”  We internalize the voices of the critics we meet and construct an elaborate set of rules we are to follow in order to fit in.  These are the things that children do; and at the time we learned the stories we carry, they may have been useful.  We did want to have friends on the playground at school, and our world was very small.  We were limited to interacting with the children who shared our classrooms, our schools, and our neighborhoods.

As we mature and our personalities take shape, we discover that we have enough command of our world to seek others who have similar traits, similar beliefs, and similar goals for their lives.  We leave childhood behind and move beyond its unnecessary restrictions toward becoming the people we choose to be.  We discover that we are free to choose many different directions; and we leave behind the fears and insecurities of childhood as we grow and learn and become.  Or do we?  Often, what happens is that we still bring with us the negative stories that were forged in childhood.  We carry the insecurities and fears and desire to please that worked so well on the playground, and we are so accustomed to hearing their words that we assume they are true.

There is no need to let these ancient versions of how life works stand in the way of becoming who we truly are.  What is holding you back?  What are you afraid of?  Can you bring the words out of the recesses of your mind and speak them out loud?  If you can, you may discover that they truly are stories told by an idiot; but they have been told so many times that we believe them to be true.  Listen to your own thoughts.  Speak your fears and insecurities.  Love the part of you that has grown beyond them, and then lay them gently on the ground and move away.  Replace them with the truths you have learned and stop letting the long-standing tales drown out the messages that tell you who you are.  Step into the Light.  Step into the Truth.  Step into your power.

Earlier this summer, as part of an online workshop with Queen Dani, I constructed a visual version of myself standing on top of a mountain of some false message I had carried for years — not all of them, but representative of the things no longer needed.  Perhaps you, too, have a mountain you would like to climb.  The view from the top is magnificent!