The Story You Tell...

 “…but it’s not a story!” you protest. “It’s what really happened to me! I can’t help that it turned out the way it did. Believe me; I would have preferred another outcome. But there you have it….”

What is the story you tell? Is it the one about your horrible childhood? About the parents who told you that you’d better find someone to marry because you weren’t all that smart? (That one was mine.) Or was it growing up and watching your parents fighting all the time and then repeating their story in your own life? Does your heart ache from all the unreliable people showing up in your life and cheating on you over and over again? Are you burning with anger over the narcissists, the users, and all those who neglected you and weren’t there for you? Does career or financial success remain elusive? Maybe your story is that you simply wish there could have been more – more fun, satisfaction, fulfillment, intimacy, love? What is your life story, as told by you, the author?

The problem with your story is that you are forced to live it. Whatever your beliefs are, you are forced to live them over and over again. Haven’t you ever noticed that bad luck seems to follow people? You read about a woman who has been abused, and her next relationship is just the same.  Someone’s been cheated on – and the next guy does the same. Well, guess what – there is a scientific reason for that! There is a tiny center in your brain called the reticular activating system, which has a very important job. It sorts and filters the information that streams at you each and every day. There are billions of bits of data coming at you, and if you saw it all, you would be inundated and unable to make sense of your world. So, the reticular activating system filters out the extraneous and allows through only the information you need to make sense of your world. How does the reticular activating system decide what is extraneous and what’s important? It uses a particular set of parameters, and those parameters are your beliefs. If it is something you consider true, the information is ushered right on through. If it is something you believe to be false, it is dismissed accordingly. The majority of information is ignored completely – those become your blind spots. You know, those decisions you make where you wonder whether you’ve lost your mind?

While the filters of the reticular activating system are vitally important, they also ensure that you meet your beliefs over and over again and that your life becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of the story in your head. Well, what if I told you that your story is just a story? And what if I told you that as the author, you could just as easily tell another story, and then along with your story, everything else would also change in your life for you? Could it really be that easy? Well, not quite – but almost.

Ultimately, everything you experience is just a story in your head because all of life is only in your head. As human beings, we don’t experience actual reality; we only ever experience our interpretation of reality. Information enters through the senses, and the mind models a facsimile of the world our senses perceive. Your ears translate sound waves, and you perceive music or words. Your eyes compute light waves into images but how these light waves are translated is highly subjective. No set of eyes or ears translates data in the exact same way as another. Nobody even has identical experiences of the same situation because our different lives have shaped our unique brains differently.

We don’t experience reality; we experience our thoughts about reality. In other words, we experience only our own opinions and beliefs about things. Except, we don’t think of our beliefs as opinions; we consider them knowledge. We don’t question that what we believe is rational, logical, impartial, and based on objective analysis - in other words, rock-solid fact. That’s fine when your story is serving you, but sometimes your story can leave you painted into a corner.

Truth is Entirely Subjective

It may behoove us all to keep a more open mind. Your way is not the only way; there are many ways to look at things. Heisenberg – the theoretical physicist, not the one from Breaking Bad - found that an object changes on an energetic level when it is observed. It seems that truth is not only in the eye of the beholder but also changes with the eye of the beholder! By this, I mean to say don't believe everything you think. Leave some room for the possibility that your opinions might not be the final authority on things - particularly if they’re not serving you! If your beliefs tell you that your perfect love doesn't exist, then you’re cutting yourself unnecessarily short. What’s more, is that it doesn't mean you're right. (In fact, you’re wrong!) You’re just not seeing all the possibilities. When you see things your way, you’re unavoidably not seeing the other point of view. At no time do you ever see the whole picture, and sometimes, with how our filters work, you may not be seeing anything because you have a blind spot.

Look, your story is your story; the question is, do you want it to stay that way for the rest of your life? You can continue to hold people, place, circumstances – and yourself – in contempt, or you can be and do and have everything you want. Happiness and fulfillment are literally just around the corner if you’re willing to tell a different story

***

The List Method is a simple step-by-step way to find the love of your life using neuroscience and tried and true strategies to help you uncover and clear away your roadblocks to a successful relationship. You will learn to understand your own deep needs and desires so you can create a crystal-clear vision of the partner of your dreams. Armed with your List, it could potentially take only days for you to meet the love of your life. Guaranteed!!

Get Your Copy of TheListMethod Here