I Am My Own Story

“I Am My Own Story”

“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.” 

-Steve jobs

A friend of mine from high school poses thought-provoking questions on Facebook from time-to-time.  A few of weeks ago he asked, “Perhaps my greatest lesson has been ___________.”  I saw the post and sat and stared at it for a while and thought there have been so many life lessons I have learned and a lot of them have not come so easily.  I kept coming back to one and decided to comment with this, “Don’t listen to other people’s narratives about you… you are your own story.”  Why did I pick that out of all that I could have chosen?

Last night at my twelve-step meeting, the speaker was talking about his experience with the fourth step – the moral inventory.  He talked about the resentments and fears he had listed in his inventory and he stressed that he had written down all of them “real or imagined”.

I think it underpins so much of what held me back for so long.  I chose to live in fear and self-pity for the majority of my life.  I listened to either what other people said about me or, more accurately and more often, what I perceived they said or thought about me.  I made up entire scenarios about what was going on in other people’s heads about me as soon as I walked into a room.  I decided that they did not like me and why.  I was sure they were judging me and I was sure I knew their thoughts and intentions.  I then turned these imagined scenarios into dialogues that ran on loops inside my head, repeating vile and negative untruths about myself.

When the occasional person came along and actually did judge me or make some off-color comment, I saw this as proof of what the whole world was saying or thinking.  I let all this rule me.  I took in these perceptions and what I thought I “should’ be according to others or according to societal norms and saw it as the rule of law.

I love the quote above from Steve jobs, I always have since the first time I read it.  I always silently amend it for myself though and add that I should not allow my inner voice to drown in the noise of my own negativity.  I have always been my own harshest critic and I get mired in a swamp of self-criticism which quickly weighs me down with self-pity and fear.  I become immobilized before I can even take action and then start to shrink in the face of the smallest obstacles or outside critiques.

I have learned over the years to quiet the inner negativity and bolster up my inner voice, the good one.  The inner voice that tells me I can and that I am allowed, that I even deserve.  The inner voice that says I can write a book for children or start a blog about recovery or change careers at mid-life or find sustained and joyous recovery.  The same voice that connected with a higher power and saw me as a beautiful soul for the first time in my forties and became someone my children and others can count on.

So yes, there are always going to be detractors in life.  Sometimes they will look like enemies and sometimes they will come in the form of family and friends who will say something that is just not supportive in the way you need at the moment.  The enemies are just enemies, broken people like the rest of us.  The family and friends may just not know how to help you at that moment.  The person you have to watch for the most is yourself.  If you tell yourself you can’t do something; you won’t.  If you tell yourself you can, most of the time you will.

I am my own story and my ending is not written.