Friday, June 1, 2007

The Storyteller

There exists in each of our lives a storyteller. One who weaves yarns so clever that the most brilliant, educated and enlightened mind will not fail to be wooed by it. It was there in grade school when we were chosen last for the team. It was there at the Junior High dance when we were not asked to dance, or we were asked and the next day in the halls were teased unmercifully about our particular “style” of dancing. And it was there the day we stood in our driveway tears rolling down our face as we watched our now former fiancĂ© drive away with all of our dreams.

In each of those scenarios, and a hundred more, the storyteller tells us that, bottom line, we are not good enough. If we had only been this or that, we would have been the chosen one. The defect is our own. That elicits a feeling in us so potent we never want to hear that story again. It is the scariest horror story, beyond anything Stephen King could conjure up. This author….this storyteller’s name is Fear. Plain and simple. Powerful and insidious. And the name of this story is Fear of Rejection.

Yet, every time we turn around, we hear the soundtrack to that story playing in the air… going on a date, returning an item to a store, applying for a loan, and that dreaded sales call. And because we have heard that story before, we avoid these things like the plague or we endure them with trembling hands and knocking knees, trying not to let them see us sweat. Yet we are sure that somehow, some way, they will find out… the real story… that we are not good enough and we will be rejected.

What is the antidote to this storyteller? How can we quiet this voice that has been with us all of our lives? Truth. Plain and simple. Powerful and intuitive. Just as sure as Dorothy discovered that the all-powerful Wizard of Oz was no more than a mere man behind a curtain pulling levers and pushing buttons, we too can discover that this storyteller is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. And truth is what pulls the covers off. How so?

Let’s take the original three scenarios at the beginning of this article. The truth is you weren’t a jock, you were an artist and it stands to reason that it wasn’t a fit. The truth is you were only beginning to come out of your shell and that your rhythm would shine later on in life. The truth is that guy/girl was not a match for you. Kinda scary to look at the truth, right? Why is it easier for us to believe that we are defective than to believe we are just fine and that the situation in front of us is just not a fit?

So the next time the storyteller kicks in, I invite you to ask yourself “What is true here? Is there another way to look at this? Did I do the very best I could? Does getting this sale define the kind of person I am or can I show up and just practice being my magnificent self and if it doesn’t happen, then it just was not the right fit?” Are we willing to tell Fear to shut up and then tell our own True Story?

No comments: