Change your own narrative

Hello friend, welcome back to my studio! Today’s story is actually the same story told three ways. I’ve always been a very introspective person, weighing my actions and possibilities heavily and frequently. When i once came across the phrase “dont take yourself too seriously” i had no means of comprehending what it meant. I didnt know there was another way to take yourself. But now ive been around the sun a few too many times to be that serious, and ive learned a lot along the way. I used to think my life was a certain kind of story, and the events in my life were like plot points in that narrative. But now i know, and id like to share, that we can tell ourselves more than one kind of story about our lives. And that the story we do tell ourselves literally defines our self definition. It matters a whole lot what you think of the things in your past, that guides the choices we make and the future becomes an extension of that belief. This is kind of a hard concept to grasp at with just words though, so today id like to get personal with you and tell you three different versions of my life story that, at one point in my life, i was telling myself. 

I was raised in the mormon faith. I am not mormon now, but at one point i was. This is how i saw my life. I liked a boy when i was fifteen, i liked him a whole lot. He once pushed me up against a wall and that sent a tingle down my spine in a way ive rarely even felt since. He liked me back, and in the backstage of our school musical, we would talk for hours. I fell in deep infatuation, but i was still fifteen and not allowed to date yet. It was mere months before my sixteenth birthday but rules were rules. When valentines day came around i got him a very cheap little box of chocolates and put in in his cubby. He told me he was ending things that night. I spiraled. Much of the rest of my high school years were spent slowly leaving the mormon faith and quickly obsessing over how to get this one person to like me back once again. I spent years reading cosmopolitan articles and wearing the exact perfume i had when he liked me for scent psychology and going to events i thought he might go to and staying super late at cast parties hoping he’d stay late too. Three years go by like this. We ended up hooking up a few times but it never went emotionally further, at least on his end. Well, while all i could see was this guy, i was also learning to be a feminist, a philosopher, and an atheist. My parents and i had a strained relationship, but they bribed me to go to byu- a mormon college in Utah. i wasnt interested in their bribe, until i priced out tuition costs. In the end their offer was one i couldnt refuse, and i went to byu. When i got there, i vowed to stay single all four years. And i got a boyfriend before classes officially started. With him i became mormon again, my friends all worried for me as i started renouncing feminist views. It was at this time in my life that i crafted my first post highschool self narrative. I was a good and faithful mormon girl who had lost her way. I let obsession into my heart and i lost my faith. Now that i was free from that obsession, i could regrow my faith and in fact be stronger for the trials i went through. I even planned to go on a mission, serving God for a year and a half. I deeply wanted to do this to regain the strength of the faith i once had. I pictured a life with the boy i was dating and it all made sense. My story was that of a lost lamb, returned to the fold. 

Well, further down the road, that story changed. My reconversion to mormonism ended a semester after it started. Over the next three years of college I was hospitalized twice for severe depression. That boy and i had two years of contentious on and off again relations. I had trouble making friends but no trouble at all making boyfriends so I went through a ho phase. I tried alcohol and weed and tattoos and hair dye. There was a stretch of time when i would bleach my hair to platinum, only to dye it dark again months later, and then bleach it back to platinum months after that. After three rounds of that my hair started coming out in the foils with the bleach. Thats when i switched to getting piercings instead of hairdye. With my depression, there were weeks when i only left my bed for food once a day. I lost weight and i lost my sense of direction. I barely made it through each semester with my life, but somehow i managed to keep up a good gpa. I switched my major from art to english so i didnt have to be on campus so much. I began oil painting in my free time and lifeguarding every summer, even picking up house painting gigs from time to time. But all i could ever really think about were the boys that didnt like me back. I was freshly riddled with various traumas and i knew my story quite well. I looked back on that one boy in highschool as a sign. I was never really anything more than a boy crazy semi hot girl who once had ambitions. I had peaked in high school in my senior year when i participated the most in my art programs, but now i would never be a serious artist and since there was nothing else i could see myself doing happily, i couldnt imagine a happy future. So i lived recklessly and loved it. I attracted toxic individuals and tried to fix them with my devotion. I knew i at least wanted to graduate after all the work id put into college, but i already knew i had no interest in using my english degree. I started bartending, so i could use my flirtatious nature for tips. It worked and reaffirmed my story. 

Now i have a much different version of my personal narrative. I was once convinced that my traumas defined me, but with time and concerted effort i was able to heal. I stopped telling myself that i had peaked in high school, and began imagining a future i wanted to participate in. I stopped putting my energy into one sided relationships, and started trying to make more friends. I did graduate college after putting my mind to it and powering through those last semesters. I kept at my painting jobs and kept at my oil paintings in my free time. I got good at it. I started reading again. I figured myself out enough to know what makes me sad and what helps me to be happy. I learned that skipping my commitments made me feel gross inside, and that i desperately need regular sunshine. I started doing “lizzard time” when i would just lay on the ground outside whenever i saw a sunbeam i felt i needed. I got really good at my job because i wanted to. And i entered into a relationship with my now husband. With him ive only gone on to further discover myself, and now i see everything ive been through in a different light. The narrative i tell myself nowadays is one of compassion and understanding. Now i know how hard it is to be a functional and self perceiving adult. I realize that my obsession with a boy in high school does not take away from the rest of my learning and growing experiences in that time. Thats when i discovered art can actually be a career for me. Thats when i made my closest friends i still have. In college, i repaired my relationship with my parents, and i continued trying to figure myself out. I took a lot of wrong turns, but i was also dealt a tough hand. I know now that my depression is severe enough to hospitalize me anytime i ditch my meds, so ive stopped ditching my meds. I no longer see my past as hopping from one boy to the next, i see my time with boys as a coping mechanism, and i see all the time i spent alone too. I see the progress i made from my bedridden month to my social years. I see how much of my actions were really reactions and i want to hug my past self for all the pain she endured. Now my life trajectory is just graduating high school, then graduating college, then building the life i want for myself. I still struggle with making friends, and i still struggle with sadness, but those struggles don't define me, they just add flavor. With this story i am able to make choices purposefully and with a positive aim in mind. 

The story you tell yourself about yourself is how you see the world around you. When i thought i was a returned lamb, i saw nothing but opportunities to grow my faith and get closer to god. When i saw myself as a shell of trauma, i invited a lot more trauma in and kept repeating my unhealthy habits. When i see myself as simply a person whos been through some shit, i feel more capable of affecting my surroundings. Embracing my past self with love helps me to create a future full of it. If you tell yourself you are something, you limit your choices to whatever that kind of person would choose. I could still see my past as a lineup of losses, and i know that would make me feel like the future holds nothing but loss. But since i dont, since i tell myself that im a person who grew through my challenges, i know that i can handle whatever challenges the future has. Its empowering having the authors control of my narrative. I hope you are able to find that empowerment too, if you havent already. In the end, we’re all just people trying our best. Thats all for this one, ill see you next time friend!