Catch Your Stories

“Everything we know as reality began as story and is maintained by story. Therefore, like story, it can be changed.”

— Stephanie S. Tolan

We are storytellers by nature.

For thousands of years, our ancestors wove tales to make sense of the mysteries around them. They birthed great mythologies filled with gods and goddesses, destroyers and nurturers, heroes and heroines. Each story explained the unexplainable. These stories served as cautionary guides, shaping ethical paths to live by. They inspired cultural beliefs, stirred actions, and ignited dreams.

With the advent of the Age of Reason and the rise of scientific thinking, we began to divide our stories into what is considered real and unreal. Stories supported by observation and proof came to be accepted as truth, while those not grounded in fact were relegated to the realm of legend and lore.

Yet stories, whether fact or fiction, when told by those we trust, have the power to shape our sense of good and evil, right and wrong, what is real and what is not. Stories carry immense power.

Our personal stories hold the same kind of power. Day in and day out, we tell stories to ourselves, shaped by our perceptions, emotional states, and subjective memories. These stories form the lens through which we experience reality.

We see, hear, touch, taste, and smell the world, and then we create a story about what it means. To one person, a rose is cherished for its beauty and delicate fragrance. To another, it signifies thorns and allergies. Will we pause to admire the rose garden, or simply walk on by?

The way we interpret past experiences influences the actions we take. Our perception of reality becomes our truth.

When we tell ourselves a story of helplessness, we step into the role of the victim, and life’s challenges can appear insurmountable. But when we choose to see ourselves as the heroes of our own story, everything shifts. We begin to trust that where there are roadblocks, there is also a path around or through them.

Simply affirming that a way forward exists opens our eyes to possibilities we might have overlooked. This empowering perspective sparks our ingenuity and awakens our capacity to adapt.

Learning to recognize the self-limiting stories you tell yourself, explore them, and reweave them into something new can transform your perspective, allowing your life to flow like a river, moving past obstacles and finding its way toward the sea of possibility.

In my monthly newsletters, we’ll journey into the realm of personal mythology, exploring how the stories we carry shape our lives and how we can flow more gracefully with their current.

Ritual Practice:
Catch a Story

Catching a story is not always easy, but once you find a few hooks, you begin to fish for tales with skill.

Some of our disempowering narratives arrive as subtle whispers: “I can’t change.” “What will they think of me?” “I will never succeed.” Others rise like walls in our path, stopping us in our tracks: “I am not good enough.” “I am unlovable.” “It’s too risky to try something new.”

This ritual practice invites you to examine a self-limiting narrative by asking powerful questions and rewriting your inner script.

Step 1: Catch a Story Identify a self-limiting narrative you’ve told yourself recently, something that quietly holds you back. Perhaps it is a phrase you often repeat in your mind.

Step 2: Literal Analysis Is this story actually true? Can you remember moments when it wasn’t?

Step 3: Emotional Analysis What emotions does this story stir within you? Notice where you feel them in your body.

Step 4: Mythic Analysis When did you first begin telling yourself this story? Did someone else (perhaps a parent, teacher, or friend) plant the seeds of this belief?

Step 5: Energetic Analysis How does this story affect your energy? Does it drain you, weigh you down, or lift and mobilize you?

Step 6: Rewrite the Story Write down the opposite of your limiting narrative on a small slip of paper. Carry this paper in your pocket for a week. Look at it often. Read it aloud to yourself. Let your body reflect this new truth: stand taller, roll your shoulders back, lift your gaze. Become the living embodiment of this new story.

You may also use these questions to explore a self-empowering story. Simply allow it to deepen rather than trying to turn it inside out.

Next month we will continue to investigate our stories.