Rewriting Your Life Story: A Step By Step Guide

Have you ever found yourself asking yourself these questions:

• Why do I keep feeling this way over and over again?
• Why do I keep attracting the same kind of guy, or job, or situation over and over again?
• What is wrong with me?
• Why do I feel anxious every time I have a public speaking event?
• I know I need to change but why can’t I do it?

You are constantly talking to yourself in your head about LITERALLY everything!! You have a story for every little single thing in your life. A story about your body, your past, your self confidence, about love, about marriage, about success and what all of them “mean” to you.

Your stories are the “meaning” you attach to certain things in your life. This meaning can be something you adopted from people around you or something you created after a certain experience or situation. It’s simply a thought that you decided to believe and repeat.

This is how you build your view of the world which ends up being your “perception” and how you see yourself and your life.

The tricky part is as I mentioned earlier, we might have adopted these stories at a very young age as a survival mechanism that helps us make sense of the world. And do you want to know what the funny part about this is?

It’s that most of our stories are not even ours! They are simply stories we adopted at a very young age from our parents, caregivers, school teachers, friends, etc. and we decided to believe that they are the ultimate truth and hence we grow attachment to them and we defend them with all our power.

It’s scary to let go of our stories because they feel comfortable, they’re familiar and they are the KNOWN and the known always feels safer than the unknown even if it’s painful or it makes us feel bad… it’s still familiar and familiar is safe.

So, if your parents fought all the time, your story might be marriage is horrible. Or if your siblings didn’t want to ever play with you, your story might be I’m not loved. Or if your first boyfriend cheated on you, your story might be I’m not good enough.

And then you simply repeat these stories to yourself all the time making yourself believe it’s the absolute truth and then feeling and acting and living from that story.

You are not experiencing life as it truly is… your are experiencing life based on the stories you tell yourself about it.

So, here’s an example about a moment where your story takes over: (this actually happened with one of my clients)

She used to feel anxious every time a guy liked her and showed her that he’s interested in her. She didn’t know why this was happening until I asked her this question:

What makes you feel anxious when you think of yourself going into a relationship?

And she said: I’m not ready to give up my freedom and my freedom is so important to me.

In that moment I could see her story so clearly, her story was: relationships mean I will lose my freedom and my freedom is not something I’m willing to lose.

So every time a guy approached her she instantly felt herself losing her freedom and because her freedom is so important to her, she started to feel anxious.

So I asked her: Is this story actually true? Does all relationships equal lack of freedom? or does choosing a partner who doesn’t respect your freedom equals lack of freedom? What if you chose a partner who fully supports and accepts your freedom? will you lack freedom then?

This was a big AHA moment for her because in that moment she also become aware of her story and how her story was affecting her relationships and that’s when we started to create the shift. (which I will talk about below so stay with me)

This is you in literally every area of your life. Start noticing your stories, the ones you keep repeating to yourself and to those around you. Notice what do you say when you describe your childhood, or when you talk about yourself in relationships, or when you talk about your family, or your goals. What are you saying to yourself?

It’s so important to notice your stories because your stories are deciding how you experience your life, they’re affecting how you feel and what actions you take or don’t take.

Your stories are literally creating your reality.

Here’s what you can do to start upgrading and re-writing your stories so they can reflect who you truly are today and help you create the life you desire for yourself:

1) Become aware of your stories

• One of the ways you can do that is simply by noticing what you say out loud about yourself or certain things in your life.
• Start journaling and writing down your thoughts, this will help you start noticing the stories you repeat internally to yourself day in and day out.
• Choose a couple of concepts that are important to you, like: success, productivity, relationships, money, etc. and write your thoughts about them (Like your definition of the concept). This will be your story right here!

2) Notice how your stories are making you feel:

If a story is in alignment with your truth, it’s empowering you or serving you it will feel good on the inside when you say it to yourself or to others. If a story doesn’t make you feel light and expanded then maybe it’s time to re-frame and re-write this story.

3) Question and debate your story:

• Ask yourself these questions: Is this actually true? is this story mine?
• Write down all the reasons why this story is not actually fully true.

4) Decide what you want your new story to be

I call this “The Replacement Method”. It’s easier to create change in your life when you know what the change is. I noticed from my clients that it’s easy for them to identify what they don’t want and to focus on that, but when I ask them: What do you want instead? That’s where they get stuck sometimes.

By focusing on what we don’t want, we will just create more of it. Have you ever hear the phrase: “What you focus on expands”? Why do you think that is?

It’s because resisting a thought or a story is still focusing on it and that attention gives it power; because we’re still giving it our energy and time which means we are still feeling the emotions of what we don’t want, which will make you stuck in the same emotional reality over and over again.

This is why this step is so important; because this is when you leave the old self behind and you start taking your first step into creating a new reality for yourself.

So, the question in this step is:

What do I choose to start believing today?

For example, your old story about money might have been: Money is a source of stress, people who have money are bad people, focusing on having money makes me materialistic.

But when you stop and ask yourself is that true? Your answer might be: not entirely. And when you ask yourself: is that even mine? your answer might be: not really, it’s what I used to hear my parents say when I was young.

Then you ask yourself: Why is this not entirely true? and your answer might be: because there are good people who have money, or money is more a source of ease and joy because it helps me buy nice things and not worry, focusing on making money will help me help others that are in need.

GREAT!!!

Now it’s time to re-frame; ask yourself: What do I choose to believe about money starting today?

Write all your answers down. Example: Money helps me build a beautiful life/ Money helps me enjoy life / Money helps me help others more comfortably/ Money is for everyone/ I can be a good person and have a lot of money at the same time, etc.

Now it’s time for your last step:

Repeat, repeat and then repeat some more

It might take time to replace the old story with a new one and that’s okay. Like I mentioned before, your old story is familiar and it’s easy and that’s why it might keep popping up every now and then. However, now you know that this is no longer your story (or like I tell my clients: You no longer live there!).

So every time the old story pops up, be compassionate with yourself and know that it’s okay. Just notice, pause and re-shift your focus to your new story.

What will also help create true transformation is visualization; close your eyes, repeat your new story in your mind and notice how it FEELS in your body. The moment you awaken the emotion of the new story in your body, you are already creating this new reality internally before you start seeing in externally.

Because when you feel it, your body will think you’re already living it and it will produce hormones and chemicals that match this new story, your brain will start re-wiring and creating pathways reflecting this new story, your state of being (your frequency) will match the new story which means you are already living the reality you desire now.

Like Dr. Wayne Dyer says: You don’t believe it when you see it. You see it when you believe it.

Summary

You are never stuck, you are not the victim of your past conditioning, you are not the victim of your childhood or your past traumas. You have the power to create change for yourself, you are responsible as an adult to re-write the stories of your child-self, you are now in charge, you are the author of your own life. And like one of my friends once told me: For your life to change, something in your life needs to change.

To create the change you desire, become aware of your limiting stories, decide what you want to replace them with, and step fully into this reality. Your focus and attention are valuable resources, give them only to the thoughts and stories you want to see unfold in your life.

Sending you so much love. And every time doubt comes up, or an old story comes up just pause and say:

I don’t live there anymore.

Peace & Love,

Sara xx