Considering the World from the perspective of the 3 Domains of Being – Past, Present and Future – in the Past we have a fixed view of the World which includes our belief about who we are and what we deserve from the World.
It is useful to uncover what these stories are and whether or not they are supportive or obstructive to us in being able to create what we really want in the World.
The first step is to begin to become aware of your internal dialogue and what the main themes of your ‘self talk’ or stories are.
Researchers say that we think about 90% of the same thoughts today as we did yesterday so don’t worry too much if you don’t catch it all the first day – you’ll get another chance tomorrow.
The best way to do this is to carry a journal with you and simply jot down the main gist of your internal dialogue as it arises. For instance you may find yourself sitting in traffic in your car and your mind wanders to your job and your relationship with your boss. You might have a dialogue that starts with the thought that your boss doesn’t like you and that’s why you never get promoted.
A little while later you may be having lunch and you begin to think about your husband or wife and how you don’t spend enough time with each other anymore and that you’ll probably just drift apart.
Driving home you may then begin to think about your children and how they will soon be leaving home and how lonely you will be.
These three things would then be identified as the main themes in your thinking.
Once you have identified the main themes then you can dig deeper and uncover the sub parts. The individual stories that you tell over and over again.
For example – with regard to the main theme identified above of the relationship with the boss. The sub parts may include:- recounting past events where you have been looked over for promotion; past events when he/she gave you odd looks or mixed feedback; past events where you actually did stuff up.
If you stick at this exercise, over a period of time you will uncover the main themes and all the sub-part or supporting stories – the evidence to support the main theme.
Once you have all this written down you need to ask:-
- Who are you in this story? Good or bad
- What does the story tell you about what you deserve from life?
In the example above, the story may be that you are always missing out on opportunities because you don’t present well (read bad). Therefore the logical conclusion is that you don’t deserve to be promoted and hence you are actually getting exactly what you believe you deserve.
The challenge once you have identified such a story is then to re-write it into a positive one.
Then every time the story arises – usually there will be an environmental trigger e.g. office meeting – you can simply acknowledge and redirect.
That is – “Oh, there’s that negative story again – I acknowledge that story is there but I refuse to buy into it and I’m going to focus on what I want instead.”
In this way – over time – you can deconstruct your internal dialogue and reconstruct it in a much more supportive way.