The client stated how difficult her night before had been because she had seen her story. She asked Girez how she could remember it was just a story. I understand her distress, when we see that we are creating our life, that it is a multitude of lenses we are seeing our life through and is not “true” it can cause angst; especially if the story is painful. When I had the experience of seeing the bulk of my life choices as being based in fear and my primary identity as “victim” it gave my inner critic a huge amount of ammunition to berate me. Or on the other hand seeing my identity as stories, patterns, and programs handed to me and accepted without evaluation of their source or validity has also caused my ego great distress. Its job is to form an identity to help me survive as an individual in this lifetime and it feared that now just because that identity was “lies”, I was just going to threw it all out. My ego trembled in its perceived annihilation, and I actually felt deep grief at its impending death.
In the above-mentioned session, Girez encouraged the client to celebrate over and over every time she became aware that it is a story. And ask, who is aware it is a story? Suddenly he started moving my hands and arms and I was moving in a very feminine gesture modeling what I am wearing as if I am trying on a fancy sequined dress. “How does this story look on me? Do you like it? How about this one? How does this story look on me? Do you like it better?”
Girez’s humor certainly lightened the mood. The metaphor has become especially useful as I am currently living with a family member and in a position to clearly see how many programs, patterns, and identity stories were passed down through my family. I find myself joking as I see how many hand-me-downs I am wearing. “Hey what’s with this hat of self-righteousness, it fits so tight I can’t see straight. And look at this nasty old holey sweater of unworthiness; it must be as old as original sin. And damn this purse of co-dependency is heavy; why would I want to carry that around. None of this looks good on me. It just isn’t me!”
And here we get to the profundity of Girez’s metaphor. If our stories are just like clothing, something we put on without choosing or that we consciously try on to experience how we feel wearing it, who (or what) is wearing the stories? Asking that question then turns “seeing our story” from instead of being a moment to launch into judgement or fear, to actually being an opportunity to consciously reconnect to our “big soul”, our true being. Assure your ego it will not die, you are just going to make its life easier, and keep asking, “Show me, who is wearing the story?” Such directives and questions open the door for us to connect to our unique source energy and live from there instead of from the programs (the hand-me-downs) we humans accept as identity. (No blame, that’s just what we humans do, until we realize there is a different way.)
“In the end that is what we are looking for: to find ourselves, to be ourselves, to live our own life, instead of the life of the Parasite – the life we were programmed to live.”
– don Miguel Ruiz, “The Mastery of Love”
So what hand-me-downs have I been wearing that I’m not longer interested in? What would my essence, my big soul, my being be interested in wearing now? Answer: Something that feels really good. Knowing that I may tire of that and want to wear something even lighter and brighter later on.
I recently did a shamanic journey with Girez where a completely new alternate lifetime (timeline) was created for me that could feed its light and love into this timeline. It erased much of the primary story I have been living. It is as I have been wearing a set of contact lenses since birth and now, I just found out they are disposable. And yes, I chose to throw them away. Since that journey I have watched in amazement how the people in my life behaviors have changed as they are no longer bound to conforming to my old story. Oh, my new story that was created is rich and filled with love and light. Does it feel better because it is “right”, less painful. Or does it feel better because it is in harmony and alignment to the infinite energetic being I actually am?
Yet on my awakening path, I would do myself a disservice if I did not also see it also as a story and ask who has created it. So again, I direct, “Show me who I truly am.” Let me live from there so I can choose for myself what I am interested in wearing, what I am interested in experiencing, without identifying it as who I truly am.
“You have never been your story. You are the power of creation of your story.”
- Christine Laria