Your story. It’s your story. Your life, your experiences, your heart ache and your joy. It’s what drives you and encourages you and teaches you. It’s fascinating and wonderful. Wonderful you say? Yes, absolutely wonderful!
It is as unique as you are. There isn’t anyone in the world that has ever been or ever will be that will be exactly like you or have your exact story. Oh, that’s not to say that some of us will experience the same things. We will. However, our experiences, strengths, weaknesses and perceptions will potentially leave us experiencing the same exact situation as completely different from each other.
For example, I had to take speech class while in college. We all do. Did you know some people dread that class? They have nightmares about it! From the moment it showed up in my class list, I was thrilled! I couldn’t wait for the assignments.
We had a couple of rules in that class. We could not do speeches on controversial issues like gun control or abortion. Understood. We could not do a speech on computers. I was in a computer degree, so what I heard was; don’t do a speech on all of the boring algorithms, DOS commands, and computer programming. Ok, that wasn’t what I loved about computers anyway.
I spent time on researching what I wanted to speak on. I wanted to inspire my classmates and encourage them. I spoke for fifteen minutes on how wonderful technology was and how computers have opened up the world for us! I shared that with the computerized dictionary we could not only read about a monkey in Africa, but we could watch a video of it in the wild AND hear what it sounded like! We could print on beautiful hand made stationary and ‘visit’ someone half way around the world simply by web conferencing or email! Fascinating and delightful stuff. At the end of my
speech my class mates whispered to me as I walked back to my seat, “You weren’t supposed to do computers!” Not only did I get an A on that speech, my anti-computer instructor admitted to me the next semester that because of my speech, he went and bought a PC! It’s perception. My perception was that he was tired of hearing about boring old computers. I saw computers as exciting and full of opportunity. The last speech of the year I called in some favors and got last place. Not because I needed more time, but because my last speech was on how to throw a party! I set it all up as I talked and at the end I invited everyone to join me.
My perception of speech class is that it was a really fun opportunity to think outside the box and connect with my classmates. Others quit school because they absolutely couldn’t face having to speak. Amazing, right?
Your story is just like that speech class. You can stand inside of it and be too scared to move or so frustrated that you give up or you can embrace it for all it’s worth and wring every last bit of joy out of it.
I recently heard someone say that when you think on all of your obstacles and barriers, they get bigger. The reason they seem bigger is that’s because it’s all you think about. This really resonated with me. If I focus on the things I can’t do then I don’t give time to the things I can do. Huh. What a concept. I’ve heard this same thing dozens of times in my life and although it always rang with truth, this time it hit me square in the forehead. I always thought of it as don’t worry about it or don’t give it any more of your attention that needed. I don’t think that’s it. I think it’s more about my thoughts lead to my actions and if I’m thinking about how I can’t do something, I won’t do it. However, if I think about all of the ways I can try to do it, then I will be trying to do it!
For my scrapbooking friends, we work on our stories all the time. We put down the photos and titles, but how many are putting off writing the story for someday when they are a better writer, their handwriting is better or they figure out what to say?Treasure your stories. The fear is in rejection from others, what if they don’t like my handwriting? What if they don’t understand what I wrote or they don’t like it? You realize tomorrow is just a concept, right? It never actually happens. When it gets here it becomes today and when it’s over it becomes yesterday, but tomorrow never actually happens. Don’t put it off until tomorrow. Your story is amazing and your handwriting is special to you. It’s as much of a treasure as you are.
For my essential oil friends, we are working on our health and reaching out to those we care about. For us the fear is in rejection. What if they…. get healthier? Get wiser? What if you step out of fear and reach out to someone and they love it?
Perception, right?
