“Awareness means to open your eyes to see the truth, and no longer to be blind. If we can practice being aware all the time, just the awareness will change our whole reality.” Don Miguel Ruiz
Did you know that we each have a narrator inside of us? It narrates our whole life for us. It will tell us everything we want to know and everything that we don’t want to know. As we walk outside on a cold and chill day, with our coat and hat on, the first thing it will tell us is ” it is cold out here.” It will tell us what we are good at, and then it tells us what we are not good at. Sometimes it the same thing that it tells us we are good at, then later it tells us,we are not good at it. It loves to tell us, how we like this person and then a minute later it will tell us why we don’t like this person. It tells us that we love someone and then when this person doesn’t do what we like, it will tell us we don’t like them anymore and we need to get out of this friendship or relationship. It narrates our whole life for us.
It not only talks to us, it even sing to us, it will sing this one song over and over again. The narrator likes to keep us up some nights and just talk and talk and talk, just like that drunk friend we use to know. The narrator is tells us what we are afraid of, what we can and cannot do in our life. It narrates decisions that we have to make but it goes back and forth one minute to the next, I should do this, no I should do it this way, back and forth it swings.
Let’s take a look at a work relationship. Let’s say you have a friend at work name Jim, you’re having a great conversation, having a good time. You hear from the narrator “I’m so glad he works here he makes my day go by so fast.” Then an hour later you’re working and the narrator says to you “I work so hard getting things done right and Jim doesn’t even do his job right. He’s so lazy and I work so hard.” Does this happen to you? Isn’t it confusing?
How about this situation, you’re in a relationship and your partner told you that they would take care of dinner tonight. When you come home there is no dinner. The narrator tells you “this person never does what they say they will do.” The narrator continues to say “I don’t need to be in this relationship.” Then half hour later your partner comes in with dinner and it’s from your favorite restaurant and they say “I’m sorry I’m late the restaurant was back up and I wanted to surprise you. So I didn’t text you. I knew you would already know that I was coming home with our dinner.” Then the narrator tells you, “I knew they were coming with dinner they are so dependable, this is why I love them so much.” Is this not confusing, what do you think? Does it happen to you?
The narrator loves to bring us back into the past, where we can become sad, angry, frustrated and happy, depending on the memory. These memories are from long ago, but we feel like it’s happening to us right now. Our heart races, we feel the emotions of the memory in our minds, our bodies. If feels real to us, like it is happening right now.
We get excited about doing something different with our life, and then the narrator tells us all about our past, all the different things that did not work out and all the reason why it won’t work out. Then an hour later it will tell us all the reasons that it will work out. And then the next day it will tell us all the reasons why it won’t work out. Are you confused? Is this happening to you?
The narrator is confusing and it swings back and forth, one minute to the next. One minute we believe this and then later we don’t believe it. We love someone then later we don’t even like them. We are feeling smart and confident and then later we are not good enough for anything. When making any decisions in our life’s the narrator tells us this is a good idea, and then later it says this is not a good idea. The narrator is running our lives. We are not stressed by the outside world we are stressed because of our own inside world. Ask yourself this important question “would you want this narrator to be your friend, how about your therapist?” Think about it!
Experiment:
Take a day and listen to your thoughts, listen to the chattering inside of your mind. Think of this chatty narrator as your best friend who is walking around with you all day long. Don’t judge this narrator, don’t get angry with this person, it’s just a narrator, it has been with you your whole life. Just listen to what it is saying to you, how is it speaking to you? What is it saying about other people, situations in your life? Just become aware of this person, these thoughts. Then ask yourself at the end of the day, would I want this person in my life every minute of the day or night? Would I hang out with this person? Would this be the person I would go to for help, comfort or a good time? Would I tune out this friend and not listen to them? What would I do?
“Awareness is like the sun. When it shines on things, they are transformed” Thich Nhat Hanh