At the height of the Black Lives Matter movement that we all witnessed in the wake of George Floyd’s death, we were inundated by the media with coverage of this horrifying, yet sadly inevitable moment.
I rarely watch the news, but like most, I was taken in by the train wreck. Except to look away in this case would surely be immoral, uncaring even. One particular interview I saw was a young Black American male who was telling the interviewer that growing up one of the first lessons his Mom taught him was to keep the receipt whenever he went to a store. Why? So that he didn’t get accused of theft.
Now imagine for a moment growing up in a world where such a “life skill” is even a thing? For most of us it’s so out of the sphere of how we live that it seems almost absurd. But the more I listen to these stories, the more I realise that it’s far from absurd, it’s a way of life. As a mixed-race female my own path could have taken on the these kind of narratives, but I just so happened to grow up in a middle-class, white, neighbourhood, and didn’t need to get warnings from my parents that people might think I was a thief. Despite the fact that my own parents would have faced racial discrimination because of their mixed-race marriage they wisely chose not to speak these “truths” into my narrative.
Our stories are what define us, they are the things that form our identity, they are the lens through which we see the world. But more than that they directly effect how we see the world and what we attract. The almost infinite contrast and variety in our experiences is perhaps the most obvious pointer to the fact that we don’t see the world the way it is, we see it as we are.
Imagine if my parents had given me the same stories as black youth in America? The trajectory of my life would have been entirely different. While parents may provide cautionary tales to their children, (likely because they have lived it themselves), speaking these narratives into children’s stories does them no favours, it biases the lens. What may have started as a “watch your back” piece of advice, quickly becomes “the world is out to get me” and inevitably when you believe that, evidence will keep showing up to reinforce that belief. There is simply no mystery about the cause of generational poverty, prejudice or discrimination, it occurs because we are determined to keep telling the same stories. And the reason is compelling.
We are protective of our stories, especially it seems the most painful ones. If the ego loves to attach meaning to things, then surely there is nothing more alluring to the ego than a compelling reason to be. As individuals, cultures and societies, we depend on these stories like our lives will suddenly end if we don’t. It feels unthinkable to most to drop the book and pick up another more lovely one. Apparently we are addicted to being victims of the past, and persist therefore into dragging the past into the present. (I don’t just mean those generationally, we do this day-to-day, moment-to-moment).
But what if history (in all it’s cruelty), was just interesting for interests sake? What if we stopped telling our daughters that men will prey on them? What if we stopped telling young Black Americans that they will always have it harder? What if you stopped believing the stories you have and others have told you about yourself for your whole life? It feels arbitrary right? It feels like we’re letting something too important and to dear to us go, just like that. We shudder at the idea of brainwashing or cult like associations, yet we have no problem putting zero barriers or filters into what we consent to be true. It’s normal to keep repeating limiting truths over and over again and we don’t realise that we are asking the universe to concur with our repetitive thoughts:
It’s too expensive (keeps us poor)
It’s impossible to find a date (keeps us single)
My boss never appreciate the work I do (keeps us at the bottom of the ladder)
You get the idea…
Our truths define our inner and outer world, so it seems like being more selective about our present moment truths is the answer to freedom. Free will in merely the freedom to choose your conscious state (which is your point of attraction), and since your conscious state is defined by the feeling of the story your are telling, be brave enough to pick a good one. Be bold enough to be stop consenting to beliefs that don’t serve you. Be courageous enough to change the world, or at the very least, interrupt your own plot and write new story.