What’s YOUR story?
One thing we all love is stories. Stories connect us, teach us, transform us, set us free and LIGHT US UP! I love a good story and I love the ritual of a bedtime story. In fact, my husband has been known to read aloud to me to soothe me into sleep. My favorite stories are those that tell the tale of overcoming a challenge and examples of love and loyalty. It’s no wonder we love hero’s tales and superhero myths!
I bet you love stories, too. What stories do you love? Are they personal stories or cultural fables? Do you prefer a good mystery, romance, science fiction or fantasy? Are you a fan of myths, legends or parables? Tell me, I want to know your favorite genre of stories!
Stories light up our brain! When we hear a good story, our brain steps in to define the problem and seeks to discover the solution. It’s how we’re wired! We take on the role of the hero. We feel what the hero feels. We experience what the hero experiences. Through the power of mirror neurons, our brain literally mirrors that of the character within the story.
It’s through stories that I fell in love with yoga oh-so-long ago. At first it was the story of my own unfolding and discovering as I healed from my accident and the over-drive life I had been living. Soon, however, my attention shifted and morphed into holding space for others to discover and claim their own stories of becoming. In this space I found my life’s work.
Pain, love, heartache, suffering, triumph…it’s all ours. Telling stories helps us to share our personal experience and builds community and connection with those whom we share. Through the telling and sharing of our stories, we cultivate personal reflection and WITNESS consciousness.
This is what makes stories so powerful.
- It’s learning without the struggle.
- It’s connection across great divides.
- It’s how we imagine ourselves as something greater than we currently realize we are.
Stories have been used to teach all the great spiritual practices. Story is paramount to yoga. The power of yoga is contained within identifying and standing in one’s own story, our own life experience, our own truth. Through yoga we come to know ourselves and each other. Through yoga we connect, learn, and grow!
Across our communities, we’re telling “stories”. We’re having conversations about real vs. fake news, quarrels over what qualifies as victimization and trauma and court battles to determine who deserves to be helped, heard, and healed. Our stories provide the fodder for our beliefs and values, but stories are limited by our own experience.
As individuals we have only our personal experience to influence our sense of compassion and empathy. But as a community, we expand the horizons of compassion. We broaden our perspective, our understanding and our compassion by learning the stories of others. However, this requires effort. Effort, or “stirha” as the yogis call it, means effort, equanimity, steadiness and alertness. Both stirha and sukha (ease, peace, inner joy), it’s balancing opposition, are essential to the practice of yoga and living an inspired life.
One of the lessons I share in Inspired Living Boot Camp is this idea of Yoga as story and how we access its truth and wisdom through the practices of yoga. Every good story has a beginning, a middle and an end, so does the practice of yoga, so does life. Do you know your story?
For some of us, beginnings are hardest. For others, it’s the endings and letting go. But for still others, it’s the stuck feeling of the middle that poses the most challenge. Do you see yourself in the beginning, the middle, or at the end of your current life’s chapter? Finding joy in the journey is a skill that yoga can teach us. Inspired Living Boot Camp provides the classroom for your supported learning of this skill.
It’s time! It’s time to listen to each other’s stories. It’s time to speak our own truth. It’s time to know the union of yoga.
Are you ready to share a story time? I can’t wait to hear your story!
Join me LIVE in November!!! A weekly FB broadcast: Storytime with Kimberlyn: Life lessons for living your yoga
Tuesday, November 5 at 9am ET
