I occasionally receive extremely long emails from people telling me their whole life stories. While I am honored that people can be so open with me, it can be disappointing for some of them that I am uninterested in those tall tales. Because it is a tall tale. Our ego stories are conglomerations of very few events while we have forgotten numerous other events and situations that have not fit into our overall idea of ourselves. For instance, trauma survivors sometimes forget or don’t see kindness because the ego is seeing everything through the lens of trauma. As such, their story about themselves can be a long miserable story that excludes many good and kind things that happened to them along the way. This can seem impossible, but trust me, it happens.
The reverse is true to. People can be overly “positive” and try to construct stories about how great their lives are. But upon investigation some people discover that their lives have not been very happy. Some people–in the midst of their seemingly content ego story–suddenly realize that they are utterly devastated because they have not been following their hearts. At which point, the person has to either ignore and repress their truth or start to give up their ego story.
It is hard for people earlier on their paths to hear that their ego stories are really not that interesting. Most of the time, these personal belief systems greatly limit or painfully constrict us through this self-definition. People say that these past events and stories “make” them who they are, but more often than not, those stories limit them from being so much more.
So any time you feel yourself getting caught up in telling someone your life story, pause and take a breath. Come back to the present moment and see who you really are right now without any story.
