A Shocking Story

As you read this, I am spending time with my family celebrating the Jewish New Year.  It’s a thoughtful time for me, what has passed and what is to come?

I’m so thankful for this year; a year of great learning, growth, expansion and some tough lessons too.  I’m so grateful for the people who have inspired and supported me along the way.

And I’m so grateful to you; for following me, for reading my stories, for responding (or not!), for being in my life and allowing me into yours.

I wish you a healthy, happy and inspired year to come!

Much love and blessings, Lisa

Here’s this week’s story!

A Shocking Story

Have your own words ever shocked you?  Have you noticed that sometimes your story is not quite what you think it is?  What do you do when your own story doesn’t have a happy end?   I was shocked as the words flew out of my mouth like a lethal weapon.  I knew I had very strong feelings for him, but I didn’t imagine the ferocious force of the story that emerged.  My whole body shook and he was stunned.  We both were.

It started 6 months before.  I was young and unattached.  And I mean really unattached.  I had been travelling for some time and taken a job locally.

We met at sunset, in the garden beside the water. We had all been eating strawberries and cream and the evening was beginning to get chilly.I suggested Irish Coffee and he followed me into the kitchen.  We started to talk.  We started to laugh. We felt like we had known each other for centuries.  We finished each other’s sentences.

Later than night as we were being driven home, our hands were side by side and I felt a physical craving to touch him.  It was deep in my stomach, calling me from a place I didn’t even know existed until that moment.

One week later I left.  I had a commitment to move on.  It felt like I was being ripped apart.  I traveled half way across that country before I realized that I had to go back.  When I arrived back at his house there was a note on the door – ‘if my greatest desire has come true, welcome’.  I had come home.

If I describe the days of loving, laughing and crying from joy, it won’t make sense.

If I remember the hikes in landscape more stunning than I had ever seen before, it gets unclear.

If I relive the synchronicity and creativity that we shared, it seems like madness.

So when we knew we had to split up the story of how we were hurting each other seemed the only one we could tell.  The only way to justify the pain and somehow make sense of it all was with accusations and anger.

They were just stories though.  In fact it’s all just a story.  How we love and live is all a story.  How people hurt us and give us pain is just a story.  How we know we need to be separate, is just a story.

And if the story is painful, stressful or uncomfortable, maybe it’s time to question it?  It’s time to tell a different story.  And you know who needs to tell it, right?

It’s always you.  Always your story.  What are you telling?

If this story moved you, surprised you, pissed you off or inspired you – let me know.  Leave a comment below.

Best wishes and best stories

Lisa

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10 comments on “A Shocking Story”

  1. Lisa, your story resonated with me as I felt a flood of my similar stories bubbling to the surface as I ready yours.

    Our stories are powerful–either empowering or debilitating, or a gazillion possibilities in between. We’re constantly running them, writing new ones and accepting them as truth.

    I’ve come to realize that my stories are a unique brand of my truth, but they’re not the only truth. They’re real for me and they can change or disappear altogether when I evaluate how they’re serving me.

  2. I think this story has a lot of potential to illustrate what you do. However, in my case, I need a few more details to make it more congruent. The story for me was not congruent or clear so the message of getting people to tell their own story was lost for me.

  3. Hi Lisa: This story doesn’t hold together. Who was driving them home, a cabbie? Why did the writer have to leave? There was not enough detail to grab me. Regards, Marty

  4. Our stories both arise from and shape the context we experience. They do not stand alone as they are not truths but interpretations. Where they intersect with other interpretations they create are action, whether it be supportive of the story or otherwise. Our contexts continually change, and while the root of our story may or may not change with it, we continually adapt its telling to connect with where the audience is, or where we are and want the audience to input. So which story is it ?

    • Interesting comment Barry – I’m always interested in the ‘intersections’ – which story is it? The one you’re telling right now! thanks for the thoughts! Best wishes, Lisa

  5. This is a timely reminder to me that all life is a story we tell ourselves. A story of how ‘great’ we are because something happened, or how ‘bad’ someone else is because they didn’t do what we wanted them to do.

    It also, bizarrely – and I still am trying to understand this, see what it says about ‘my life story’ – underlines why I don’t trust stories, as a means of communicating who someone is. Not lesat because of the truism, “why let the truth get in the way of a good story”, but also because the storyteller may not realise how blind they are to the ‘real’ story. Do you get me?

    Anyway, I enjoyed reading this story of love, identified with it, but what I got most out of it were the concluding thoughts…

    Thanks,
    Steve

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