Stories we tell about ourselves -
And the roles they play in creating our realities, manifesting our present situations
This past summer I’ve been reading about both money traumas - and now - the artistic/creative wounds that we’ve been telling ourselves and how we create and reinforce our own stories—which manifests our own realities -
But so much of it is subconscious - underneath the surface - but still it affects us in our construction of our realities -
I have done this both with trying to pinpoint limiting beliefs surrounding those who are richer and those who have money, want money, etc.
We can also do the same when it comes to those types we think who become artists.
I’m reading the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.
She asks us to uncover our own limiting beliefs about our creative selves— to work our way through our creative/artistic recovery. In order to clear away the junk of our past -to clear the creative, artistic path forward for us -
I have been revisiting some of these old wounds - memories that impacted me oh-so different from the way I would view them now - as an adult. Teachers and examples of when/why/how I labeled myself as a ‘bad’ writer or not a fiction writer - so strong were these imprints that I wore them and allowed them to become my own new story -
Despite the fact that for years - I wanted to be a writer and knew that my goal/dream and reality would be that one day I would become a writer of stories, of fiction.
It’s fascinating to me now, in retrospect, how just a few bad memories can imprint upon you - and truly tip the scales in a different direction -
Despite how often I was praised and awarded and recognized; that was much, much more for of the time, for my writing than I was for the times I [thought I had] failed at it or someone didn’t approve of my writing or I didn’t write for the right context or audience.
The strange thing is - of course I know this.
I’m an educator and we know that it only takes one bad memory or one bad teacher or a bad class experience for people to forever label themselves as a bad writer or a bad student or dumb, etc, etc -
And yet - though I know that -
I hadn’t necessarily applied that to my own life -
Re-examined from a more critical lens.
I hold some space for this lately because I am also reading about how powerful neuroplasticity is -
How we create our own realities by the stories that we tell ourselves and about ourselves - how they act as self-prophecy and we manifest our own circumstances.
Not entirely. Not entirely black and white. Not in the -law of attraction and the secret way - where you’re to blame for your own circumstances, entirely -
But- that we do our part. And our energies and thoughts have oh so much power than we give them credit for or like to think that they hold over our current, present situations and circumstances.
In short, I do - I have hang-ups, about money scarcity / financial traumas and feelings of insecurity - despite the fact that -
I have never been hungry or unhoused or unable to treat a medical condition -
I am blessed in that beyond measure compared to many across this country and world.
But - the thing is - it doesn’t matter that it’s not rooted in reality.
It’s rooted in emotional inheritance and nervous system dysregulation and stress and trauma and other junk that I was given from my family line and ways that were impressed upon me as a child - with heavily traumatized and mentally ill parents who struggled financially. And from a mother who was abandoned and had no home of her own growing up.
I am not blaming them -
But I am simply saying - they impacted me in my childhood perception and they still occupy space in my mind and dictate my beliefs about family, ‘being alone’. I have addressed some of them - I accept that I have my own home now, a place that it is mine and I can be at home there - and I can be happy all alone.
Now, I work on the others -
Artistic, creative recovery -
And financial trauma - my family’s money story -
Why —- ?
To make space, to allow for more growth and welcome of artistic creativity and to not limit myself in my own junk about money - associations of the type of person who has money, who earns more money, what I’ll do with that money, will it change me, the notions that a woman shouldn’t pursue money - etc, etc. It’s a long list.
But in the book, Make Money Easy - this exploration of my money wounds is a fascinating journey.
As is - uncovering the roots of my artistic recovery and creative wounds -
They are both oh so much more rooted and richly intwined within my perception of life, reality, and the stories that I tell about my life and about myself -
Oh, so, so much more than I ever would have realized.
But - I am rewriting old stories. And it’s time to tell new narratives in these regards.