Of Loosing Our Inner Narratives

Anytime you say, “of course it turned out like this, it always does!” Pause and recognize your narrative.

Just like in an editing room, a footage is useless unless placed in a specific order under a cohesive narrative. If we think about our lives and our experiences, the painful truth hits us in the face-our life is a random order of events under our vigilantly crafted narratives. Depending on our tendencies, our narrative can bring us closer to bliss or towards self-destruction. It is truly our choice.

The closer we hold our narratives and the more emotion we feed them, the deeper our pain. Perhaps that is why some of the most depressed people I meet have a very precise record of events in their lives and reflect constantly on how each event changed them, what it ‘taught’ them and how they choose to ‘avoid’ or ‘tackle’ these situations in the future.

If we take charge of our narratives, we realize that we are the people responsible for bringing cohesion, duplication and replication into our life. No one else.

Can you imagine the day we relinquish our narratives and stop worrying about connecting the dots? For a civilization that sustains itself on stories, it almost seems like an impossible task, right? I optimistically reckon that foregoing our internal narrative could possibly allow the events in our lives to scatter past easy connectivity-out of comfort zones and patterns of fear. On the flip-side, it may leave us without motivation because there is a danger of negating the meaning we have projected onto our existence.

Shouldn’t loosing the narrative be our goal rather than to have our lives be a series of almost-identical events choreographed by comfort and fear? Must we aim for the familiar montage of our lives to feel like they matter? Do we really need to follow the standard trajectory, hoping to be toasted as someone who was x,y or z at our funerals?

If we were to embark upon loosing our narratives, how would we even begin? ❤ Shilpa