Our Stories

I have been counseling people for I think now a dozen years. My early years of martial arts training involved a great deal of psychology training, as it should. My first master had me do an insane amount of research on self esteem and over the years I continued and enhanced and upgraded the material. I use it to better my own self and with my students. I use martial arts as the physical avenue to showing what the mental and emotional functions can do for us. It's the "mental training" that I believe is the most important part of our training because of the mind being our most powerful tool.

Mental training led me to my healing modalities as well, including hypnosis, aromatherapy, and medical Qigong therapy. But they all link to something I've done for more than twelve years and that is my life coaching. And one of the things I come across all the time with people and even myself (because we are ALL guilty of this) is the stories we make up about people and situation because of our preconceived perceptions.

At the end of the day, we DON'T KNOW. When it comes to circumstances with people, situations and scenarios, people's intentions and opinions, we don't know. YET many people run off the the assumptions of their perspective and say "OH trust me, I know" and I will say 95% of the time are dead wrong. When we create a story about something and then go with it, it can cause more problems whether it be by choice of words, behavior, or actions taken.

Muscle memory is when your body remembers something and does it without you thinking. Our mind and behaviors can work the same way. Through repetition and association, we program our reticular activating system in this fashion. The truth is, these old programing of ours can be RE-programmed. But we have to be very aware that we work on being objective in our thinking and behaviors.

I knew someone once who wrote a letter to someone. This person believed that someone read it and every single thing this person did was based on reading that letter. I said "But you really don't know if he/she did read the letter." "OH he/she did! I know it!" This went on for about a year until finally when speaking to this person, they found out the other party didn't get the letter at all and it was never read. A year of wasting on the story they made up in their heads.

People create stories for a few reasons. We don't MEAN to do it, but our prior programming can dictate that. Especially those who have had more trauma in their lives. Others subconsciously do it because it dictates a sense of control on a situation and allows them to act the way they want (again this is subconscious, and unintentional, but it happens. And when the perception of a person is just so hell bent on being fear-based, the negative perspectives do take over. Someone was seen as yelling, instead of a stern tone. Someone was "flipping out" instead of just disappointed. Someone was "out to get you" when they were just going about their regular day.

I remember one time of my life I told myself I have to give people a chance. One situation someone said they were going to do something and I didn't believe them. I thought they were going to do something else instead. Normally I'd get all flustered and angry on the inside to the point where I would nag and nudge because I was relying on the other party's help. But in this scenario I took a breath and said to myself, I trust this person's integrity. When the person wasn't showing up on time I had a knot in my stomach but took and breath and told the story, they must be running late. Sure enough the person did arrive and apologized for the tardiness. I began doing this more and more and found if I just trusted a little bit and had faith in people a little more, you'd be surprised instead of being tortured by your own story. This is not to say people won't ever let you down or disappoint you, but you'll find the balance will turn more so in your favor.

Because again, at the end of the day you just DON'T KNOW. People today are quick to turn to the worst case scenario and give themselves an anxiety attack and panic and suffer. But people really aren't as bad as either you view them, or how they want to be perceived. How many people say "I'm a nasty person" and they say that proudly. You'd be surprised. But when push comes to shove, most really DO know when to be appropriate and respectful, and not fly off the handle.

Sometimes the stories we make can be dangerous. We need to acknowledge when we do this and change it. When we program our reticular system with success-based thinking, solution oriented thinking, open mindedness and tolerant thinking, we find we make better choices in our lives and interact more positively in our lives. When we do that, we participate and view life in a much more secure and confident manner, and not in fear and through victimization.

What about the stories we tell ourselves about our SELF!? A whole other blog. But self-image is the key to peak performance. Be kind to yourself. Make a good story about yourself. If you don't like the current story then pick up the pen and start rewriting your future. Rewrite the stories of your past, tell more stories about your happy future. Tell good stories about the people around you. It can change your life. (BOWS)

Yours in service,
MASTER A TRENTO