What Is Your Story?
What is it that I continue to rescue, that I continue to be afraid of, that I continue to run towards and then run away but stay in relationship with the whole time? What is my story?
My answer? You.
That’s the relationship we have with our stories. "Oh, this might happen, Oh, no it won’t. Oh, there it is. Oh, it’s drowning. Oh, let me rescue it. (Laughter) Oh, let me throw it away. Ahh, it’s running towards me." That’s the routine that we go through with our own stuff.
What is it that I continue to rescue, that I continue to be afraid of, that I continue to run towards and then run away but stay in relationship with the whole time? What is my story?
When Jesus said to the man, “What is your name?” and He tells him, it says, “There were on the hillside a large herd of pigs and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. And the demons entered the pigs and they ran down the hill and drowned in the sea.”
Because of the folklore at that time, the way that demons were destroyed were by drowning. He gave them permission and they left. The man himself also gave them permission. Maybe that is exactly what we need to do? Give the stories that don’t serve us anymore, just give them permission to leave. Don’t put ‘em on anyone else. Send them into the heart of the compassionate one who can transform them, but give them permission to leave.
How do stories die? They get replaced with new ones; they get transformed into strength and power rather than woundedness and victimness. Give them permission to leave. Get a new story ‘cause the last thing that Jesus says to the man is this, the demons leave. And demons can be anything—negative thoughts, old wounds, habits of addiction, and we’re addicted not just to substances.
We’re addicted to emotions, certain feelings. So if you’ve got a story about sadness, if you live in that story long enough, your body, your very cells become addicted. I’m not making this up; this is scientifically proven, addicted to sadness. Or the more angry you are day after day after day, your cells actually reconfigure themselves so they hitch up, so that actually this, you’re fed by this anger because it comes as an addiction. But the power is, you can break that and help reprogram those things inside.
Give them permission to leave and find a new story about what is going on right now. It never makes the past irrelevant but it transforms the past into the strength and hope of who you are today and who I am today.
Jesus only said two things to the man. “What is your name?” and lastly, “Return home now.” As the man was clothed, “sitting in his right mind” the story says. “Return home and tell what has happened to you.” What has happened to you. How you experienced a new way of being. How you let things go and became a new person. Go ahead, return home, tell that story. Isn’t that powerful?
Tell that story. So you picture the man kind of walking down the street, and somebody saying, “Hey, aren’t you the guy that, you know, used to be in the tombs?”
“You know who I am today? Today I am a person that is freed from my past and I’m living in the present moment. Here’s my story. I let it all go and I’m here to tell you about it. I got a new theme song. Want to hear it?”
What is your story? It’s a question to reflect on spiritually and then ask, “What is my story and how is it serving me or how is it not? How is it leading me to transformation?”
Return home and create for yourselves new ways that help you live in your full power because you are in this moment, beautiful and strong and powerful. Begin to believe it and it will be so.
Amen. (Amen and applause)
Questions to Live By: What Is Your Story?
September 12, 2004
Dr. G. Penny Nixon
Read the full article here. ** This blogger does not subscribe to the carnal inclinations of the author. The article is only relevant within its given context.
My answer? You.
What is it that I continue to rescue, that I continue to be afraid of, that I continue to run towards and then run away but stay in relationship with the whole time? What is my story?
When Jesus said to the man, “What is your name?” and He tells him, it says, “There were on the hillside a large herd of pigs and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. And the demons entered the pigs and they ran down the hill and drowned in the sea.”
Because of the folklore at that time, the way that demons were destroyed were by drowning. He gave them permission and they left. The man himself also gave them permission. Maybe that is exactly what we need to do? Give the stories that don’t serve us anymore, just give them permission to leave. Don’t put ‘em on anyone else. Send them into the heart of the compassionate one who can transform them, but give them permission to leave.
How do stories die? They get replaced with new ones; they get transformed into strength and power rather than woundedness and victimness. Give them permission to leave. Get a new story ‘cause the last thing that Jesus says to the man is this, the demons leave. And demons can be anything—negative thoughts, old wounds, habits of addiction, and we’re addicted not just to substances.
We’re addicted to emotions, certain feelings. So if you’ve got a story about sadness, if you live in that story long enough, your body, your very cells become addicted. I’m not making this up; this is scientifically proven, addicted to sadness. Or the more angry you are day after day after day, your cells actually reconfigure themselves so they hitch up, so that actually this, you’re fed by this anger because it comes as an addiction. But the power is, you can break that and help reprogram those things inside.
Give them permission to leave and find a new story about what is going on right now. It never makes the past irrelevant but it transforms the past into the strength and hope of who you are today and who I am today.
Jesus only said two things to the man. “What is your name?” and lastly, “Return home now.” As the man was clothed, “sitting in his right mind” the story says. “Return home and tell what has happened to you.” What has happened to you. How you experienced a new way of being. How you let things go and became a new person. Go ahead, return home, tell that story. Isn’t that powerful?
Tell that story. So you picture the man kind of walking down the street, and somebody saying, “Hey, aren’t you the guy that, you know, used to be in the tombs?”
“You know who I am today? Today I am a person that is freed from my past and I’m living in the present moment. Here’s my story. I let it all go and I’m here to tell you about it. I got a new theme song. Want to hear it?”
What is your story? It’s a question to reflect on spiritually and then ask, “What is my story and how is it serving me or how is it not? How is it leading me to transformation?”
Return home and create for yourselves new ways that help you live in your full power because you are in this moment, beautiful and strong and powerful. Begin to believe it and it will be so.
Amen. (Amen and applause)
Questions to Live By: What Is Your Story?
September 12, 2004
Dr. G. Penny Nixon
Read the full article here.
posted by whimsical_fantasies at 3:08 AM
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