WE ARE EITHER SHAPING OUR WORLD OR BEING SHAPED BY IT
Storytelling plays an essential role in helping you understand your life and define your personality as an artist. The power and place of storytelling in music and human culture is not new but belongs to early civilisations. Ancient storytellers passed down traditions and the story of the people, emerging along with language, as a way to express your heart, skills and capabilities to your audience.
Every day we tell stories in the privacy of our own minds, and to those around us, in the ways we describe both our own and the actions of others. Our stories are powerful and can help reinforce your strengths or remind us of a weakness. Taking control of the narrative can help us tap into unexpressed parts of self, discover new strengths and launch you onto the road to believing in your talents. This can help you unlock a world of potential. Some of what you take for granted as the truth about yourself and your talents may simply be a fictional story hardened into belief and thus may not be your deeper truth. Challenging yourself on these so-called truths can be liberating, freeing you to embrace your inner genius, thus releasing the artist you were created to be.
You may have unconscious expectations, maybe limitations on how you express your truth, based in part on the stories you have told yourself and been told over an extended period of time. But, if what you believed about yourself are based on someone else’s inability to see your worth, is it something worth holding onto let alone embracing. The nature, theme and content of your stories influence your innermost being. It has the power to stir up emotions and cause deep mood swings. By raising awareness to the stories you tell yourself, or those you have heard others say about you, gives you the power to change your thoughts, your story and your potential. It will give you the platform to drive forward with a solid foundation, no one wants to build there career on sand.
The Pictures you see are the Pictures you will be!
We live our lives by stories we tell about ourselves and the stories that others tell about us. These stories actually shape reality in that they construct and constitute what we see, feel and do.
Our stories can help organise our memories and once you have a way of describing what happened and your response to it, you can explore the feelings it triggers. Have you ever reacted to a situation but you never understood why you felt so angry? In the same way we are drawn to great stories in literature or the movies, our emotions are often stirred by the endings we want in our own lives. We need to construct meaningful stories for ourselves. This may be the reason why, when something sad or stressful happens, you may tell the story over and over to a variety of people. Each time you retell the story, you have the chance to revise and reorganise your thoughts and feelings about the experience. The key to understanding an event is through constructing a story about it.
Stories are especially powerful in families. What, stories have you been told about your birth? What story have you been told about your childhood, adolescence or the ways in which you transitioned into adulthood? What qualities do you believe about yourself as a result of these stories? If your parents said you were disorganised or lacked focus, do you then label yourself as someone who is disorganised? Do you avoid roles or situations in which being unorganised might be considered a weakness?
Using positive language in stories are so important, a wise man said “as a man thinks so he is.” If you describe yourself as being bad with money, the words can evoke a self fulfilling prophecy in your life. We make our negative thoughts a reality. By bringing awareness to the stories you tell yourself, or those you have heard others tell about you, you can change your thoughts, your story and your potential. In hip hop in the early days we said you can ‘flip the script.’ We took old flooring and repurposed it to make a dancefloor on the street. We took derelict buildings and the side of trains to make a urban gallery for artists to display there creativity. We took our parents old records and sampled the drum breaks to create new songs out of the old. Maybe it’s time to tell new stories. Maintaining an optimal level of well-being is absolutely crucial to live a higher quality life. Wellbeing matters because everything we do and every emotion we feel relates to our well-being and flows from the stories we say about ourselves. In turn, our well-being directly affects our actions and emotions. It’s an ongoing circle. Therefore, it is important for everyone to change the narrative in order to subdue stress, reduce the risk of illness and ensure positive interactions.
What has already gone has already been written, what is to come is not written yet.
What are you writing right now? What is your story today?
Basil Reynolds
Coaching Consultant
Finding the Music Inside