Story is in our DNA. It’s how we learn, how we make sense of the world around us. Our brain loves a story. If presented with a series of images or a series of facts, the brain will create a story about them, it will make something up. It doesn’t matter to our brain if the story is out of context or even completely untrue. Our psyche needs to connect the dots. If we can’t do that, if we can’t reason out a story, we will feel uncertainty and anxiety. The mind doesn’t even care if it is a good story or a nightmare. Nightmares are scary but they follow a logical story path so they make sense to us, even if we dread them.
A wise yoga teacher once said to me, “There is what happened. And then there is the story we tell ourselves about what happened.”
Story, allegory, and myth are so deeply rooted with our psyche that sometimes the lines between reality and imagination are blurred.
The facts our lives cannot be changed but we each are all still creators with the ability to shape our own stories. Through conscious decisions, we can control the narrative.
We can’t erase COVID-19 from the page but we can craft how we will spend our time. We can add new, desired elements. We can write the next chapter. We can take back some measure of control. If we don't our unconscious mind will do it for us. Control your narrative.
Today find a subject and tell a story about it in three frames or less. It could be about a person or an inanimate object. Consciously craft the tale. Post if as a collage with the hashtag #snapwithme2020.