Oh the stories we tell ourselves without even realising.
All of us are the main characters of our lives, yet we are content taking on the role of an extra in other people’s stories instead. We confuse our role as an extra with our role as a main character. They are distinct from each other, we need to be present for our own lives, the characters we want to be and the experiences we want to act out. When you take your role as an extra too seriously, you muddy the boundaries between where you start and end. You don’t do any service to yourself or others when you become loud extra’s in their story. No matter their relationship with us, we all need to remember that we are the main characters of our story.
We often use the excuse of our relationships to step out of these boundaries, excuses like he’s my husband so I need to do X to take care of him, or they’re my kids so they have to follow Y in order to be happy, or they’re my friends so I need to be XX in their lives so they will love me etc. Whatever the story, the reality is that we blur the lines and therefore we confuse the roles we are playing and what actually matters.
We get frustrated when their storylines don’t go as we want / like; consumed by all the emotions that arise and all the disappointment that we feel. But we have our own story to craft and our our own main character that we need to re-embody. Remembering that our thoughts, beliefs and behaviours are what drives our experiences. Remembering that we have a choice as to how we want to be in this world and we can rewrite the experience if we want.
If we have done the inner work, then what others do cannot penetrate our inner world. What we expect becomes less and less focused on others and more and more centred around our own ability to let go of what we have created in our thoughts. Like Michael Singer says, it’s all about relaxing and letting go. Easier said than done, in particular when you are not aware of all the ways you’re acting as the extra in other peoples lives.
It can be deceiving, you can feel like the main character, because you’re self-centred in their story. For example, ‘he hurt me and now I’m suffering from this interaction, how could he do this to me’; this is not you playing the main character in your life, this is you playing a loud extra in his. Playing the main character in your life means noticing that you’ve been impacted, you’ve been hurt and that you are wobbly. It’s then holding yourself in your tender arms and opening your heart to release the pain, let the light in and let go of the stories that are centred around him. That is you being the main character in your life.
Find ways to explore your own main character, who is she / he? What do you wish for your character and how will you separate yourself out of others stories so that they too can explore their main character?
Love Always,
M
Souloom™ 