The stories we tell ourselves

In a recent Instagram story, Crystal shared a snippet of a workshop she conducted.

She shared a scenario, Greg interrupting her during a conversation. 

She could get annoyed and think "Oh Greg's horrible, he interrupted because he doesn't respect me."

Or she could think, "Greg's very excited about his new project and he can't wait to share it with me."

And she'll feel very differently depending on the story she tells herself. 

Crystal says, "We need to learn to separate facts from stories."

The homework she gave to her attendees was to go home and think of alternative stories to something that has happened. 

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Was facilitating a workshop on Friday and we had to work together on a creative task. A student shared the activity was akin to improv. 

Before we even began, I shared out loud, "oh no, I'm not creative. I'm going to do so badly at this." 

Dave who heard my thoughts said, "that's the story you tell yourself." 

And I agree. 

The stories we tell ourselves mould us to behave and act in the way we believe.

If we believe we are creative and resilient and nothing will shake us, then the person we embody will be somebody who stands up after we falter, who try again when we are faced with setbacks and failures.

If we believe that we are a loser and nothing good can come to us. Then even when opportunities present itself, we will think, "oh man, that's too good to be true. Is that really for me? I will definitely fail at the task."

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The last few days, something interesting has been happening at home. 

I discovered a caterpillar carcass on the kitchen mat. 

I didn't want to clear it away because the story I was telling myself is

"Ohh, there's a bird thinking it's feeding a big bird (me!) and if I clear it away, it'll return with another one!"

My partner ended up throwing it away. 

The next day, another one appeared almost at the same spot! 

And I told him the same thing but he decided to clear it away again.

Then yesterday, 2 caterpillars were found on the kitchen floor. 

He said he must've left the kitchen for 5 minutes and the caterpillars appeared. 

"2?! They must've thought I am really hungry or they're treating this as their nest", I thought. 

Today, I woke up and found another 2 in the kitchen. But this time I thought, it's getting nearer to my green peas in a transparent box. Maybe the bird is thinking I'll trade the small caterpillars for the big box of them!

I could go on Google and find out why this phenomenon is happening but I'm having so much fun telling myself stories instead. :P

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(post edit 12:46pm)

I realise that the caterpillars are still alive! I thought those were caterpillar poop before they died.