What story do you tell?

In my yoga classes this past week I have been working with the theme of "changing your story". How often do we start the day with a story about the weather or how we feel in the morning, or we fret about an upcoming situation, so we start to tell a story about it before it even happens. When we do this, I believe we miss out on the surprises and the transformative moments.

Fear is a big motivating factor because when we are starting something new, we fear that we won't be good at it. So we say things like: I am not good at foreign languages. I am not good at music. I am not athletic. The teacher won't like me. I don't do handstands.

I like to teach a breathing exercise that includes different counts for inhales, exhales and pauses. I think it's the pause that's significant, as well as the setting of an intention before meditation. I recently saw the movie "Happy" during the Milwaukee Film Festival (loved it!), and apparently 50% of our predisposition to happiness is based on genetics, and 10% is based on life choices. 40% is based on intention! I am working/playing with the moment where we start to tell the story of how the yoga class (or any other situation) is going to be, for if we pause, we can become more aware when we are deciding what the experience will be like before it has actually happened. Of course there are those stories we tell ourselves after an event too. Mine tend to be about what other people are thinking about me, and although I have good instincts about people, I am usually wrong when I am one of the characters in the story I am telling!

We are these 2-legged stories walking around this earth - bearing stories of what was and what is yet to come - and yet we all share the same story. The story of what is. But we forget that story, so we meditate to remember and allow it to unfold. And yet it continues to unfold whether we are paying attention or not...

Once upon the time there was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.

“Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.

“Maybe,” replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.

“Maybe,” answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.

“Maybe,” said the farmer.

(After I told this story in a yoga class, one of the students came up to me afterwards to suggest that I tell the story with a different ending. He thought it would be funny to end it with the farmer in bed with his wife, and she says she has a headache. He finally says "That's bad!" instead of "Maybe." I told the student I thought it was funny, but then I also found myself remarking that there is always something that triggers the labels of "good" and "bad". There are certain scenarios that we are conditioned to think of as being good or bad. So it takes practice to unlearn that reaction...)