Stories Vs. Badgering

Much of what is passed down to us comes either through stories - or badgering. There are stories passed down in families, sometimes through generations, perhaps more often just through parents to children, but all of which are stories that we have to remember are conditional to completely subjective interpretation. And yet, these very stories can be the seeds that shape and form entire lifetimes, and even generations.

Stories are good - in the tribe they give us life experiences to mull over and meditate on, to start with, when we have not yet developed ours. They give us something to think about. The problem is when they start getting passed down and latched on to you, especially when they don't really belong there.

When the stories start defining your character traits, your habits, and your being, they are no longer there to give us an experience to consider in our own experience of life, but rather as a tool to shape us into what someone else wants us to be and this is where problems escalate.

Something you did, or you mother did, or your great Uncle Joe did, or your great-great-great grandfather did don't have to shape the person you are. It's only when they get ground into you again and again and again (and again) that they start forming you. Two year olds don't really have the capability of being consciously controlling and what your great Uncle Joe did with his life really doesn't have to have any further impact on you than you allow it to.

This is badgering, not storytelling and there comes a time as maturing adults that we have to cut them off. So maybe Great Uncle Joe was a compulsive gambler and wasted away every groat he ever earned. Do you REALLY need almost daily reminders that you share the same blood, do you really have to walk that same path, and are you really ever in danger of it? The badgerer, at some point, is only using a subjective interpretation of the event to craft an outcome from you and this is where the badgering fails. As a story there is meaning and something to muse over and think about while you go about your own life. This constant badgering is not storytelling any more, just manipulative.

And unfortunately it can mold and form us. We actually grow up thinking things like, "gambling is in my blood," or "I'm a bad person," or "I have too much anger," or "I am too much," and on and on and on. But here is a fun little fact - this misguided badgering actually has absolutely no hold on us - it is just things that people did. And those who are badgering us with these constant reminders of how we are not living up to their imagined piece of perfection are to be pitied because they are missing out on the experience of Who We Really Are.

Our strength is in our choice. In the badgering, we would begin thinking of ourselves in the terms of our 'sins,' and we are starting off on a bad foot. In the stories - we have that choice - we are left with something to consider and yet we are not forced to move in one direction or another, we are left to figure out for ourselves what we would do in a similar situation and these musings fall into place when life happens. We can still choose to believe what we want to believe though. You don't have to be a gambler just because great Uncle Joe was, and you don't have to be anything else you were badgered with either. You can choose. You can be the person you want to be. Joyful, beautiful, just enough, kind, generous, selfless - - you can be anything.

Blessings.
- Darshan




© 2010 Darshan F Jessop