On Balance – Story You Tell

What is the story you are telling the world?

What is the story you are telling yourself

As a mentor one of the questions I always ask is “What is the story you are telling the world about yourself about who you are?”

Inevitably this question arises in one of our first conversations.

Who are you? What do you want?

The intense experience that these questions arise is not necessarily what happens to everyone. But what happens to everyone is a loop of consciousness.

Last Saturday I heard the renown speaker Les Brown for the first time opening his talk with a phrase: “If you are to die tomorrow, what legacy are you leaving behind? Why would people remember who you were?”

We all live inside our stories and it is impossible to see parts of the story because we are so much inside it. And this story that we live inside of creates and shapes our character, and largely the events in our life.

Joseph Campbell, a recognized authority on world mythology, said, “It is a privilege of a lifetime in being who you are.” He looked into myths from around the world and discovered a main structural thread to it.

The Hero’s journey.

The story that we tell ourselves about ourselves shape our beliefs and ultimately become our identity.

There comes a time in everyone’s life, when they begin to feel the longing. This longing is existential longing.

It’s a question, “Am I doing all I can?

“Am I on the right path?

“How can I know if I am doing the right thing?”

Then the feeling of longing persists, despite the success, despite the outwardly well put together life for most of the successful people I meet through my mentoring work.

Inside there is this question: After all, why am I here?

And then the hero goes on the path of her journey, she receives a call. She answers the call. The journey, the search, the unknown, the real life begins.

Why does this call come in?  When does this call happen?

When you begin your life, in your childhood, or later, when you begin to encounter the feeling of longing for something more, when that you are at the top of the seemingly successful journey, only to find that the Matrix had consumed you.

Since early childhood I imagined myself living inside of a story, as if watched by someone from the outside, I imagined acting my life as I ate my soup, or looked into the mirror, hoping to see the world behind it, like Alice. I lived in a loving and protected environment, mother watching over me with constant care.

One day, at the age of 4, while in kindergarten, a team of filmmakers came in and I was picked to fashion children’s clothes. There was not much of a fashion, I must say in the Soviet Russia, nonetheless, the quality and durability of children’s clothes left many advanced countries behind in my opinion.

For this project only children who could behave and who were dressed nicely were chosen. Since there was no funding, the base clothing was whichever you have on, and they only put a top layer on, a dress or a coat for the demo. I was chosen because of my accurately pulled back flaming red hair and sparkly clean pantyhose.

The moment came, I faced the lights, and I started walking down the catwalk.

Suddenly I stopped and felt fearful tears coming up.

I stopped. I was all alone in this moment of quiet indecision. In front of me was a line of lights and there was no one.

In this moment, I so wanted to run back to the familiar, to those people, who dressed me, I so wanted my mother, and her big soft warm arms. Yet, I did nothing, I just stood there in those lights, my initial smile frozen my cheeks apart.

Then I suddenly heard a voice, whispering “It’s ok, you’re ok, go on.”

I made a step forward and turned 360 as gracefully as I could. I thought, “Of course, I am ok, what nonsense.”

I took a breath and turned again. And then I heard … applause.

I was presented with a doll as a reward.  It had a red dress and soft flexible arms. I loved this doll very much.

In a lot of ways this event shaped me to who I am today. Plowing through obstacles, doubts and fears to what is ahead. When I came to the US over two decades ago, I used this courage and this ability to keep on going, and keeping the faith and it gave me courage to make decisions I needed to make.

Only recently I finally understood that this was my call to adventure.

When you get a call you got to answer it, if you don’t answer it now, then when?

When you get the call the real journey begins, and you know it. Through obstacles, to following your bliss, following personal fascination.

In answering our call we have to have help. We can’t do it alone. Working with a guide who helps to see through the chaos, toward higher knowledge, truth, mastery, toward creating personal legacy, all the way into the unknown, that might bring something what most call happiness and satisfaction.

And ultimately, it is all about satisfaction, about balance. Creating balance an esthetically pleasing integration, physical equilibrium, mental and emotional stability, and the story emerges into a mythological form of unfolding who you are.

As life takes on a shape, it is still a fluid malleable emptiness, where every moment the universe disappears with a blink of an eye, and then reappears with another blink, giving you an opportunity to recreate yourself the way you want to be.

How do you want to be? and who you are becoming?

Morrin Bass is a mentor to successful independent women who want more success in more areas in their lives and are committed to getting to  it. Morrin can be reached for discussion, mentoring, or as a resource through your comments.