Live Without Your Story for a Day

You'll be amazed at how you feel

Our daughter's dog, Letty, relaxing on a visit to Evergreen. Dogs, unlike humans, aren't burdened with a story about themselves in their head.

To be honest, I didn’t move to Evergreen. I ran away to Evergreen.

There’s an almost forty-year-long story that led to me running away to this place in the country, along with a truckload of furniture, cardboard boxes of paraphernalia, and a suitcase of memorabilia.

On long winter evenings I may discuss, with those enjoying my fireside warmth, all the characters, plot twists, and crisis points that got me living here.

However, even as I speak of years of repression followed by finally finding spiritual freedom, I know that this story can be a burden if what I’m doing now is merely a reaction to it all.

No aspect of my story is as important as being fully present at Evergreen, or wherever I am, unimpeded by the past and unfettered by an imagined fanciful or frightful future.

No story is as fascinating and packed full of potential as this moment, right here, right now.

What is Your Story?

We all have a story called ‘The Story of Me’. With little prompting, we tell it at parties, coffee shops, bus stops, reunions, or in dysfunctional elevators to help pass the time.

The reason for telling the story depends on who’s listening. It can be told to make us sound unique and interesting, justify our shortcomings, prove we are right, boost our ego, or generate pity or adulation.

Each time we tell the story, it becomes more cemented in our being, until we’re convinced that we are our story. If someone took our story away, we’d feel naked. We believe we need our story to survive. We cling to our yesterdays like they’re a life raft.

Having our backstory at the forefront of our minds isn’t a healthy or effective way to live. It clutters up this moment with irrelevancies. This part of your story – this moment – doesn’t need past moments crammed into it.

If the Now was likened to a suitcase, it needs to be empty, ready for Now to be put into it.

It doesn’t need last decade’s old shoes thrown in; a mothballed wedding outfit crammed into a corner and reminding you of a big mistake; or next season’s heavy overcoat stuffed over the top of everything else.

The perfect suitcase of Now is empty of objects, emotions, thoughts, and stories. It’s full of space and silence, ready to accept the freshness of this moment.

Live Without Your Story for a Day

Just for a day, try to live without your story.

This will feel weird. In fact, you’ll switch in and out of your story throughout the day, but that’s okay.

Get out of your head and into your body.

Forget that you have a past.

Just be present.

Be presence.

Walk around without your name defining you.

Be a nobody.

Doing this may not last more than a few seconds or an occasional minute (or, hopefully, a bit longer) before you fall back into ‘The Story of Me’.

But those brief times will be lighter, more energized, more spacious, and more peaceful, than any you have when you cling to the past or stare fearfully into a possible yet imaginary future.

Be nobody for a day.

Forget your name.

Let go of your story.

See how you feel.

With love, Marlane