Removing Fallen Leaves
At the moment I’m in Berlin plant-sitting at a friend’s flat about a 45-minute bike ride south from where I live. I think of these house-sitting days as mini writing retreats inside Berlin.
Removing Leaves
This afternoon I went out to the balcony to check the plants. It is fall and the plants were covered with brown leaves that had blown in from neighboring trees. As I removed the leaves one by one I thought about how are own stories get covered by thoughts and ideas that are not our own.
When the brown leaves were gone the plants looked vibrant. Most still have green leaves, not just the rosemary but there was wild grass with purple flowers and two varieties of white flowering plants. The balcony seemed to have more life when the plants were able to show themselves.
Our Thoughts are Like Leaves
It is the same when we show up authentically, speaking our own truth rather than speaking in a way that caters to the expectations of others. But getting to this place where we can share our story authentically involves a process of removing thoughts and ideas that are not our own. And it involves claiming what we believe.
I have been writing down the WeStory methodology. One of the toughest sections to write has been about the importance of identifying our intention because I know from experience, from working with both clients and myself, slowing down and figuring out what it is we want to say, what meaning we want to share, is no longer natural. We have learned over a lifetime of interacting with others to say what we think people want to hear rather than express what we want to share.
And this isn’t a matter of doing this consciously. We do not even know what we want to say because our ideas have merged with the ideas placed upon us. Stepping back into ourselves then is not as easy as coming back home after a writers retreat. We often don’t know which house to go to. And when we enter we don’t know where anything is. We forget what we think, feel, believe, wish for, wish to avoid.
Clearing the Leaves
Looking at how we got here, at how we got to this point where we want to talk about this issue, can help us begin to clarify our intention? And then looking at others not for what to tell them or what to learn from them but to understand how we see things differently and how things are the same, I call these the gaps and the overlaps. When we see our differences and similarities we can start to understand our point of view and the way others see the issue. Seeing these three things clearly, how we got here, the gaps and overlaps between our ideas and others, can help us remove the leaves. It is the starting point to being able to tell stories that are authentic, aligned, in integrity that resonate with us and with others.
Do you know what you really want to share?