Flipping Our Lids
When writing about people and the life journeys they go on, whether it’s fiction or nonfiction we get introduced to characters. These characters often face challenges as the story moves forward and we get to see how those challenges inform, influence and change them.
As real life humans we go through this too. We get challenged in life through people or circumstances and we have to choose how to react. Sometimes we flip our lids (get triggered), sometimes we have healed enough to respond appropriately for the situation.
(Here’s a video on what I mean by flipping our lids.)
So we have our normal lives. And we’re comfortable there… even if they’re not great because of faulty brain wiring and unhelpful beliefs.
This is the mundane. This is our normal. In storytelling or the Monomyth this is the mundane normal, our everyday.
Then we get challenged. In storytelling this is the call to adventure. The Call to Adventure And we often reject it because we’re intimidated. This is often because of our beliefs and mental wiring. It’s the adverse early childhood situations or trauma stories that keep us from advancing and achieving our dreams.
So the challenge turns into a crisis, and we seek comfort. But the comfort fails because it’s based on poor mental wiring and poor storytelling about ourselves.
Unfortunately, the when challenge turns into a crisis and our brain short circuits or shortcuts into the fight or flight zone.
This the flipping of the lid we talked about in the video above.
And we’re forced to confront not only the original challenge, but our own limiting beliefs and that experience can change the stories we tell ourselves.
There’s the ancient story of David and Goliath. The grown men who were fighting hadn’t told themselves a story of victory when they faced the giant Goliath. But a teenager who essentially had the job of pizza delivery kid (he was on a toasted cheese delivery run, tomatoes are from South America) said to the king, “I’ve faced a lion and a bear - this pompous giant is just like one of them. Lemme at him!” 1
Essentially David was telling himself good stories based on personal experience.
I’ll show you this with the Monomyth and with fiction next week.
Why spend so much time on this?
If I’ve done my job correctly, this is the format of change you’ll go through as you work on healing from your beliefs and experiences.
It will seem a little complicated but it’s the foundation of how you tell yourself better stories. And we often don’t know how to tell ourselves good stories, so it helps to have a fictional example sometimes.
If you want to read ahead, here’s an example and introduction of the Monomyth. It’s not a religious thing although it comes from mythology - it’s a storytelling format.
Again the four questions to ask are:
What stories are you listening to?
Who is in charge of those stories?
What do these stories teach you?
How do these stories make you feel?
Perpetual Disclaimer for this series:
I am not a counselor or a mental health professional. I am going to attempt to avoid things which will cause alarm or harm, but I can't know what will trigger each individual. If you need to speak to a mental health professional please know that there are resources available.
Your stories are amazing!
Chronic Writer
1(Footnote: This is a story from the Bible which has an impact on modern culture, regardless of your belief system. Its worth a read just so you get the context of the expresion, “This is a David and Goliath fight.” Bible Gateway passage: 1 Samuel 17 - New International Version or you can watch the Wisbone version. Wishbone- David and Goliath movie)
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