A New Story
We have a lot to show up for during these times, a whole lot of stories and characters and plot lines and side plot lines and surprise plot twists and all the rest of it. To tell stories is part of the privilege of being Human. So what happens when you discover that you weren’t very good at telling stories? Or perhaps more accurately, that we were never even taught that we were telling stories, let alone how to tell a good one?
When you begin waking up to the stories of your life so far, and witness them as hidden parameters and limitations for your own potential characters, you begin to take your stories a little more seriously. And so, if you pay attention, you can begin to hear the stories of creation all around you. Everyone adding their lines or scenes or verses - a symphony of one big hella story coming together - and perhaps you are happy witnessing the story unfold and you feel sure enough, no I’m not getting involved in this - this isn’t about me. I’m going to stay very far away from this story… I’m going to disconnect and just watch from way back here, in the nosebleed section. I don’t want to get on the stage, I don’t want to write myself in… I think I’ll just write myself out of this one…
Well, I have certainly tried that… the thing is, there is a You that is ultimately Boss of You - and they will not allow you to write yourself out of your own story. If you are Here, alive today, living in these grand times, You are Part of The Story - and you will have to participate. So you either allow life itself to drag you onto the stage to deliver your performance - or, you spend some time, some deep and true time with yourself and truly try and remember, what on Earth did I come here to do? What is my part in this story?
And then, my God - do it!
I speak from the comfort of a writer’s chair, with cups of tea and cosy slippers on - I speak as someone who has desperately attempted staying off the stage, as someone who consistently tries to write herself out of her own story - I can admit to that. Yet, I will not let myself get away with it. And so, everyday, I begin with my stories - what are they writing me up as? These stories in my mind? These stories burried so deeply in my own imaginatuion… do they trust me enough to reveal themselves to me? Will I ever trust myself enough with the True Story of Manal? or will I have to keep catching myself out?
You see, something happens when we begin paying attention to our own stories instead of the stories of others. I spent a life of dissecting other people’s stories and calling them out on their bullshit plotlines and overly complicated character twists - yet, here I was, avoiding the nightmare I had written up about myself. It was only a matter of time before I sat with all the pages of my own storytelling and realised the bluntly obvious truth - I can write a much better story for me.
And so, before I reach for another juicy plot twist or surprise new character to spice things up - before I introduce yet another challenge for our hero in the making, I might just play with the idea of daring to be uninteresting for a chapter or so… what if she didn’t have to rise above anything anymore? What if she didn’t have to prove herself as anything anymore? What if she knows already everyone she is meant to know and love, and no other interesting mysterious characters need to swoop in to save or destroy the day! What if there are no plot twists, no challenges, no new characters, nothing exciting or interesting that happens next… could I handle that? Could I live in a drastically uninteresting world? Could I find that fascinating? Could I meet my boredom head on and find the wonder in all the almighty details I have been missing… like making cups of tea for myself, watching children play, listening to good music, making delicious meals for myself and people I love to feed? What if, the next story I write is so uninteresting, it catapults me into a whole new level of Happy Place?
What if I gave myself no choice but to feel what it is like to Be Me - without any nonsense around me? Without anything to react to or from? Just a simple, quiet time to Be Manal. And perhaps this is me inviting you to do the same? To dare to be bored with yourself and your life and not change it - don’t make it interesting… let’s just see what happens next?
