Your personal 'story': Is it your jailer or your liberator?

Like most spiritual conundrums, the answer is...both. And also neither.

In the realm of timeless truth, our personal story is just a neutral series of events strung together into what we’d call our life. Right? Neither good nor bad; our story is meaningless in and of itself. Actually, technically, it’s not even our story. We are the field of luminescent spaciousness that the story unfolds within, in truth.

The above statements are all entirely valid. They’re just not always entirely relevant—at least, not until they’ve become self-evidently true for us, in our own experience.

Dropping the story

It’s hard to regard a personal story as impersonal. It’s tough to perceive as meaningless, something that feels intensely meaningful. When spiritual students have approached me for help in seeing a painful personal issue more clearly, they often ruefully preface their question with…'I know it’s just a story, but…’.

Breaks my heart every time. Yes, it’s a story. The story of your life thus far.

It’s a complex conundrum; but the way I see it, your story deserves respect, not apology. Simply because you, its author and principle character, deserve respect.

Is the story illusory and a bit tangled up? Yes, sure. It’s how humanity rolls. But even so, kindness (and self-kindness) is always a good idea, in my book. Especially since we’ve historically been more or less stuck with our personal stories, no matter how much we may have wished to leave them behind.

Because, let’s be honest. If we’d been truly ABLE to drop our story, simply because some awakened being somewhere has said you’ll be peaceful and free, and know your true self better if you do…wouldn’t we all have already dropped it by now? I certainly would have.

Don’t get me wrong. Let go of your story is rock solid accurate emotional-spiritual advice, from those who undoubtedly know its truth firsthand.

I mean, think about it. Without your veil-inspired personal story/baggage running the show, life would undoubtedly be cleaner. Lighter. Happier and more fulfilling. Wouldn’t it?

Nevertheless, for the average human—who has historically been hardwired-incapable of acting successfully on that advice—the failure to self-liberate by attempting to ‘let go of the story,’ just makes us feel even worse about our self…an extra dollop of loserdom, on top of the painful ‘story’ we started out with.

But things are changing. As I’ve so often said: In these incredible transitional times, the aforementioned egoic veil, generator of personal story/baggage, is holding itself together with chewing gum and sticky tape. (And really, not even that.)

And while most of us are not yet at a point of mastery, where we’re able to drop that personal story/baggage altogether, simply by choosing to do so…there’s a great deal we can do, to free ourselves, through respectful, open-hearted exploration of our own story.

Because here’s the thing. Although it may not seem like it at first glance, these days we have more options than ever before. More freedom. More spaciousness in which to work: Which means our story is not magnetically bonded to us anymore, no longer requiring boatloads of grace and Herculean effort to release.

So…when a personal story is given room to breathe; when it is brought gently into the light of day, looked at honestly from all angles, with a willingness to see it more fully than our own veil-inspired baggage has previously allowed? Quite often there can be a sudden, spontaneous rush of resolution, recognition, and even forgiveness.

At which point, the story simply lets go of YOU.

The gift of memoir

How to do it? How do we let that story blossom, allowing it to naturally detangle and reveal itself?

I’m a huge fan of writing it down.

Not just journaling, which is basically us describing our story through the same coke-bottle lenses we wore when creating the entanglements in the first place. Nothing wrong with that, of course. Many find it helpful.

But I’m talking about memoir. Specifically, spiritual memoir—where we zoom out to see the events of our story from a higher perspective, while simultaneously delving deep, to softly illuminate the shadows. It’s a powerful thing.

Photo by Pavol Duracka

It was yet another of these ‘dropping the story’ discussions I had with someone recently, that caused me to look back and remember just how pivotal and transformational the writing of my own personal story turned out to be. And how radically my life has changed for the better, due to the gift of memoir.

(And the majority of that change and transformation I experienced took place more than 15 years ago—before the egoic veil was in shreds. Imagine how incredibly powerful the process could be now, with so much more spaciousness available than ever before.)

A brief recap of my own ‘story’ …adorned with just enough before-and-after detail, to illustrate how profound the changes have been…

From my earliest days (long before all of this memoir business)…I just thought I was maximum weird. Inexplicably crazy shit occurred in my life with unnerving regularity—stuff which apparently didn’t happen to anyone else around me. Desperately shy and extremely private, I grew up bone-deep terrified of the spotlight. I didn’t even want to be looked at. This was not stage fright; this was cellular survival stuff.

Fast forward to my late 40s, when a disembodied voice that I called Spirit, informed me I’d be writing spiritual books. (Oh, and giving talks to groups of people. Spiritual talks. To groups. Of people.)

Uh…

Never mind the tiny technicality that I was not a writer; the bigger issue was that, despite a 20 year Buddhist practice and a fairly stunning awakening experience, the idea that I had anything of value or interest to say to anyone—on any topic, let alone spirituality—seemed ludicrous.

When I questioned the voice about its sketchy taste in would-be authors, it responded, Just tell your own story. And I’ll do the rest.

This was not a reassuring answer.

‘My own story’ was a closet full of best-unexamined dirty laundry, as far as I was concerned. A tangled heap of vaguely unpleasant ick; dank and dim and possibly quite smelly, if one was foolhardy enough to stick one’s nose in there.

But I was not in the habit of saying no to the voice.

Slowly I started recording the moments that stood out in memory. It was a painstaking trial-and-error 3 year process, the writing and editing of that first magnum opus of a book.

Damn if it didn’t turn out just as the voice said it would: It was a book enjoyed by many, and chockablock with valuable wisdom supplied by the voice itself.

I’m mentioning it here, because writing that first book (Long Time No See) completely transformed my understanding of my own life’s journey. The process of fashioning a memoir, required me to deeply examine those many random snippets of life experience. It caused me to assemble all of the disparate puzzle pieces—something I’d never done before. To my astonishment, what emerged was a beautiful, respect-worthy and rather luminous picture.

The very opposite of maximum weird, as it turned out.

Quirks and tendencies I’d previously put down to low blood sugar or something, when seen in this new light, were retrospectively recognized as blessings. Gifts. The touch of the divine.

Lifelong shame alchemically transformed into something approaching humility. Nonexistent self-esteem dissolved into the soft light of a new dawn. Most incredibly of all: Over the next few years, I slowly lost my deeper-than-DNA terror of being seen.

All of this (and so much more) is what writing it down has done for me.

Dark into light. (Photo by Chris Buckwald)

Am I suggesting that this process of seeing our own story in a new light, will bring the total transformation known as self-realization, and with it, an end to all stories?

I doubt it. Or at least, it probably wouldn’t do that directly.

Writing memoir is, in my experience, an enormously helpful way of detangling and straightening the way forward, in accordance with our own life’s journey. No more—and also no less—than that.

Memoir and The Gift

Now is the time, like never before, for opening up humanity’s personal stories to the light. Collectively and individually, the ties that bind us to our old, limiting interpretations of life—our baggage stories—are now so tenuous and frayed, that tugging on them gently, mindfully, can loosen those bonds in genuinely helpful ways.

What I’m describing here is entirely possible to do on your own. (I did it solo, so I know.) If you’re inclined to go it alone, all you need to get started is a pen and the willingness to see everything anew. But speaking for myself…if I’d only had a mentor at the time to show me the way, I probably could’ve shaved at least a year, and a truckload of deer-in-headlights bewilderment, off the process.

Therefore: In these pivotal times, I wish to help facilitate the memoir journey, for anyone who resonates with what I’ve been describing here, but doesn’t want to tread this path entirely alone.

That’s anybody who wants to write an actual book of memoir (spiritual or otherwise)—or anybody who just wants to write it all down for themselves in carefully curated fashion, so that the puzzle pieces land in a new way.

The ‘Before’ picture. (Photo by Hans-Peter Gauster)

Here’s what I’m offering:

• Individualized memoir mentoring phone sessions (via Telegram) to point the way.

• OR come to the farm for an (equally individualized) immersive memoir writing weekend.

It’s my desire that no one is left behind, who genuinely wants to engage in this potentially life-altering work. Therefore, memoir mentoring assistance is offered to all, on a sliding scale/donation basis. It’s my way of giving back to the divine universe, which has so sweetly guided me…because this feels like the absolute perfect time for me to help do the same for others.

Interested? More details here.

Photo by Aaron Burden