Telling another story

Magic from chaperoning a trip to Disneyland

“Happiness is a state of mind. It’s just according to the way you look at things.” - Walt Disney

I recently chaperoned my daughter’s musical theater troupe on a three day trip to Disneyland. The trip included riding loads of rides, fireworks, and joy occupying kids’ faces. It also included very little sleep, meltdowns, sore feet, thirst, hunger, and 25 tween’s emotions. To say it was exhausting would be a gross understatement.

Yet, I have already started telling the story differently than I did on the day we got home.

Then, it was a story of joy and pain, proud moments and frustration, exhilaration and exhaustion. Now, it is a story about resilience. A story about seeing my daughter in a different light among her peers. A story about getting to know these kids in a meaningful way. A story about so much fun. A story where I say I would do it again.

Trust me - I was not signing that song while I was on the trip.

With even a little distance, the pain faded. The joy rose. The story shifted.

This has me thinking about the stories we tell ourselves and how much those stories matter. The stories we tell ourselves matter.

During the trip, the kids would get tired. Their teacher repeated the same thing over and over: we don’t do tired.

Now, if you read my posts regularly, you know that I don’t agree with this. I strongly believe that the body gives us information. That we should listen to our bodies. That rest has value. That slowing down has value.

“We don’t do tired” irked me at the time.

Plus, I was tired too.

Then I let myself hear the rest of the story. “Tired is a story you are telling yourself,” she said. “You can train your brain to tell another story.”

You can train your brain to tell another story.

Instead of focusing on what we didn’t have, this teacher asked the kids to focus on the present: we’re at Disney with our friends, celebrating a lot of hard work and achievement together. That’s the story. Yes.

Now, I’m not advocating here for us to ignore reality. We were tired. “Tired,” though, could have been the end of the story. For lots of kids and groups, it would have been. We could have said yes to tired and gone back to the hotel.

Instead, it was part of the story. It was a moment from which to pivot.

For all the writing and coaching I do, I hadn’t thought about the moments when we pivot for a while. I’m thinking about them now.

We tell ourselves all sorts of stories. Sometimes our stories don’t mean what they used to. Sometimes they don’t reflect the person we are now as well as they reflect the person we were then. Yet, we can be caught up in those old stories.

You can train your brain to tell another story.

We can look anew at stories and add on to them with distance, wisdom, perspective, and fondness for where we are today.

We can tell another story. That’s pretty magical.

---

Prompts for you:

• What stories do you tell yourself that you can revisit?

• How might a story change with the perspective you bring to it today?

• Remember a time when you encountered a pivot point like we did around tired? What came of that pivot? What story is there for you now?

• In what ways do you surprise yourself with resilience?

---

Posts related to today’s theme:

• A Different Direction: Translating Passover to our experience

• Begin Again: A tool for being honest about where we go from here

• Accepting Invitations You Normally Refuse: Researching many possibilities

---

Like what you read?

If you like what you read, please:

• Share this free post with a friend.

• Subscribe to receive posts directly in your inbox. Click the button below!

• Reach out! I’d love to hear what resonates with you, get some feedback, or to explore working together directly.