Some of us enjoy starring in our own junkologue. We love rehashing the past, telling anyone who will listen just how messed up our life has been and all the junk we’ve been a part of. We identify ourselves by our story and use it to commiserate with those who identify with our trials and tribulations and keep us living in that time, instead of in the present. We exaggerate our tales to one-up our fellows or use the heightened stories of woe to gain sympathy. We may even tell ourselves that we’re letting the past go by talking about it, when it’s really a form of exhibitionism and our negative mind running it’s mouth with pride.
Before I found the courage to ask for help, I was often the star of my own junkologue. I would tell the tales of how I was wronged or hurt by the people in my past. I never told a story where I took responsibility for anything that occurred, I was always the victim, had to right a wrong or fight my way back. Always the martyr. That junkologue kept my thoughts in a negative place, it kept me sick and it kept me around people who were also sick, or those who I could manipulate with my story because I wanted something from them. I would tell myself that I was telling those stories as a form of humility, to show I had struggles too, but really what I was doing was taking part in a dramatic self-put-down to keep myself down, but to gain sympathy of those around me. It was that inner struggle of wanting to be the center of attention and wanting to disappear at the same time. It it wasn’t until I got well, and learned what true humility was, that I realized there wasn’t any humility in my junkologue. It was OK for me to talk about the past, but I had to look at my part in those stories and learn from them to move on, and in doing so, I may have actually owed some of those people I used to point my finger at an apology or amends. It was after doing that that my old junkologue began to fade away and was replaced by words of encouragement, support and recovery. Today I may pull up a story from my past to relate to someone who may be struggling, not to one-up them as I used to, but to now use those painful or dramatic stories from my past to possibly help someone else through their difficult time, not to dwell on them and keep me from taking responsibility for them.
We all have a junkologue in us, those stories from the battleground of our lives, but it’s important to ask ourselves why we are telling those stories and what we hope to gain. Or do we share those stories to show others just how far we’ve come and that they too can move past their junkologue to live in the light and move beyond where they’ve come from. Our stories can be used for good, to heal, to help, but not when we dwell on the past and embellish our tales to feed the negative narrative in our heads. SLAY on!
SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you enjoy telling your junkologue? Why? How does it make you feel to share it with someone else? How does it harm you to do so? How do you feel during your share? How do you feel after? Do you think that sharing it keeps you in a negative space? Is that why you share it? Do you see your part in those stories you share? If not, look for them in those stories. How do you think seeing and owning your part might change how you feel about sharing your junkologue? How do you think that will help you? Ask yourself why SLAYER, what keeps you telling those stories and why do you want to share them? Finding the answer might just be your first step to recovering from those stories of your past and allow you to start a new chapter full of good stories.
S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you
State Of Slay™ 