Make Believe, Make Belief: What’s Your Story? – By Tsgoyna Tanzman

“I want someone to tell me the truth,” my patient said as he sat at his kitchen table. He’d had a stroke in the right hemisphere of his brain. Right brain strokes cause disorientation in place and time.

“What’s the truth you want,” I asked?

“Everyone tells me I am home, and I must admit this place is decorated very similarly, but I know I am not home.”

His belief, his story, all the facts and evidence anyone gave him including himself, could not convince him he was home.  This is a brain injury. For the last the 25 years I’ve worked with people diagnosed with brain injuries.

But,

You don’t have to have an injury to damage your brain.

We do this all the time with our negative thinking and limiting beliefs. And I’m just as guilty as the next person. How often can our healthy brains not see the truth?

I worked with a young beautiful, hard working girl who’d moved out of her home and taken care of herself since she was 17. She’d put herself through nursing school while working three jobs. After graduating, and after all that work and expense, did she take her test and move forward with nursing?

No.

She kept reading the last chapter of her life, the one that was all about her not enough-ness, the one that said if she moved forward she would lose connection with her family because she’d be “too good for them.”

She stuck with bartending. So close to her goal, but she couldn’t turn the page. Her nursing dream stalled. In her stuck state she felt frustrated and angry. Finally she got fed up enough.

In our work together, she learned to put a period on her past. She ended that chapter of her life – turned the page and began crafting a new chapter. The story of which, she was the author. She ditched the dude who didn’t belong in that next chapter of her life, passed her nursing boards, crafted a resume, developed her confidence and landed a nursing position, stepping into the role of the person she’d dreamed of becoming.

Our stories are powerful. They can propel us or derail us.

Our stories are made up of our Beliefs.

Our Belief System.

Our B.S.

Challenging our B.S. takes vigilance and asking quality questions.

Does my default thinking sometimes lead me down a path of questioning my “good enoughness?” Yes, sometimes it does.

Some people think life coaches should be immune from ever feeling doubt. I like to say, just because I know how to change a tire doesn’t mean I’ll never get a flat again. Sometimes I get a flat. I admit I don’t “like” a flat. I even get surly around why I get so much practice at changing the damn tire!

I know how to spot the B.S. I know how to question the B.S. I know how to ask for help when I’m stuck. And I know more than anything that if I’m willing to change the flat tire, I’ll be on the road again.

It’s my choice to tell whatever story I want.

What could you make Believe to make Belief?  What will you make Belief?

Make Believe ~Make Belief Affirmation: I’m willing to write the uplifting inspiring story I want to live.