Wake Up To Your Inner Stories
Key idea: You are not your thoughts. You are the one noticing your thoughts. Noticing your thoughts allows you to have agency over them.
Goal: Identify the stories running on autopilot in your life and reclaim the space between the observer and the narrative.
We all live inside scripts. Very often we didn't write our identity stories, money stories, love stories, age stories, worthiness stories. They were handed to us by parents, culture, teachers, algorithms, partners, lovers, and random authority figures or social media influencers who had no business designing your identity.
These stories feel true because they’re familiar, not because they’re accurate. Awareness gives you agency. Once you can see the story, you can rewrite it. Follow the instructions below to surface your stories and bring them out of the shadows.
Exercise 1 - Your Story Map
In your notebook, create eight sections:
- Identity
- Money
- Work
- Love
- Age
- Safety
- Intelligence
- Body
Answer the central question: “What stories have I obeyed without ever questioning them?”
Write freely. No editing, no analysis, no judgement. You are collecting raw material, not trying to explain or understand it. Remember, nobody else needs to see these notes so don’t overanalyze your writing. Just let it all flow onto the page without over thinking.
Reflection Questions
Read through your stories and ask:
- Which of these feel true only because they’re familiar?
- Which stories keep me small or scared?
- Which stories served me in my past, but no longer feel useful?
- Which story is costing me the most right now?
Exercise 2 - Rewrite New Stories
Using compassion for your past self, rewrite several of the most relevant stories. Select the stories that have a big impact on your life and rewrite those stories. Be sure to feel whether the story sits in your head (your ego) or in your heart (your soul) or in your gut (your instincts). Here are some examples of rewritten stories:
Old: “I’m too late to start something new.”
New: “I have experience others would kill for. This is my moment. I am right on time.”
Old: “I need certainty and validation before I act.”
New: “My life expands when I take one experimental step at a time. There's never going to be a perfect moment to start.”
Old: “I don’t have the qualifications.”
New: “My intelligence is undefinable. You can't put my wisdom in a neat box. I’m creative and notice patterns others miss.”
Now, rewrite as many of your own stories. Three minimum. Take your time.
Exercise 3 - Write Your Lived Questions
Instead of rushing to solutions, we're going to shape the next steps with the power of thoughtful questions. Rilke's famous advice to "live your questions" means to embrace uncertainty, be patient with unresolved feelings, and experience life's mysteries rather than rushing for quick answers. By trusting, and even loving, the questions themselves, you will gradually find your way into understanding and wisdom over time.
Create a list of questions about who you are becoming and what life you’d like to embody. Make no attempt to answer them. These questions won’t have clear answers yet. Some examples of lived questions are:
"How might I feel calm and clear?"
"What work will align with my passions and my desires for income?"
"What qualities of my relationships bring me peace and harmony?"
Once you have made a list of about 10-20 questions, put them aside and forget about them for now.
This completes Day 1.