What would "YOUR STORY" be like-if modern science can prove all your setbacks are delusive?

As we stick our head out from our emails filled with bad remarks from clients or data analysis of how badly we missed this month's target, or from "not-so-friendly" message from the boss with mild tone of request (mixed with threat) to work overtime this Friday- at that moment almost 90% of the time we find ourselves asking this amazing question -"Is that all I have to go through in this life?".

Of course not. We were born to follow our own calling before upbringing, culture and system programmed us to function in a particular way to fit in. I mean who wants to work overtime on a Friday evening!? Unless we have a boss, who may ruin our prospective chance of promotion in future- I reckon.

Let us run a quick self-assessment of the number of excuses we give to ourselves to play safe all the time- I was busy at work, I have to meet the deadline, I have this new promotion coming up, I have to pay the bills, my parents are so proud of my 9-5 job, I have worked myself up here so I can't back down, I was meant to be here or else wouldn't have been here in the first place, it was my parents dream to get the scholarship, my paternal uncle's son's brother is doing the same thing and he is so successful, - Yada Yada Yada...

To break the rut- I had to come up with a compelling question, to claim our freedom back-

If tomorrow I/you were to get hit by a bus- What is that 1 thing I/you would like to give to the world?

The one thing I would like to give to every face I see or come in contact with is -

All your decisions that you have made so far or the way you see yourself in the mirror- they are all based on how you perceive your life, your self and your narrative based on your past memories. So the one thing I would like to shout out to the world:-

Do not indulge even for a minute of your day, in self-sabotage by thinking the memories of your past.

We all cling on to our past based on mostly all the negative experiences such as the times your boss didn't like the numbers on your sheet and the colour of your tie, or how your ex-girlfriend has shown up with her recent dude who is twin image of Chris Evans. Or your dad left your mum because he never wanted a girl child, or your business partner has been a creating a ruckus for a while - trying to end the partnership at the cost of your business which is going downhill, etc. When mind you half of the time what we describe from our past memory is not true.

Let me make this fact even more astounding - Do you know? Latest Research on memory has proved that 50% of the times how we describe something of a story from our past isn't true. Let me quote the famous author Dr Joe Dispenza -

“We often perceive the reason we are a certain way is because of past events, and every time we recall that event we’re refiring the synapses in our brain, producing the same emotions again.  However, the latest research on memory says that 50% of what we talk about in our past isn’t the truth. So we’re constantly reliving our past, often based on things that never actually happened.”   ~ Dr Joe Dispenza

Ever since human evolution, it was essential for our survival to be able to recognise a bad memory from the past to prevent ourselves from being attacked by a wild beast who used to be part of our neighbourhood- back in the days when we used to put up in the caves.

Caves are gone, after civilisation but the survival instincts remained as a protection shield from any kind of rejection/failure in terms of relationship, business, work or our overall wellbeing.

Professor James McGaugh, UC Irvine’s Centre for the Neurobiology of Learning, says that “We all have narratives,” - based on our beliefs and values, backed by an explanation that fits those set of beliefs or values. McGaugh added,

"We’re all creating stories. Our lives are stories in that sense."

This goes on to prove that most of our decisions or our way of being is based on our narrative we gave ourselves from our past experiences- which may not even be true. So half of the time we are living an experience, which most likely never happened as we perceive it. Every excuse we build in our brain while trying to change or achieve something is an indication that we are living our lives based on past memories (survival instincts). We keep going around in a loop of what might go wrong or if things go wrong, am I going to face similar consequences, as I did in the past?

Well most likely- things have gone wrong in the past, but it is far more likely that it has gone wrong just in our heads. We simply describe it wrong as "our description" fits our set of beliefs about how things should be. If we can change our beliefs we can change our narrative and remove the mental block of describing something WRONG.

For eg; You were offered an opportunity at your current work - which you felt is too demanding and unfair as it requires you to multi-task. Despite having a probable chance of growth in career ladder you decided to drop it. After a series of deep self-analysis, a memory from your past work experience where you used to wear many hats (multi-task), in a particular project, which resulted in making your stay in the office until late. This has caused a serious fallout with your partner (you were deeply in love with), pointed it out as your heedlessness to keep him/her happy by not giving him/her enough time. You created a narrative around here that sometimes things can get too demanding and unfair.

And you still carry that with you. So to protect yourself from any future rejection, you now opt-out from work which involves multitasking and rather wants to stick to one thing and keep your boundaries intact. And you define this tendency with a fancy term - WORK-LIFE BALANCE.

I wish to say this with a straight face- it is not work-life balance this is rather being stuck in a false narrative from a past incident.

Now, let us redo the whole incident: You took up this project in your past job which involves multi-tasking as a chance of succession in the career ladder and better income. (Which most likely you forgot to describe in your old narrative) because - the negative aspects of past memories have more significant impact emotionally, as compared to the positive build-up of your narrative. Your fall out with the partner was not a rejection but an opportunity for you to identify the kind of people who aren't meant for you. I am sure you would prefer someone more emotionally independent and sees happiness as a personal responsibility, in a relationship. So, therefore, instead of judging things as too demanding or unfair- you can change the narrative as - everything happens for good and learnt that we are responsible for our own happiness.

Now you are happily single waiting for the right person to show up and with a great job that involves the fun part of wearing many hats- i.e. Work-life balance (with the straight face again)

So the elephant in the room is- every negative experience or past memory that you're holding on to which is hindering that massive shift to your life- has a high chance of being FAKE. With that being said, please remember:

You can not just change the memory but you can also completely change the whole narrative of your entire life.

So with that piece of knowledge, we have got the key to describe all our setbacks in 2019 from a new light and can vision a memorable 2020.