tell me a story part 1 the brain

My mother used to wait tables at a big fancy restaurant in the center of the village. She wore a burgundy dress with white ruffles. I liked it. It’s still in storage; I can’t get myself to throw it out. I stayed home when my mom went to work, sometimes with some girl a couple years older than me, and sometimes by myself. Sometimes me and my more sophisticated babysitters played my favorite game with a pack of Marlboros and a stud earring. The game was to make holes in the packs plastic wrapper with the lit cigarette and whoever made the hole that sank the earring lost. You should try it, it’s fun. When the phone rang I was by myself. The person on the other end of the phone asked for Jenny Davis. I was about eight years old, and I wasn’t used to adults calling and asking for me. I told the adult caller that I was Jenny Davis. Well congratulations, you have just won the manger the baby Jesus was born in! My raffle ticket had been picked, and I had won. That was when I knew that Jesus loved me too, because he picked me to have his manger. That was when I knew I was lucky. I called my mom instantly. I was only supposed to call in emergencies, but this seemed bigger than an emergency, I needed her to know we were gonna be okay now because Jesus had picked me! She was rightfully confused, but when she understood that I had won a small wood manger crafted by a church member, she said she was so excited and we could pick it up the next day.

And our lives did get better. My mom would get sober, and she would eventually leave the man who broke her ribs. Soon after the priest set fire to the church on a Saturday night because of some beef with the bigwigs that had been eating at him, and we stopped going to church, except for the big holidays. I stopped thinking about Jesus so much, but it would take me years to stop believing in my own luck.

By the time I met you I had lost at too many scratch off tickets, and luck just felt like a thing of the past.

Excerpt from my yet to be, but one day to be published book!

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Every morning we wake up and we tell ourselves stories about our lives, and then we go out into the world and create relationships, situations, whole structures built on the foundation of those stories; faulty foundation or not we build houses!

EVERY STORY YOU ARE TELLING YOURSELF IS A FANTASY!!

We seem to think that when we are convinced we are screwed it’s called being practical or real, but when we dream a little bit about what our souls really ache for it’s called being foolish, and also pull it together and get back to work, get back to reality space case!

Have we collectively decided that reality is grim and shitty, and dreaming is for the delusional instagram influencer in a studio apartment with a protein powder endorsement?

But, WHAT IF?

The phrase WHAT IF can be a tool or a weapon, which one are you picking up more often right now? What if the worst thing happens? But what if something better than you could have imagined happens?

Okay, okay, I have had worst things happen. A lot actually, but those things do not get to, or have to, dictate the stories I tell about the world and myself. I did not like it when my family started to die when I was 29! I thought I was too young, and I know people die, but not my people, and also it’s too many and too soon. In a series of heart breaks I took the evidence I gathered and decided, I used to be lucky, but apparently all my luck has run out and now, for the remainder of my life I will be unlucky! And then my life took what felt like a real nose dive for a moment, and then things got better, re built, but the well worn groove of I used to be lucky stayed, comfortable and reliable, like an interstate in the middle of the country.

I saw this quote the other day on John Patrick Shanley’s instagram; his gram can go a little off the rails, but that man knows a good quote, OBVS, because he is a genius IMO.

“Don’t despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don’t - surrender to events with hope.” Alain De Botton. Incredible!

We all want to know what is coming, and so we take the facts, the pieces of life around us and we grip, bend, twist the details into a narrative that we think we can control and understand. Well last time I went to this Target the check out lady was mean, so I hate this Target, everyone is mean and there is nowhere to park, blah, yadda, on and on. About literally everything we see and encounter, stories!

And let’s face it, we are afraid to hope for the best! And so we sit with our libidinal force quietly simmering through our bones until we are lucky enough to have a moment where we just can’t take it anymore!

So what do we do to change our narratives? Good question! Just asking the question starts to turn our attention toward change. Just seeing, oh jeez maybe I am teling myself some shit stories and my life could improve with a little/ huge/ giant shift here. What if?

I personally don’t find it helpful when someone says any version of, Stop doing that! because obviously, f you could just stop and change, you would, but there are years of well worn path in front of you, and all of humanity programmed with negativity bias to survive behind you, so…

Let’s take a look at the brain!

Let’s pretend that you are standing in front of a field. You have to get to the other side, and great perfect, there is a mowed path. You think I’ll just take that mowed path to the other side. But what if that path had little tiny creatures that whispered, you are not good enough to get what you really want, you walk weird, why are you being such a narcy and thinking anyone cares about what you have to offer? It might not be pleasant, but you will take this path until you finally a) can’t stand it and b) realize there is another way. The other way is to make a new path, to do the arduous work of walking through waist high grass over and over again until a new path is made. The field is your brain. The new path is the new thought, got me?

The brain is efficient, it does not like change, so it’ll do what it has always done.

One of my favorite facts is that the brain is so efficient that it jumps to conclusions constantly, like sees the base of the lamp, and says, I know, I know, it’s a lamp!! Basically, if the brain is a know it all in 3rd grade History. Great at crossing the street, maybe not great at creating an adventurous and fulfilling life!

THE WHAT IF EXERCISE

Okay. The exercise starts now.

Throughout the week notice when you are feeling worry or stress or self attack. NOTICING will change your life. Like you can’t go to TJ Maxx if you don’t notice one! So notice if you are telling yourself some tragic story about how things are or how they are going to unfold horribly. Does this feel familiar? Is this the already mowed path in the field?

Then, just for fun, tell yourself the opposite WHAT If it all works out for the best or better than you ever expected version. Maybe even write it down. Yikes! Write it down? Is this lady crazy? Then just let it go until you notice again. You don’t have to believe, you have to practice it.

Once when I was in college I went to my friend Lee, and I was in a horrible sad mood about something, and she suggested we go outside and laugh like we were insane. We were at a castle in the Netherlands at the time, with a moat, so we crossed the moat into the woods and laughed and laughed and then we could not stop laughing!! We crossed back over filled with joy!!!

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I started with the brain, because the brain is the beautiful, powerful processor of all the information it is given, but 80% of information COMES UP FROM OUR BODY SYSTEMS to our brain, and only 20% of information goes down from our brain to our bodies. This is why we can often times intellectually understand something, but our bodies, hearts, whole beings are not getting the message. But we gotta start with the neocortex because it is our number one Gate Keeper, and we gotta gently ask them to open the gates!!!

So I’m gonna break my mold and NEXT WEEK will be Part 2 the body!!! It’s gonna be a rager of Sensations, Images, Feelings. Be there. See you at 5pm next Sunday.

xxJ

art by incomparable Louise Bourgeois