148: Be the Hero of Your Story

Hello everyone and welcome to another great show of Purpose through PainPodcast, I am your host, Joseph James.

We all, at some point in time in our life will go through something that affects us, holds us back, hold glue, creates a story in our life all centered around trauma, pain, guilt, shame, it's inevitable.

There are things in our life that we will go through that are at no fault of our own, it may be because the way you were raised, the family that you were brought up in things that we just ultimately do not have a choice in the matter. However, the choice of getting out of it can be at some point in time our own.Now, with that being if you're a child living in a home or you are at one point of course going through trauma, going through pain, you may not have that choice to get out. I know I didn't. I grew up in a very abusive home, father was verbally and physically, emotionally abusive, and I dealt with a lot of those things still even into my twenties and 30 and even now over the age of 40 in my life, that even though I was out of the situation, I wasn't healedI still had trauma and triggers, but at a young age I had nowhere to go that was not my choiceI could not go anywhere. But as an older adult, I can choose not to live in that state of mind.

I believe one thing that gets us because I believe that pain is life's greatest teacher. It's also life's biggest crutch. I believe the reason why a lot of us get stuck in our situation is simply because the story that we tell ourselves keeps us there. Now I can sit here and I can talk about my upbringingfather abusive, abused my mother, abused my siblings myself. I grew up hating my father. I grew up not wanting to walk in his footsteps, but yet I found myself doing those things, I was very hatred towards people, I didn't like being around people. I was very ugly to my younger sister. And eventually I found myself walking in that direction and I just said, I can't do this anymore, I had to make a conscious effort to not want to live the same way my father did. Okay? My father changed over years, and I became his best friend along with my brothers and sisters, and it was years after my mom had passed away, and I am grateful for that. But a choice had to be made from him on his side out as well as myself to not want to live with the story of my father was always this. There's one thing to tell a story, there's another thing to create a story that is ultimately fictional. And what I mean by that is this right here, it's like meeting somebody for the first time and let's just say for you, you're having a bad day. Let's say your makeup's not on right or you're just uncomfortable in the clothing or it's a new job and you see somebody whispering and talking to somebody else, and they keep on looking at you. And you begin to tell yourself a story that they are talking about you. We've all been there. We've all done this, okay? Or for me, I begin to tell the story that my dad hated me or my dad didn't want me as a son, but all it was is my dad had no instruction booklet on how to be a father. He was simply doing what his father did, and I'm sure what his granddad did. But if I tell myself a certain story and I stay with that. Okay.

And ladies as well as men.

When you're in a relationship and you're telling yourself he does it because he loves you, or he loves you anyways, but yet he's still treating you wrong, stop telling yourself the story because the story is what gets you stuck.Oh, he wants the best for me. X, Y, Z, Fill in the blank. No. If he's hitting you, if he's verbally abusing you, if he's emotionally abusing, if he's sexually abusing, okay, there is no story that you can tell yourself that's going to be true to keep you there. You know what's right and wrong, what's in your heart.

And so, one of the reasons things that, that I wanna just even say is the importance of getting out of the story is the more you tell yourself the story, the more you can play or become even your own victim, where you begin to say things like, it's how he loves me, or that's how he expresses love, or that's all I knowand you can name as you're listening to this, I know you can name different things. I didn't have a choice growing up to get out of my family. I didn't know what adoption centers were or calling child services, I didn't know those things back in the seventies and eighties. So, to me, I had no choice but tolive there but as I begin to grow up, I begin to tell myself stories; stories that I know were not true. Oh, my dad did this because he loved me. No, he didn't necessarily do things because he loved me. He did things because that's all he knew to do. And that's not an excuse because we can all learn, we can all learn how to do things differently, we can all learn how to do things better. And if there's anything that you guys can take away from this tonight, as you listen, as you're driving in your car, as you're at your home, and you're listening to my story, you're listening to this episode, is don't get stuck on your story, where your story makes you get stuck, where you're at.I tell my story of my upbringing all the time, but I'm not a victim. I tell the story of my dad being abusive, where I hated him, but I'm not a victim. I tell the story about my mom passing away when I wished it was my dad, ‘cuz at that time I hated my dad, but I'm not a victim. I tell the story of my dad over a 14-year period after my mom passed away, he died my best friend. And then 22 days or later I lost my wife to cancer, leaving me with three kids. There's no doubt I know that you guys listening right now, there's no doubt the story can break your heart, shed a tear, okay? Because there are times that itdoes that to me, and I have all the reasons in the world to just get depressed, lay in bed, not do anything, and you know, just be the victim. Right? But the thing about it isI knew I had something bigger inside of me. I knew that my story was bigger. I knew I had to take care of three kids, and I knew that the biggest thing for me is I knew that by not moving forward, what was I going to set for those three children of mine. I knew it wasn't going to be good.

And so I flipped the script. I began to tell my story as a way to bring healing to myself. I didn't tell the story of to make me a victim, woe is me, feel sorry for me. I began to tell my story almost like a love story of yes, growing up in the abuse, but here's where I'm at now.Yes, hating my father but here's what I didn't do to my children. Yes, being abusive, but here's what I didn't do to my wife. I begin to change my own story. I begin to rewrite my book or the chapter in my book just simply how I was going about my story. I was telling my story to help other people not telling my story that was gonna get me stuck.

So, I encourage you guys that when you are going through pain in life, ‘cuz it's goingto happen, that when you tell your story to people, you don't tell 'em, tell it from a place of being a victim. You tell it from a place of being the hero. Even if that means you don't feel you are a hero right now. You, your story may be fresh, your pain still may be fresh.Your hurt, your trauma, your triggers, maybe the things are still happened. But I encourage you that when you talk to people, don't talk from a victim standpoint. Don't talk from a blaming standpoint. Don't talk from pointing fingers at people. Don't talk from a place of victimhood. I know you're hurt. It's okay to talkfrom a place of hurt because when you truly are sharing your story, it's what I call being vulnerable. When you are vulnerable, you bring healing to yourself. When you share your story and other people hear it, it's your transparency. Transparency brings healing to them. So, when you share your story, do it from a place of you are becoming your own hero, and watch the things that come out inside of you as you're telling your story.

And I encourage you that when you tell your story, not only coming from that, tell it from a place like if you are trying to talk to somebody else or teach somebody else about yourstory or how they can overcome things, and I promise you, as you do that, things are going to come into your own heart, your mind, your soul is going to help you outta your situations. Vulnerability brings healing to you. Transparency brings healing to others. Tell yourstory from a hero's perspective, not a victim.

I love you guys and thank you so much!