Mungo came to us in February… he was rescued from a Welsh puppy farm, where he had spent the first five years of his life. Probably his only experience of love in all that time, since being taken from his mother, until he came to us, was the eight weeks he spent in a wonderful foster-home (you can read more about his early journey here).
As human beings, it’s easy for us to get stuck in the story we are telling ourselves each day… we will continue to do a particular behaviour, or think particular thoughts, because we’ve always done it that way. We interact with the world because of the labels we give ourselves – or accept from other people – “Anxious”, “Introverted”, “Extroverted”, “Victim”, “Intelligent”, “Stupid”… When labels give us permission to limit ourselves, then we don’t have to take responsibility – instead we can blame the label, because the label gives us our story… without realising that it’s also the story that is “proving” the label. Those “knots of our own making” that Rainer Maria Rilke wrote about.
There’s a wonderful poem by Marianne Williamson, called “Our Deepest Fear” (I have it on the wall in my office), and in it she explains that it’s our light, not our darkness that frightens us… our deepest fear, she says, is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure…
In my work as a therapist and a trainer, I see many people who do change the stories they have been telling themselves, often for decades – it requires courage, and insight, and self-awareness, and self-compassion to do that, and I’m in awe every single time, because it proves the truth of Marianne’s words…
And then I look at this beautiful little soul who has joined our family… every “first time” he does something new – like jumping up next to us on the sofa, or climbing up four steps instead of three, or allowing Luna to share his bed – he is releasing and re-writing a little bit of that old story and it makes my heart melt, because he’s letting a little bit more of his light shine.
If he is not afraid to re-write his old story, why should any of us be? In Marianne’s words, again, “As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same…” If we are bringing that kind of inspiration into the world, then what can happen? That’s another story – what if we were to write it?
Mungo’s Teachings:
- The past is for learning from, not for living in.
- You don’t have to believe everything you think.
- Question constantly whether your story is serving life, and if it’s not, tell yourself a new story and allow your light to shine.
