Welcome
Welcome back!
Welcome to “Authentic Life Stories”
One of the most powerful statements I have ever read is this Hopi Proverb:
“The one who tells the stories rules the world.”
This blog focuses on a single idea:
If each of us claimed the authority to tell our own authentic stories, based on knowing who we really are, the result would transform our lives.
The core idea of the blog is founded on the wisest words ever spoken in human history:
”Know Yourself.”
There is a direct connection between knowing who we are and the stories we tell ourselves about our lives.
Why do the stories we tell ourselves matter? Stories answer the question “Why?” Stories give us context. Stories give us meaning. Stories tell us what matters. Stories teach us who we are and tell us how we are to live.
For many of us, the stories we tell ourselves are not authentic stories, because they do not emerge from knowledge of our authentic selves.
Instead, they are inherited stories, passed down through families, cultures, nations, and religions. All of these inherited stories are like well-worn hand-me-down shoes that are too small and hurt our feet. But we wear them anyway, and hobble through life, wearing someone else’s old shoes.
If you have visited this blog before, you will notice that I have changed the focus. I started the blog “Impolite Topics: Religion, Politics, and the Bible…For Seekers” with the same fundamental idea: “The one who tells the stories rules the world.”
For many of us who grew up with some sort of religious worldview based on the Bible, Bible stories became a primary source of inherited stories.
Parents, teachers, clergy, and cultural beliefs used Bible stories to teach us who we are, why we are alive, and how we are to live. These teachers used Bible stories to “rule the world.”
As a Biblical scholar, I know that many of these “world-ruling” Bible stories are fragments, misrepresentations, and distortions of the actual Bible stories.
In “Impolite Topics,” I intended to clear away the debris of these badly taught Biblical stories, to get to the core of authentic liberation within the stories. But I soon discovered that the more I wrote, the more the task felt like a burden. I found myself writing AGAINST particular religious, political, and biblical points of view.
I decided that it was time to start over with a fundamentally different orientation. Instead of being AGAINST beliefs, positions, and ideas, I would be FOR something. I would be FOR the assumption that every human being is unique, valuable, and has something authentic to offer to the world.
Yet, this is not what many of us have learned through our families, our schools, and our religious educations. Many of us were taught to be obedient to some outer authority, and so we go through our lives, attempting to make ourselves fit into old hand-me-down stories.
What is the result of these efforts to wear inherited stories that don’t fit our authentic selves? One of my friends has told me several times that her gravestone will read:
“She never got it put together.”
With these words, my friend expresses in words the high cost of using inherited stories to define the “Why?” of her life. She also—unwittingly—demonstrates how our own self-told stories diminish us, demean us, and rob us of the power to live the lives we truly desire to live.
This blog is for all of us who go through life with the same nagging thoughts. Will I ever get it put together? What must I do? Will I truly live before I die?
With this new focus to accomplish the same intention, I intend to explore the intersection of three of my favorite words:
“Authentic.” What does it mean to be authentic?
“Life.” What does it mean to be fully alive?
“Stories.” How do we transform inherited stories into authentic stories?
The goal of the blog is nothing less than a strategy to become who we are, by transforming inherited “world-ruling” stories into authentic life-affirming stories.
I welcome you to join me.
Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson
“The Story ReTeller”
PS. All of the original blog posts and comments from “Impolite Topics” are available at http://kalindarosestevenson.com/ImpoliteTopics/
