The 1 Story That Will Keep You Chasing the Carrot

Stories are beautiful things. People have mastered the art of story telling. There are stories filled with enough drama, action, romance, and horror to keep us on the edge of our seats. There are stories that humble us, and stories that make us question life and the world.

But the most powerful stories in our lives are the ones we create, the ones that are so ingrained in us that we aren’t even aware that they are there. These are the stories of who we are, what we are worth, what we are capable of and what we are not.

There is one story in particular that is the root of all of the other stories we create to support it.  It is also a lie that keeps us chasing the carrot.

That lie is that the source of love is “out there”.

This story is so deeply rooted that it drives everything we do in our lives.  We search for relationships and a happily ever after because we want love.  We try to please everyone so they continue to love us.  We strive for success so we can prove we are good enough and worthy of love.

Even the story of who we are was created by us so that we could be accepted by others. We look to magazines, tv shows, celebrities and others to gage what is acceptable and lovable, and we try to mold ourselves to fit that standard.

These stories become masks that we wear so others will accept us. No one can see ‘you’ beyond the story, and pretty soon, you put enough faith into the story that you even forget who you really are.

So how did we come to adopt this story?

Reward and Punishment.

Let’s use a puppy as an example. When you first get a puppy, as cute as they can be, no one wants them peeing and pooping all over the house, or eating their shoes! (I have lost a shoe or two before to a new pup)

So in order to train the puppy, we use reward and punishment.

We set put the newspaper down, and try to have the puppy do it’s business on the newspaper. When it does, we reward them, “Good Girl!!”, and we give them a doggie biscuit.  When they pee on the floor or eat our shoes, we punish them, “Bad Girl!!! NO Biscuit for YOU!”

Eventually to pup gets trained, and we get to keep our shoes safe and floors clean and enjoy our puppy.

Similarly, as children we are also trained.

When I was young, when I did something good, I got an “At-a-Girl!” or I got the attention that I wanted.

When I did something that wasn’t “good”, I got punished. That could mean that I was grounded, hit, or worst of all – ignored. It hurt more than anything else when I was shut out completely, their love was taken away, because I was “bad”. It didn’t matter if they were just in a bad mood, I took it personally and thought that there was something inherently wrong with me.

I wanted the carrot of attention and love, and wanted to desperately AVOID the punishment. So, I started to become something I was not, so I could get more rewards and less punishment.

I created an image of myself (a mask) that I thought people would love, and when it failed for one person, I created a different mask. Pretty soon, I had so many masks, I couldn’t keep track! It took alot of energy to keep up with all the different stories of me I had created. Being me was exhausting!

Later in life, after many failed relationships, and hitting walls in every area of my life and frankly, being miserable with who I was, I began to look inside.

What I found was that who I was was based on lies.  Lies that I created and agreed to.  No one ever told me that I was not lovable or good enough (in so many words), but I made the agreement with myself based on how other people reacted (which really had nothing to do with me).

Because I had been trained to earn love and attention by being good, I created a story about what being good or lovable looked like, and then projected an image of me that I pretended to be.

Now, this was not my parents fault, because they did their best based on what they knew and how they grew up… and so on and so on. But once I saw the story I created and how that created the suffering in my life, I knew I wanted to find the me beyond the stories and masks.

After peeling back all the layers of stories, beliefs and fears (all the things that formed the story of who I was), one thing remained – Love.

What I found was that all along, I was the source of love. Any relationship or happy experience I had only awakened the love that was already inside of me.  So the truth was that no one could give me love and acceptance but me.  No one could give me happiness either.

Happiness was a choice once I knew I was writing the story.  

As long as we believe the story we created, that love and happiness is somewhere, out there, then we will always be searching fruitlessly. But when we move beyond the stories, and allow who we truly are to shine through then we will always have love and happiness, because love is what we are. Then there are no more carrots to chase, because you were the source all along.

Now that is a true love story.

Christine Vida is a Transformational Life Coach who helps women create the relationships, career and life they love by addressing the stories, beliefs and fears that keep them from stepping into their power and seeing the limitless possibilities life has to offer. www.christinevida.com