🪡 I am what I do. I am not the story I tell myself.

The Book of TREE 1.11

So many people live lives of kindness and generosity. They sacrifice time, energy and money to lift other people up. They make sure that other people are cared for, fed, loved and noticed. Then they tell themselves a story of how insignificant, useless, inadequate and bad they are. That story is a tragic lie.

Are you better than the story you’re telling yourself?

Try being honest. It will probably feel unnatural, possibly even wrong. Stick with it. You deserve to be told about your goodness. So keep telling yourself. There is freedom in your honesty.

The most recent episode of Radiolab is a fascinating exploration of the interior worlds of the reporter who doesn’t have any visual imagination and a some people who see things with incredible vividness. I’m on the vivid end of the spectrum. As soon at I get a chance, I will complete the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire-2, a respected diagnostic tool for determining if someone has aphantasia or hyperphantasia or if they are somewhere in the big ol’ normal middle. I’d love to know how things look in your mind’s eye.

Grow slowly
Jeff