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10 Responses to “The story they tell us”
Comment Page 1 of 11
The story they tell us is so manipulating, so domineering. It has taken great pains to me to get rid of it and yet I haven’t.
I love the analogy Paulo does between The Zahir and society expectations. When you read it you understand how manipulated you have been since you were born. You see how preconceived ideas work and how you can take your real self out of this cobweb. It was the part I liked the best the first time I read the book.
However ,society will be there as long as we remain humans, it will shape our ideas and ways of thinking for as long as we live , so it is up to us to live to the fullest in spite of it.
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This idea of forgetting (or perhaps “releasing” is a better word) releasing one’s story is an idea that is familiar to me. In the Author’s Notes, Paulo states that this concept “which is part of many initiation traditions is set out clearly in ‘Journey to Ixtlan’ by Carlos Castaneda.” Where I first encountered it is in something called “sharing groups,” based on the work of Paul Lowe (http://www.paullowe.org/), and in audio tapes entitled “The Work,” by Byron Katie (http://www.thework.com/index.asp). Both of these approaches, although they are very similar to the process of “forgetting” introduced in the Zahir, are somewhat more radical in that they seek to shake one loose from one’s story or stories instantaneously. It does not happen slowly or gently, and so, as anything which calls for radical and immediate internal change, these processes can be quite painful.
The basic difference between the methods of Paul Lowe’s “sharing groups” and Byron Katie’s “The Work,” as I see it, is simply this. In the sharing groups, this takes place, of course, in a group setting, and the group works together to help the individual acknowledge and let go of their story. In “The Work,” the facilitator of this process is the therapist - in other words, it is conducted on a one-on-one basis.
At any rate, I’ll try to explain a little about sharing groups and how this process of renouncing one’s story takes place. The group is asked to sit quietly together until someone is able to get in touch with something that they are FEELING in the present moment. I emphasize the word “feeling” as opposed to “thinking,” as it is only through the faculty of feeling that we can truly be in touch with the present moment and who we are in it. In thinking, we are always stuck in either the past (memory - what we think we know) or the future (speculation - what we conclude might occur, based on what we think we know). So, everyone sits until someone gets in touch with what they are feeling in the moment: “I am feeling anxious,” or “I am sad,” or “I am feeling very attracted to you over there.” This expression of feeling can take many forms, but the important thing is that it is a feeling. If someone expresses a thought rather than a feeling, then it is the job of someone else in the group to speak up and say, “That isn’t a feeling; that is a thought.” In this way the group stays focused and in the present.
Then, when someone does express a feeling, the real work begins. Through a process of acknowledgment (which is devoid of judgments such as it is “right” or “wrong” to feel this way), the group allows and invites this individual to delve deeper to find the root source of this feeling. This usually takes the format of a sort of inquisition in which the individual in question becomes the focus of the group.
It is very hard to give examples, because there really is no set format and every single group meeting, even between the same individuals, is highly diverse and can take almost any direction. However, I will try to offer a hypothetical example:
Someone might say, “I am feeling very angry right now.
Someone else might say, “Okay, I feel your anger. I can hear it in your voice.”
After a long pause of silence, another person says, “Do you feel like sharing with us why you are angry?”
So the first person responds, “I’m angry because last month my brother was killed in a car accident that was not his fault.”
“Fair enough,” says another person, “So why are you angry?”
“Well, what else would you expect me to be?!”
“I don’t expect anything,” says the querent. “I asked you why you’re angry.”
About five minutes of absolute silence in which everyone in the group - who is seated in a tight circle on the floor - tries to decide what to do with their eyes. Some stare into one another’s eyes, and maybe even break into a smile. Other pick a spot on the floor and make that the focus of their attention. Still others, hold their gaze upon this person who is angry, maintaining an expression of openness and loving-kindness. (If you are the person in the spotlight at this moment, it feels a lot like you are being roasted on an open spit, because you know that the others present are patiently waiting for a genuine answer, that they are willing to wait however long it takes, even all night if necessary, and meanwhile you are working as hard as you can to get to the root of it within yourself. You are not going to be let off the hook.)
Finally the silence breaks: “I’m angry because this is not supposed to happen.”
Someone else says, “Who or what are you angry at?”
And even before the answer comes, someone else follows with a few possible options: “Are you angry at yourself? Are you angry at God for letting this happen? Angry at your brother for leaving you? Angry at the other diver? Who…?”
The person repeats, “I’m angry because this is NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN!” Tears start to flow. Other’s eyes water up in response to seeing this person break down into tears. Still, the work continues.
Someone says, “What does the phrase ‘not supposed to happen’ mean to you? What does it mean if your brother died and he was ‘not supposed to.’”
Someone else jumps in: “It means that we might all die at any moment -that we are going to. The world is an unsafe place!” Then, directing the comment toward the individual of focus, “Do you feel unsafe? Is this why you are crying? Is this why you are angry?”
The woman nods her head, “I’m angry because I am a mother of two children and this could happen to them, or to my husband, or to me, or any of you! And that is just NOT right!”
A new voice breaks in, “So, you are a mother and a wife and so you’ve taken certain risks. You have married and you have had children based on the assumption that the world is a ’safe place’ and that, at least to some degree you are in control. Are you afraid of losing control? Is this why you’re angry - because you’re brother’s death has made you realize that you are not in control?”
“I’m not in control,” says this person. The tears have now gone and there is an obvious composure returning with the clarity she is gaining about her feelings. “I’m not in control and that makes me very angry because I want to be in control. I am supposed to be in control. It is my job.”
“That’s your story,” points out someone else, “Your story is that you are a mother and a wife and you are in control of your life and, at least to some extent, in control of the lives of those whom you love. Is this your story?”
“Yes,” she replies, “This is my story: I am in control. I love my brother and so he is not supposed to die because I don’t want him to die, but he did, and this means that the world is not a safe place and I am not safe and my kids are not safe and I am F-ing pissed!!!” After a long pause, “This really sucks! I hate this!” Then laughing, “I hate every one of you. God, I love you all so much…. I’m just me, right here an right now, and I could die at any minute, and this really really sucks! But I love it, because you know what? - I don’t feel angry any more. I feel relieved, because now I know that it isn’t my job to be in control. Isn’t that great?! I don’t have to be in control any more.”
In this moment, this person has been brought face-to-face with the story which she and society have created for her about who she is, and in recognizing that story, she has been released from it. She is no longer tied to the assumed obligation to be “in control” of her life and the lives of those whom she loves. She is free to just be in the moment, to accept what comes and embrace it with open arms, evolving as she moves forward on her path. Of course, this is just one small part of her whole “story,” but, if she remains in the sharing group, other aspects of her story are sure to arise in time, to be shattered and released as well.
One way of describing this is “forgetting one’s story,” but as Paulo says, one never truly forgets. This is not possible. It is not possible to function without memory or without stories of who we are, but it is possible to be released from the enslavement to one’s story - to be “reborn” and made free to BECOME in each living moment.
Thank you so much, Paulo, for addressing this topic in your novel. In the story it is presented as a subtle but very powerful movement which is taking place world-wide. I do truly believe this. The process of “forgetting” may take many forms - the methods vary - but the net result is the same. We are living in a world that is slowly freeing itself from the ties that bind. And each person who succeeds in this process of freeing themselves from their story - even each person who sets foot on the path toward “forgetting” - contributes greatly to the well-being of the world as a whole. When the stories which bind us are released and let go, pure love rushes in to fill their place.
With Much Love,
Savita
[Reply]
Namaste,
The story I took with me was of how difficult relationships are. We dance through a thousand minefields of egos and unhealed pain in others and ourselves as we interact. Love is never easy, even between the best of friends. We must give to receive. We can also love a multitude of people in a variety of ways. This book illustrates that with both the writer as well as Esther.
Perhaps it’s because I was considering the topic of unconditional Love as I read the final chapters of Zahir, but I was reminded of Shakespeare Sonnet 116:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
William Shakespeare
(1564 – 1616)
Love to you
[Reply]
The thing about reading Paulo Coelho is that,
its either you understand what he says and resonate with it
or you find the book weird and have no clue what he is talking about.
I bought the book in 2006,
and only now that I have reread it have I understood what it really wanted to say…
… about marriages and relationships…
I am guilty of the fault of being too self-absorbed in myself.
But then, I am also trying to understand a lot of things too, as to what happened in the past…
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You are important for God
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I like to use the metaphor of diving under water, she could dive, she knew how to search the depths and tried to get him to follow, tried to teach him how to dive with her. Then it appears she gave up and continued her underwater journey. To find her again he too had to learn how to dive, in order to find her in the depths of the sea. So many relationships are shallow, because those involved are afraid of the deep sea, they swim around the surface, never really discovering what lies within.
I’m reminded of a mans dream, someone who very early in our relationship, said, I love you! He dreamed we were out in a boat, in the middle of a lake, it appeared. The woman he was with before me was in the boat too, we were all enjoying ourselves, when he decided to jump in the water to swim! The next thing he knew, she and I sped away and left him, waving good-bye as the boat left it’s wake. He woke up from his dream, not knowing if we came back to pick him up or just left him stranded. That dream haunted our relationship, he always felt I was going to leave him. At the end of our relationship, I recalled the dream, I had always felt, there was no way I’d leave someone to drown, both she and I were not the kind to do something like that. Then in thinking of him, barely leaving one relationship, going to another and immediately falling in love. What was the signifigance of both of us in that boat. It dawned on me, the most loving gesture would have been to let him swim to shore, to be on the shore waiting for him. He never knew if he could swim because he kept jumping from boat to boat thinking he’d drown if he wasn’t with someone. She, in The Zahir, left him and he had to swim to shore to find her.
[Reply]
joy Reply:
July 24th, 2009 at 8:28 am
=) thank you for the beautiful metaphor…
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I read the book in one night… couldn’t get off and wanted to know the end.
Just after that I wrote this post in my blog about it.
http://lifeprobabilities.blogspot.com/2008/10/someone-elses-marriage.html
Hope you’ll like it
[Reply]
I am still reading the Zahir, I bought it a few years ago but i just picked it up recently, as I feel I am searching for my path, or at least peace. I am really enjoying this book, although, I feel that I need to reread it, to a)truly understand it and b) copy down so many of the parts that I think are really meaningful. The idea that I find so interesting in book is the question of how one is suspose to live their life. The story we are told by society and family - that a secure job, mortgage, children are the way to be happy. But it is not the only way, and many people are not happy despite ‘having’ all of these things.
I also like the idea of how your past does not define you, in fact that it doesn’t really matter but it is your feelings and experiences in the current moment that matter. That your story doesn’t define who you truly are.
I am reading many ‘positive living’ books, I particullarly like Ekchart Tolle and Bryon Katie and most of them have a similar message however I think the fictional method might help absorb the ideas differently. Perhaps with more empathy towards the character.
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This story led me to great contemplation about the dynamics that happen in relationships. I think there are many layers to consider such as how two people can live their lives “side-by-side” but not “inside/out”. By this I mean we often don’t take the time or interest to see inside the other person and as a result can totally miss what they are thinking and feeling. Consequently the relationship moves through space and time without a soul. Often when one of the two feels that there is something missing, or they have not hooked up with their true soulmate, they will leave the other in search of this soul. Many things can happen then. Often the person left behind will somehow figure out that they can’t live without this person and contemplate all the past issues that led to the separation then go on a quest (as in The Zahir) to find the other while evolving through a personal transformation of enlightenment about life and love and meaning. That however, is just one of the many possible outcomes. What if the leaver was never with their potential soulmate? What if their true soulmate has crossed their path and they missed the glint over their shoulder? What if they have to walk through this life without one? What if they are their androgynous self and are their own soulmate?
I love the idealism of the story and how both partners evolve along their own paths they must walk in life then meet again under changed circumstances. I believe that if your heart is open and you are true to your path, your destiny will unfold. And if you are fortunate, you will know along the way the true depth of yourself within another.
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