The most meaningful work we can do

A typical episode of the show Mythbusters features a team of truth-seekers investigating a popular myth or urban legend, like whether Twinkies could survive a nuclear winter. Myths gain power through repetition and blind acceptance, but there’s even greater power in challenging them. Like these curious crew members, we reconnect with our personal power and agency when we bust our own myths — those blindly accepted beliefs that block us from realizing our dreams. That’s the essence of the most meaningful work we can do.

A house of cards

Many of our personal myths, or the beliefs we’ve accepted as truth in our lives, cause us pain, heartache, and shame. Those thoughts and memories that loop through our minds, disturbing our sleep at night and causing anxiety by day.

Yet, with the slightest whisper of truth and tiniest shift in perception, these myths collapse like a house of cards. When that happens, we release the pain of false beliefs and open ourselves to more joyful and authentic experiences.

Seems easy enough, so why do these myths seem to have such a grip on us?

Dirty pain vs. clean pain

As I learned from one of my favorite life coaches, Martha Beck, there are two types of pain. Clean pain, as she calls it, is a natural response to an injury. When bad stuff happens, we feel upset, angry, or depressed. When we feel it, we heal it. Like if we step on a  nail — it hurts, it bleeds, we dress it, and it disappears in a few days.

Dirty pain happens when we create a secondary story about the injury. This story is how we make sense of what happened and our brains grab on to it as truth.

For example, we get stood up by a date and our story is we’re not attractive enough and we’ll always be alone. We get passed over for a job or promotion and we tell ourselves we’re not smart or talented enough and we’ll never succeed. We indulge in an addictive activity and we tell ourselves we’re weak and have no will power and will never conquer our demons.

Limping through life

Like an infection that sets in, these secondary stories are wounds that don’t heal so easily or automatically. If our foot got infected and we never addressed the issue, we’d limp around not enjoying our full ability to walk, run, and dance. In the same way, if we believe in the first story above, we may never risk going on another date or hold back if we do.

These stories not only cause us to suffer needlessly, they can prevent us from growing, thriving, or feeling fulfilled.

Our faithful servant

Stories themselves aren’t bad. Since the dawn of time, humans have relied on stories to inform, inspire, comfort, and connect with other humans. We love stories! That’s why they’re so powerful.

But, as the saying goes, the mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master.

As our faithful servant, the mind is devoted to protecting us from danger and helping us feel safe in a world that’s not always so kind or stable. Stories often protect our tender hearts like a warrior’s shield.

Be the parent

Just like children, our minds crave guidance or they can get a bit chaotic and potentially destructive — turning into that endless mind chatter that keeps us awake at night.

By claiming the role of parent instead, we can observe the constant activity of our mind and gently guide it towards another, more loving, kind, and helpful direction. That’s how we claim mastery over our mind, harnessing its power to create stories that boost us up rather than tear us down, that inspire and encourage us rather than deflate and disempower us.

Moving past Groundhog’s Day

This is not to say we ignore our clean pain. We need to tend to an emotional wound. So throwing a little ‘pity party’ can be the antibacterial spray we need to spark healing.  But if our party turns into a scene from Groundhog’s Day, it’s likely a sign of dirty pain. That’s when we can borrow a page from the Mythbusters playbook.

One way to bust a myth is to experiment with a method called The Work created by the amazing teacher, Byron Katie. After suffering for years with a debilitating depression, Byron experienced an awakening that instantly shifted her perspective and freed her from the trap of dirty pain. Since then, she’s written several books and continues to teach this method to help others find a path to healing, too.

Doing The Work

The Work challenges our stories by asking and honestly answering four questions:

• Is it true?  
• Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
• How do you react when you believe those thoughts?
• Who would you be without those thoughts? 

These are great questions to use as writing prompts for journaling, as I often do, or to reflect on while meditating, walking, or whenever we’re in the grip of painful emotions. Posing these questions to ourselves exposes the false beliefs in our stories — it’s that whisper of truth and change in perspective that flattens our stories like a house of cards.

The tattered teddy bear

Debunking stories like this can elicit a lightning bolt of clarity, like Byron’s awakening. But it doesn’t always occur in a sudden flash of insight. Sometimes we cling to our stories like a cozy and comforting childhood teddy bear. Remember, we create them to shield us from an even deeper wound — one that’s likely as old and familiar as that tattered little bear.

That’s why The Work is such a perfect name. Because it can take some work and some courage to identify and unravel our stories. But if we trivialize this work and avoid doing it, we may continue limping through life instead of dancing like no one’s watching.

Can’t buy love

Ironically, many of us will sacrifice our time, our health, our self-respect, even our loved ones to earn a paycheck. Yes, in our current society we need money to survive. But we all know, money can’t buy us love — or happiness. And most of us desire a deeper, fuller, more meaningful life beyond mere survival, don’t we?

If the answer is yes, then it’s time to dig into the most meaningful work we can do. By busting our myths, we free ourselves from painful stories that serve no purpose in our lives and keep us from realizing our dreams.

Owning our energy

As we covered in my last blog, it’s important to remember that nothing in the world is solid. Rather everything in the universe is comprised of vibrating energy — including our small but powerful human hearts. And we’re all connected through this quantum field of vibrating energy.

Ever hear the saying we’re responsible for the energy we bring to a space?

That means, anything we do or think or feel impacts those around us — our kids, our friends, our coworkers, our pets, or anyone else we encounter. Like a dog senses fear, we all sense and respond to the energy in our space.

Feelin’ those good vibrations

Even beyond our little space, our personal thoughts, emotions, and actions influence the entire energy field, reverberating like a pebble dropped into a puddle of water.

Negative thoughts and beliefs lower our vibration, causing darkness and pain. Positive thoughts and beliefs generate lightness and joy — sending good vibrations (yeah baby!) throughout the world.

That’s not to say we pretend we’re not struggling when we are. Like the novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, we can’t bury our truth or hide it in the attic. But when we do ‘The Work’ of clearing away the dirty pain of stories that don’t serve our wellbeing, we begin to release their grip on us.

This is a true act of service — because taking responsibility for our own healing creates positive energy that radiates our to the world. That’s possibly the most important reason that it’s the most meaningful work we can do.

Truth vs. myth

The dictionary definition of story is “an account of past events in one’s life” while myth is defined as “a widely held but false belief or idea.”

People often say ‘true story’ when they launch into an account of what happened to them. But are these stories really true? Or have we artfully selected certain ideas and beliefs to build a mythical house of cards instead?

If so, we also have the power to rebuild our house on a stronger foundation of personal truth and authenticity.

The path to purpose and joy

Many of us feel a desire for more meaningful work — a career or life purpose that makes a difference in the world and serves all of mankind. We may fill our bucket list with big, audacious goals, like traveling the globe to end world hunger or creating a charitable foundation.

These are absolutely wonderful goals and worthy of our time and effort. But the truth is that some of the most meaningful work we can do is within our own reach right now. Change on the outside begins on the inside. We all have the freedom to bust those personal myths that cause us to suffer and stay stuck in false notions from the past. That’s how we uncover our personal truth and free ourselves to create new stories built on joy, purpose, and authenticity.

Put that on your bucket list today.

Get more Good Vibrations

I’m a holistic life coach who specializes in expressive writing to nurture healing, insight, and creativity. Check out more inspirational articles at my blog, Good Vibrations. For more information about life coaching, visit my website at www.manifestwithmargrita.com.  Have a question or topic you’d like me to write about here? Email me at [email protected]. I invite you to follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, too!