Writing Your Own Fairy Tales

No horror story can scare us as much as the ones we create ourselves. No one is better at playing the big bad wolf in our own lives than we are. We are the monsters under our own beds or the ones hiding in the closet.

Take yesterday, for example. I have been in a great deal of physical pain for the past few weeks. Of course, throwing myself into my new garden with the abandon of a 20 year old with no thought to the three pins in my upper leg from last year's surgery didn't help. Imagine my surprise when the pain got to the point where even riding in the car to the store was an experiment in torture! Of course, the horror story I told myself was that I had waited all this time to move back home only to be denied my dream because I was probably going to need a whole hip replacement. Not only that, but I would probably never be able to garden again! What was I thinking at my age to go around digging and bending like that? Now for the reality - an ice pack and remembering to do my stretches every day (which of course I wasn't doing), and a little rest, and I was good as new. All I had done was to aggravate my sciatica which I've done before, sometimes by simply bending the wrong way to plug in the sweeper! Nevertheless, I went right for the drama instead of stepping back, taking a breath and assessing the situation for what it was.

The same was true for a meeting that I had to attend. I had already made up my mind that it was going to be stressful and I would probably come home with a splitting headache (to go with the pain in my butt that I already had), Surprise! It turned out to be a very inspirational and gratifying meeting, and I came home filled with hope for the future of my little church group.

So, I've decided to stop writing horror stories and start writing fairy tales. When a stressful event or person crosses my path, instead of always imaging the worst, I can turn on my inner magic wand and change the way I imagine the story ending. The meeting will go well because I will fill the room with love and positive energy, and bless everyone in the room. The pain in the butt can be avoided by doing my stretches, finding less invasive ways to garden that respects my body's limits, and congratulating myself for the beauty that I help to create - okay, Mother Nature does most of the work, but how cool is it that I get to be her helper? What a great fairy tale that would make: Mother Nature's Helper!

So what kind of story are your going to write for yourself today?

And so it is.