WHAT STORIES DO YOU LIVE BY?

A couple of days ago I booked a soul shaking trip. Everything felt right, my soul was/is set on fire about it. High vibrations all around, my heart - a massive yes. Do it. Done. 

Booked. 

Within 15 minutes the little voice in my head comes in....
'But Lisa, you have to fly to the Maldives....you have to get on a plane.' Tension, came into my body. The voice, the damn voice. 'You don't like flying, remember? Your dad died in a plane crash....you have to cross a massive ocean.' 'How are you going to do that?' 'Is that safe?' 'What if something happens?'....the voice went on + on.....

My ego went on + on.

I went into my old story.

Instantly back into my old story. The story that is not true. The story that I have worked so hard to get out of....right there staring me in the face.

A test from the universe, from God, from the divine. 

Are you going to let your old story, your old fear hold you back? Have you really pushed past the fear? Who's in the drivers seat here, the ego or your heart?

My heart?

Normally I would have went down the rabbit hole, letting the fear cripple me....coming up with a million reasons why I shouldn't go, knowing I have to go....knowing fully in my heart I have to go but this time I witnessed it. I recognized it for what it is....an illusion, a limiting belief, a story that my ego tells itself to make it feel safe. 

And so I spent the next 24 hours negotiating with my ego, yep trying to make it feel safe. Not sure how that makes absolutely any sense but we did. We negotiated....we will go to London first, you like London...you love that flight, have a lay over there for a few days and then onto the last leg. And for some reason that feels safer? Damn ego because the truth is I love flying, I love travel, my heart yearns for it, my soul yearns for it but my ego hates it. It goes into survival mode. What if mode. How are you going to mode. All the modes that try to grip and control and hold onto what it knows. That is what the ego likes because.....what if I step into soul shaking expansion, what if nothing is ever the same again, what if a huge shift comes? What if there is growth?

The ego hates growth. Hates it.

And what the ego hates even more is that whether it likes it or not, we're going on the trip. 

It's a choice, I can choose to let the voice consume me, allow it to make me stay home, to resist growth or I can breath into it, I can push past it + follow what is lighting my heart up. I can choose to recognize it for what it is...it's a story. It's not true. It's an illusion. 

So often we let the stories we tell ourselves consume our life, guide our life. We make them our reality. We put them on like a warm cozy sweater. We allow them to limit what is possible.

I'll never afford that. 
That is not possible for me. 
That's the cards I've been dealt.
I'll never find true love. 
I'll never catch my break. 
I'm not lovable. 
Now is not the time, when this happens - then I'll do that. 

Any of those stories resonate for you? I can guarantee that I have owned all of those stories at various points of my life. I lived by those stories. 

The crazy part is that most of us aren't aware of our stories, I wasn't. We've taken them on as who we are, our identity. The masks + layers that we wear + show up with in life. 

What are the stories you tell yourself? That show up in your life? What if you changed your stories, what if you peeled them back? What would be possible?