Hi there, welcome to Wednesday and to Radio Headspace.

It's Dora.

So the other day, while I was meditating, my inner voice was speaking in Nigerian pigeon.

Essentially, it's a beautiful mix of slang and broken English, which can be understood

across all ethnic groups and languages in Nigeria.

As I was sitting and meditating, I noticed how my mind was just creating stories around

how I was feeling.

I was feeling exhausted and my mind was really wanting to attach a meaning or give a story

to what I was feeling.

And every time it would, I would just note it and say, story story, which impigeon means

you're telling a lie or you're over exaggerating what's happened.

And it was so funny because this labeling of a story in a language I barely even speak

helped me to let go of the resistance and just accept how I was feeling.

Now, I'm not saying that you should start speaking pigeon while meditating, but that

term, story story, helped me see the stories that I was creating.

The mind tells us stories to keep us safe, like when a relationship ends and we conjure

up an explanation of why it ended.

But some stories can keep us stuck, like when we think we'll never be able to succeed

if we try something new.

When we attach a story to a thought to our feeling, we can get so lost in them.

The storyline is what keeps those thoughts and feelings alive, preventing us from letting

them go.

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