3120: Who's Editing Your Life Story? by Dr. Kelly Flanagan on How to Be More Authentic

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[00:01:00] your life story by Dr Kelly Flanagan of Dr Kelly Flanagan dot com and a moderator Justin Malik welcome back or welcome for the first time if you're new here. This is where I read to you every day of the year from some amazing articles with the author's permission all in an effort to make your and my day even just a tiny bit better.

[00:01:21] So that was get right to our next article as we optimize your life.

[00:01:30] Who's editing your life story by Dr Kelly Flanagan of Dr Kelly Flanagan dot com every writer needs an editor rough drafts are rough and writers need another set of eyes to create something beautiful and meaningful we need this in life as well each of us needs an editor someone we trust enough to tell us what needs to be revised about the story we're living.

[00:02:00] Last March around the time the river and beer in Chicago returning green and the leprechauns had replaced Cupid in the seasonal section at Target I was stealing a quiet hour on a Saturday afternoon lay on the couch reading father fiction by Don Miller when the idea for a blog post hit me I sat up right I grabbed my phone to record the idea.

[00:02:24] I told my wife I was going to write a post about how important it is for people to be assured they are strong she looked at me and told me it was a horrible idea.

[00:02:36] She does that a lot she told me some people do need to hear they are strong but other people know they're strong they've spent most of their lives being strong and courageous in what they need to hear is it's okay to be weak sometimes and do not have it all together.

[00:02:54] Deep down a part of me knew she was right but I'll be honest there was a little kid in me who wanted to talk back can't remember how exactly I responded but I'm pretty sure there was pounding and grumbling involved because I love ideas I love forming them on the page and like to get them right the first time but I don't like to revise.

[00:03:19] In the same way writing our life stories with passion and abandon can feel electric telling a good story with our lives one written in flesh and blood on the paper of time is getting us enjoy but revising the story of our lives is especially difficult work because we have to admit we may have been wrong the first time around

[00:03:44] and we're not used to doing so so often we're raised in homes in which authority was maintained with a heavy emphasis on right and wrong and the big people always seem to end up on the right side of the divide.

[00:03:58] So life became like an education in courtroom procedure the terrible twos were like an opening argument at a lessons the tedious process of cross examination and defense

[00:04:09] and we live the rest of our lives like one long closing argument so we populate every corner of the world with people unwilling to revise the stories we are living.

[00:04:20] Daddies over react and it feels like pulling teeth to get them to reverse the knee jerk punishment waiters rarely fed up to an error they get the manager instead and the patron gets a free appetizer.

[00:04:33] If a doctor confesses to a mistake she exposes herself to lawsuits that may crush her career and steal her livelihood.

[00:04:41] If a politician admits to an error he risks plummeting poll numbers and people of faith takes centuries to admit they acted out of hatred born of certitude rather than grace born of love.

[00:04:55] Why is it so painful to embrace our errors?

[00:04:59] I think facing our mistakes can feel like a condemnation of all the good things and best intentions in us.

[00:05:07] It can shake our confidence in ourselves it can crack the lens through which we view the world.

[00:05:13] It can mess with our heads and make us wonder what is real but most of all it equalizes us.

[00:05:21] Whatever pedestals we sit on in the trophy room of our minds get kicked out from underneath us when we embrace our mistakes and start to make revisions.

[00:05:31] Suffice it to say most of us will not claim our errors happily and willingly we will tend to go on writing our lives stubbornly confident in our authority and authorship.

[00:05:43] That's why every single one of us needs a trustworthy editor.

[00:05:49] In the spring of 1998 I just wrapped up my junior year at the University of Illinois.

[00:05:54] The day after finals found me and two of my closest friends sprawled out on the quad soaking up the soothing rays of a spring sun and dodging wavered frisbees.

[00:06:04] And we were debating.

[00:06:06] At that time in the university's history was invoked for students in Urbana Champaign to exercise their budding liberal arts analytical skills by debating whether or not chiefs are good.

[00:06:18] Ilnoweck was a racist mascot.

[00:06:21] And I loved to debate.

[00:06:23] As I pounded away at the argument I sensed I was wearing my friends down.

[00:06:27] My new was going to win.

[00:06:29] And then my good friend looked at me in the eye, I saw sadness in hers and she said,

[00:06:34] you know Kelly it's not fun to talk about this stuff with you.

[00:06:39] Outwardly I think I smirked pretending she was talking about losing an argument.

[00:06:44] But inwardly I felt like I had been punched in the gut because I knew I could be brutal.

[00:06:51] I knew I usually put being right before treating people right.

[00:06:56] Yet her edit was so powerful not just because it was true but because I trusted her.

[00:07:04] We had met three years before on the very same quad during freshman orientation.

[00:07:09] When my freshman home sickness had been bad she was the one who showed up and invited me to parties.

[00:07:15] She was the one I ate dinner with in the cafeteria and the one who gave me dating advice and the one I set up with my best buddy.

[00:07:23] She was the one I could trust really truly cared for me.

[00:07:28] And she was telling me I needed to change.

[00:07:32] Stephen King says, write the first draft with the door closed and the second draft with the door open.

[00:07:40] As we write our life stories everything is a first draft and we need to open the doors of our hearts to people we trust enough to tell us where we've gone wrong and how we need to be changed.

[00:07:52] We need people who will say the hard things, people who will serve up the hard medicine, people for whom we will swallow it because we know they are serving us.

[00:08:01] We know they are serving it out of love and caring and respect.

[00:08:06] And there is healing in the medicine because when we open ourselves up to our errors, when we invite someone into our mistakes and release the need to be right at the first time, we're no longer alone.

[00:08:20] We discover it is better to embrace our faults and to be embraced by a caring other than to sit steadfastly on our certitude and to sit alone.

[00:08:30] As we become open books, open to revision, we open ourselves to editors who are loyal and true.

[00:08:38] We walk through the world a bunch of rough drafts making mistakes as we go and we desperately need to surround ourselves with people who love us enough to live with our mistakes, who value us enough to tell us the truth and who believe in us enough to know we have a revision living somewhere in our hearts.

[00:08:58] You have a beautiful story to tell with your life. It has purpose and meaning and it needs to be told to a world confused by noisy, numbing narratives but the beauty of your story will only be complete and its purpose will only be fully realized when you've submitted it for editing.

[00:09:18] So go find your editor, a spouse, a friend, a pastor, a therapist, find a safe and trustworthy space where you are not alone and find a place where beauty and meaning can erupt out of your errors.

[00:09:36] You just listen to the post titled Who's Editing Your Life Story by Dr. Kelly Flanagan of Dr. Kelly Flanagan.com and I'll be right back with my commentary.

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[00:11:34] Thank you to Dr. Flanagan for the interesting metaphor I don't recall hearing on this show before. It reminds me of the work I do every day editing this podcast and our other ones too.

[00:11:47] I edit a bunch of the shows in the optimal living daily network. When I'm recording, I'm not really nitpicking certain things that I know can be edited like I might leave a very large space for some reason or another and then it can be edited down.

[00:12:01] It's more about how I'm saying the words, but then when it's done and it's time for editing, the other things like pacing come more into play. And something I do realize after years of doing this is that having an outside opinion is really helpful because editing ourselves is not easy.

[00:12:22] We have our own perspective and biases, but having a trusted person serve as editor. Well now bigger more meaningful and more impactful changes can be made.

[00:12:34] And it doesn't have to be a significant other or friends like he said it could be a professional mentor whatever works for you.

[00:12:41] But if you're struggling to find a person, keep looking it can be a powerful agent of positive change.

[00:12:48] So thank you to Dr. Kelly for this one. Thank you for being here and listening every day. Have a great weekend and I'll see you tomorrow where your optimal life awaits.