A stillness approach to restorying your life is helpful because you are hoping to change your entire story which includes how you think, feel, and act. Researchers who work with lifestories—what is also called narrative research--have discovered that any change that occurs in one part of your life affects your entire life. This is true for chronic pain, widowhood, stroke, dementia, terminal illness, disability and many other changes.Increasingly, stillness approaches are being used in substance abuse programmes, as they have the potential to help addicts to step outside the vortex of their addiction story by creating a space between their thoughts of using and their sensations and actions. In this way, you feel better about things by first giving yourself a break and connecting with your stillness (to be continued).

In contrast to the effort to engage in positive thinking with a focus on controlling or fixing a particular life challenge, which comes from your Doing mode, a stillness approach such as restorying, suggests that you first get out of your thinking mind, step back, enter your Being mode and try to see the larger picture. In this way, instead of fighting or denying the change that has occurred in your life, you make room in your present story for the change  that has occurred, or that you want to occur. It is about finding new meaning in your whole story, not just attempting to fix the broken part. While there are no guarantees, lasting change and stillness are more likely to occur in your life by following this approach (to be continued).

Your life as a story is made up of thoughts, emotions, and actions or behaviour—that is how you think, feel, and act. It may be possible to change your thoughts about something, and there are techniques to help you try this approach. Yes, positive thinking is one of these techniques. However, the effort it takes to maintain this attitude may become exhausting, as with such challenges as chronic pain, grief, or addiction.The problem is that you are still attempting to control or fix the problem, as your thinking mind scrambles around to find a positive solution. This can be a prison in the sense that you are either a winner or a loser, depending on how successful you are in keeping up the program. .So you are suffering from the life challenge and then you suffer more if your willpower is not sufficient to think positively. (to be continued).

You grow, learn, and find meaning, ordinary wisdom, and stillness through stillness practice and through your lifestory. However, the restorying journey does not involve simply choosing a better story to replace the old one. Also, new meaning does not come from forcing yourself to think positively about a troublesome situation. In fact I agree with the statement that positive thinking can become a prison. (To be Continued)