The Inner Library – What Have You Been Carrying All These Years?

What Have You Been Carrying All These Years?

 

Just imagine that somewhere deep within you there is a library – an inner library – your inner library. Not a library made of walls and shelves, but a library that was built slowly and steadily inside of you over the course of your life. Every person and every experience you encountered left something there.

Every…

• person who mattered to you.
• time someone defined you.
• time you discovered something about yourself.
• book you read.
• conversation you had.
• disappointment you endured.
• moment of joy you experienced.
• lesson you learned.
• loss you faced.
• question you asked.

 

Somewhere, it has all been stored away. And without ever consciously deciding to do so, you have spent your entire life constantly adding all this “stuff” to your library.

Let me ask you a question… “Have you every stopped to look at what is actually on those shelves?”

 

 

 

“What is most personal is most universal.” — Carl Rogers

 

 

 

 

We Begin Collecting Before We Know We Are Collecting

 

Our inner library begins to form long before we have the awareness to choose what goes in it. As children, we naturally and constantly absorb…

• words
• expressions
• tones of voice
• approval
• disapproval
• expectations
• rules

 

We notice what brings love to us and what seems to withdraw it. We notice who we are allowed to be and who we are not.

Someone says to you “You’re too sensitive.” …and on the shelf, it goes.

“Good girls don’t behave like that.” …and another book goes on the shelf.

“You’ll never be any good at this.” …and another one is added.

Why can’t you be more like…? …and another.

At the time, we didn’t have the ability to ask ourselves, or others, if this was true or not. We simply stored it away and continued returning to those same old volumes for most of our lives… even all of our lives.

 

 

Not Everything in Your Library Was Written by You

 

And perhaps one of the most important things for us to start REmembering is this…Not every story stored inside of us belongs to us. Some stories were written by our…

• families
• parents
• teachers
• partners
• friends
• culture
• schools
• religion
• workplaces
• society

 

And some were created by a younger version of ourselves trying so hard to understand something hurtful, upsetting, and distressing. And yet, because these stories have been sitting on our shelves for so long, we tend to automatically reach for them whenever something happens.

We make a mistake and “I’m not good enough” rises. Someone disagrees with us and we pull up “People won’t like me if I’m myself.” We want to try something new, and an old favourite instantly appears “Who do you think you are?” Something feels difficult…and oh! there it is… “I just can’t cope.” We’ve read these books so many times that now we can just recite them without even bothering to touch the book.

We need to REmember that… Just because something is familiar, doesn’t mean it’s true.

 

 

 

“When we deny our stories, they define us.” — Brené Brown

 

 

 

The Forgotten Shelves

 

It’s interesting that while we become very familiar with all the shelves containing our fears, our failures and our perceived inadequacies, there are entire sections of our inner library that we very rarely visit. Those shelves containing all…

• the times we were courageous.
• the things we survived.
• the kindness we offered to others.
• the times we trusted ourselves.
• the things we learned.
• the times we began all over again.

 

And what about our…

• creativity
• curiosity
• humour
• resilience

 

And all those moments when something inside of us just simply knew. All that wisdom gathered not only through books and courses, but through actually living – day by day. Month by month. Year after year. All those volumes have been there all along. They simply became so much harder for us to find amongst everything else that was going on.

 

When Everything Becomes One Enormous Pile

 

Sometimes the problem isn’t that we don’t know enough. It’s that we have accumulated and held onto so much ‘stuff’ that we can’t even see what we know. We read another book. We take another course. We listen to another podcast. We save another post. We learn another method. We ask another person. And gradually our inner library becomes so crowded that instead of feeling wiser…we feel inadequate and overwhelmed.

We know we’ve encountered something useful before. But where? Where is it? We remember the feeling of understanding something, but we can’t quite retrieve the words. So many different teachings overlap each other, ideas connect and experiences all merge together. It just becomes one enormous pile of “I know, I know this… but I can’t remember it. I know it …but I just can’t find it!”

And perhaps our response is to assume we need something more. We need another answer. Another book. Another expert. Another piece of information.

But what if we don’t always need to add yet another book to our library? What if sometimes all we need to do is to sit quietly amongst what is already there?

 

 

 

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Becoming the Librarian

 

There comes a point when we can begin to relate differently to our inner library. Instead of unconsciously believing everything on its shelves, we can become curious about it. We can take down an old belief and examine it.

Where did this come from? Whose voice do I hear when I read it? How old was I when I first believed this? Does this still feel true? Is this something I want to carry forward?

Some things we may lovingly hold on to. Some we may understand differently now. Some belong in the history section because they happened, they affected us and they are part of our story. But they no longer need to sit prominently on the Current Truth About Me shelf. And some old volumes can finally be returned to their original authors. You/her/him/they said this about me back then, but it is not who I am.

 

 

 

 

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” — Maya Angelou

 

 

 

 

Your Body Has a Library Too

 

Our inner library doesn’t only exist in our minds. Our bodies remember too. A particular tone of voice can make us feel tense before we even understand why. A situation can create a familiar heaviness in our stomachs. A place, a smell, a piece of music or a movement can awaken something within us that we had long forgotten.

And the opposite is also true. Our bodies remember safety. Warmth. Nature. Breath. Touch. Movement. The feeling of belonging. The sensation of simply being ourselves.

Sometimes the body reaches for a book before the mind even knows which shelf it came from. This is why REmembrance isn’t just about thinking differently. Sometimes we just need to stop and consciously breathe. We need to consciously move and feel. Consciously pause and listen to our bodies, allowing it to become part of the conversation.

 

 

You May Already Know More Than You Think

 

Perhaps we don’t need to become someone who knows more. Perhaps part of the journey is learning to trust what we have already gathered. Not every answer, of course. There will always be more to learn. But there is a difference between learning because we are curious…and endlessly searching because we believe something essential is missing from us.

• Our lives have taught us things.
• Our experiences and our mistakes have taught us things.
• Our joy and our quiet moments have taught us things.
• Our body and your relationships have taught us things.

Inside our library there is wisdom that has never been properly acknowledged. Not because it isn’t there, but because we’ve just been too busy looking for the next book.

 

A Little Inner Cataloguing

 

Maybe today you could open your journal and imagine walking into your own inner library. Don’t try to organise the whole thing, just simply wander around. What shelves immediately catch your attention?

 

• What old story about myself do I keep rereading? Who originally wrote it?
• What have I learned through my own lived experience that I rarely give myself credit for knowing?
• Which parts of myself have been hidden on the forgotten shelves?
• What belief might belong in the history section rather than the present?

 

And perhaps most importantly…What do I know now that I didn’t know back then?

Sit with that one awhile, because you are not the same person who placed most of those books on the shelves.

 

 

 

“Perhaps REmembrance begins when we learn to distinguish between what we were told, what we learned, and what we know within ourselves to be true.” – Fiona Elizabeth

 

 

The Library Is Still Alive

 

Our inner libraries will never be finished. New experiences will always arrive, and new understandings will change the meanings of old chapters. We’ll discover that two things we once thought were completely separate, actually belong side by side by side now.

Some books will become less important while others will suddenly make sense years after we first encountered them. And occasionally we may discover that something we thought we had lost was simply sitting on a shelf that we hadn’t visited for a very long time.

This isn’t about perfectly organising yourself. It isn’t another self-improvement project. It’s about becoming more conscious of what you are holding on to and what you are constantly carrying around with you. Choosing what you continue to believe and recognising the wisdom that is already yours. Step by step learning to distinguish between…what you were told, what you learned, and what you know within yourself to be true.

Perhaps REmembrance is partly this…walking slowly through the library of everything that has shaped you…taking down the stories one by one…and asking yourself…“Does this belong to me?” “Is this really me?”

And somewhere beneath the noise of all those old voices, accumulated teachings, and forgotten chapters…you may begin to hear another voice. A quieter voice. A familiar voice. A patient voice. Your true voice.

And perhaps that voice has been there all along. Just waiting for you to listen.