A Personal Myth is a story that explains what life is about. It tells us "How It Is." All Personal Myths are unique, because many factors contribute to them. These factors include our experiences, cultural conditioning, and innate influences such as our genetic predispositions, spiritual nature, and natal astrological configurations, if you believe in such things. Large groups of people may share portions of broad cultural themes such as religious or nationalistic stories, but ultimately, our personal myths are our own — unique to each of us.

We are characters in our stories, and the revolving roles we play within them determine how we act. Roles are essentially psychological patterns that filter our experiences and influence what and how we see, hear, think, and feel. They mold our behavior. Eventually, these patterns can strengthen or harm our body. Fortunately, the stories are our creations, and we can re-write them, effectively changing our character. Like this, we are the authors of our future selves. This is one of the secrets of evolution.

How They Affect Us
Our myth tells us what is real. We take it as a fact whether or not it has any grounding in existential reality. If our stories are fearful, then we will live fearful lives even if we live in a fortress and have hoarded millions of dollars. If our stories are hopeful, then we will live hopeful lives, and so on. By extension, our myths influence and manifest in the outer world. This is easy enough to see, at least in some ways.

For example, say you are a happy, uplifting person. When you meet someone, they will become a bit happier and uplifted. Their story will determine how much happiness they will allow themselves to experience, but you will be influencing him or her in an upward direction anyway. Simultaneously, he or she will be influencing you, either upwards or downwards. This is true partly because we may think we have a fixed identity in our story. However, we may be someone different altogether in another person's story. Identity is dynamic, and both internal and external factors influence it.

Nationalistic stories have more pronounced effects simply because more people take part in them. They initiate large-scale actions that are either supportive or destructive to other nations and to its own people. The results determine if our collective actions advance or undermine humanity's spiritual progress. Politically, imperialistic nations are warlike and rarely support spiritual interests or even humanitarian programs. They are consistent in their devolutionary march towards power and conquest. Whether they do so under the guise of "fighting terror," "spreading democracy," or other socially acceptable causes, those systems ultimately crumble beneath their own weight and cause great suffering along the way.

   

Story, Mind, Emotion
Structurally, a myth is a series of ideas strung together into (what looks like to the believer) a coherent whole. While they may make perfect sense to the believer, from a holistic viewpoint, they can be irrational. In addition, if the story rules out certain aspects of reality, then believers will consider whatever it has ruled out as "impossible," even if the evidence of its reality is obvious.

Although myths usually operate subconsciously, they can trigger any number of emotions. It works like this: First, the thought (idea) arises in the brain, which in turn causes an emotional response. It's as if the mental body is a movie projector, flashing a story to the audience, the emotional body. If the film is a horror show, then we will feel scared. A comedy will make us feel happy; an inspirational theme will uplift us, and so on. The mental body creates the stories, and the emotional body feels them. The question should be: "What movie am I playing?" You don't need a new audience.

For instance, say you are thinking about what you don't have. This will make you feel deprived. Conversely, if you focus on and appreciate what you do have, however modest, then you will feel content. With a simple shift of perspective — a change in the story line — we feel differently. In a small way, this simple technique allows us to change the world for the better, because we are better.

The body has its own stories too. Though they vary widely, you can find them written in both our collective and personal myths. For instance, the body's reproductive impulse fuels our desire to mate, and we build stories around the proper (or improper) use of reproductive energy. Our story will influence how we deal with and express ourselves sexually. Without delving into moral implications, our stories can make us frigid with fear, guilt, or disgust. At the other extreme, we can act unbalanced with addictive, unfeeling, and irresponsible behaviors.

Other Ramifications
A natural law exists that is a powerful co-creative tool: "The universe rearranges itself to accommodate your myth." You and your partner (the universe) create your life drama. You write the story, and the universe plays it out. Billions of other Personal Myths are manifesting too — one myth per person. In an overwhelming display of "possibility co-ordination," the universe rearranges itself to accommodate all of these myths — the collective myth — on the world stage simultaneously. Think of the potential.

If you broadcast a negative picture of reality, the universe will dutifully rearrange itself and give you evidence that your picture is real. The process is self-perpetuating. One negative idea will lead to another and you will create a vortex of downward spiraling energy. You will "go negative" and, psychologically, start swirling down the dark drain of fear, anger, or depression. Conversely, positive pictures will create an upward spiraling vortex — a virtual stairway to Heaven. The trick is to keep the universe manifesting your picture of reality — your picture of "Heaven on Earth."

   

A Technique
One way to lessen the impact of negative stories is to label them as "manifested illusions." If what you are thinking, feeling, or encountering is not heavenly, then you consider it an illusion. Theoretically, you vision of Heaven on Earth exists already, and it's just a matter of manifesting it. Maybe it exists in a parallel universe, or maybe it's in this universe as a "potential" reality waiting to emerge. If you can imagine it, then the potential for it to exist is real. So when a negative story line is active you think, "Ha! A manifested illusion!" or something to that effect. The Universe rearranges itself to accommodate what you believe is real — not what is unreal. So, by understanding and defining something as a manifested illusion, you take away its punch. You can apply this to the stories of others and to collective ones as well.

Say for example someone believes "greed is good." You could argue with him about it, but you would create a downward spiral for yourself in the process. By agreeing that it's real, you participate in duality. Alternatively, you could label it a manifested illusion and then deal with it from that viewpoint. You don't need to ignore something negative. Just avoid the polarity trap, which can happen when pictures of reality clash.

Change
In principle, changing our story is easy; in practice, it takes work. To do so, you must be aware of your thoughts. You watch your story as it unfolds and understand what it implies. What makes this difficult is that a good portion of our story operates below the surface of consciousness. The story line has become second nature and doesn't call our attention. It just plays itself out. In addition, some parts of our myths are complex and deep rooted. Those often require additional work to resolve.

You can, though, re-write many of your scripts even on the fly. If you are feeling down, you can add a simple phrase like, "It's OK to be happy," and you will change. Many techniques operate on this principle. One is the "Polar Shift Technology," which is a free download at http://lightlounge.org/tech/index4.html.

Conclusion
"Change the story, change the world." That phrase might sound trite, but the idea is an effective way to make psychological and spiritual progress. If we as individuals, the country, or the world can change our story from "fear and greed" to "love and cooperation," then Heaven on Earth will begin to take shape. And it is happening already — the order amid the chaos.