How I Use Move On, Motherfucker (MOMF) in My Own Life Story
Everyone has a story line. Your parents or other caregivers started writing yours early in life, and at some point, you took over the writing.
Perhaps adults in your life told you how great you were, so you believed in your own greatness. Maybe they taught you to focus on brains or skills or more superficially, beauty, so you believed in those qualities. Maybe adults taught you terrible things like self-doubt, guilt, or shame, so you believed you were not good enough.
All of these early messages contribute to your story line. They shape how you now narrate your own life. They shape your drive as the main character. They shape the other characters you allowed into your story.
Do you recognize this in your life? If you do, you can actively take control and change your story line so that you get what you want. Let me tell you how, but hang on. This may sound a little crazy.
In my own life, I have a narrator — the cool, calm, wise one who is watching the shitshow of daily life making shrewd observations. I also have a main character, who is flailing in the muck of daily life. The narrator often catches the main character playing the motherfucker. There is the hero (arrogant motherfucker), the control freak (crazy motherfucker), and the victim (poor motherfucker) among others. Then, there a host of other players who come and in out of the story line.
The narrator is my head. The main character is my heart.
In my earlier years, the main character played the motherfucker role at least 50% of the time with no clue what the narrator was saying or what it meant.
With a lot of practice, my main character listens to the narrator 100% of the time. About 80% of the time, my main character follows the narrator’s advice. The other 20% of the time my main character does something different, but I try to make it a conscious choice.
Key Lesson: The moment my head (narrator) tells me that I am playing the motherfucker, it is my choice whether to continue. This is intentional self-awareness — where I own my responses. Let me be clear, it has taken a lot of work to develop intentional self-awareness.
Even so, I still subconsciously fall into the motherfucker role because I am human, I have feelings, and the emotional quicksand calls to me. This is the color and vibrancy of life. Yet, the moment I am aware that I have fallen in, I am able to consider the insight, understanding, and context provided by the narrator. This allows me to manage my feelings instead of my feelings managing me. I like to say to myself in whatever tone of voice is needed, “Move on, motherfucker.”
Intentional self-awareness is cultivated by watching our story lines play out and identifying all of the characters involved. It isn’t avoiding pain. It is accepting pain as necessary for learning and growth.
If we start a daily practice of just observing ourselves, observing our thoughts and behaviors, we will be better able to identify our primary story lines. We will then be able to take control of our story lines and stop automatic reactions. We will be able to stop repetitive behaviors that get us into trouble. We will be able to become active participants in the stories of our own lives rather than continuing to blindly engage in the stories that others wrote for us.
We are more than blank slates programmed to go through life in a predetermined way. We have choice, which is infinitely available. It is never too late. Every moment is a moment to learn and understand if we can just stop judging. Judging takes you into emotional quicksand, where you will drown. No judgment is needed anyway because in a story, all characters have a role.
The narrator’s job is to gently (or not so gently) nudge the main character to own it or perhaps, “Move on, Motherfucker.”
