“The story I am telling myself is…”
Embracing "The Story I'm Telling Myself"
I want to share a concept that's been stirring around in my mind and body lately. It came to me years ago and then faded a bit… you know how that happens… you get blessed with a nugget of wisdom and then we drift away from it. Well recently I was in a conversation with someone who was using this powerful phrase and it struck me. Reminded me.
She started a sentence with…"The story I'm telling myself is…".
She was sharing information she had gathered and also asking for my opinion and ideas. But instead of telling me what was TRUTH and CERTAIN… she floated this phrase “The story I’m telling myself is…” and then went on to share.
Can you feel the openness? The curiosity? The humility? I did.
Let’s unpack a bit further…
We all have know those moments when we catch ourselves spinning narratives in our head?
We feel something, see something, or experience something and we immediately create a narrative about it. About the person, their motives, the outcome, what they should do, what they did right or wrong. We are as gifted as shakespeare at spinning these webs of story, character, and motive.
“The story I am telling myself” opener is like a gentle nudge to pause and take a closer look at the stories we're weaving.
Brené Brown, our queen researcher of vulnerability and shame and emotional mapper, introduced this phrase to me help us unpack the tales we tell ourselves about who we are, what others think of us, and how the world works. It's like shining a light on those inner monologues and saying,
"Hey, what's really going on here?"
Now, let's talk about Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy.
Picture this: your mind is like a big family reunion, with different "parts" of yourself showing up with their own quirks and stories. Understanding these parts and how they interact can be a total game-changer.
So, when we embrace "The story I'm telling myself is…", we're not just playing detective with our thoughts; we're inviting all those parts to the table for a heart-to-heart. It's like giving each part a chance to share their perspective and finding some common ground.
And here's the juicy part: by getting curious about our stories, we start to see things from new angles. Suddenly, those old beliefs don't hold as much power, and we're free to rewrite the script.
Anaïs Nin once said, "We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are."
Isn't that just a truth bomb? Our perceptions are colored by our own experiences and beliefs, so it makes sense that our stories might need a little reality check now and then.
Now, let's add a sprinkle of wisdom from Richard Rohr. He talks about the importance of truly "seeing" beyond our own biases and preconceptions. When we open ourselves up to new perspectives, we expand our understanding of the world and ourselves.
In a nutshell, "The story I'm telling myself is…" isn't just a phrase—it's a superpower.
Events happen in our lives, but each person processes and experiences any given event in their own unique way.
Aldous Huxley captured the core reality: "Experience is not what happens to you, it's what you do with what happens to you."
In other words, there are two layers of reality. There is the objective reality of what happens, and there is the subjective reality of how what happened is seen, interpreted, made meaningful. That second subjective layer can sometimes be the more important layer.
So, next time you catch yourself lost in thought, give it a whirl. Who knows? You might just uncover a whole new chapter waiting to be written.
Be careful the stories you tell about yourself.
Be careful about the stories you tell about others.