What Stories Do You Tell Yourself

What Stories Do You Tell Yourself?

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My husband and I were embroiled in a disagreement over a Netflix series for a few days. I tell you this at the risk that it makes me look foolish, but I’ll explain here to make a point.

Our conflict revolved around our failure to settle on the rules of watching. May I begin to fall asleep and then insist I can keep watching while David fumes because he expects to watch the show with someone who is awake?

As is often the case, the details of the struggle had nothing to do with the show but rather the underlying issues we deal with. We both brought our own stories to the fray about ourselves and each other.

The issue boiled down to several thoughts for each of us, the primary one about being a caring partner. We resolved the matter by deciding to go our separate ways and watch the final episodes of the season independently.

More broadly, the whole of humanity is like this. We each float in a bubble of our own stories. We are each a storyteller with our narrative of how we view events.

These stories pack the details we encounter with perceived meaning and elicit the feelings that ebb and flow within us.

Since the emotional reactions to stories are so powerful, it’s essential to evaluate the stories to see if they’re true. Stories, at their core, can inspire and carry us forward…or create a kind of hell in which we wallow.

Here, we offer you some “thoughts” and a tool to quickly reflect and measure the validity of the stories you tell.

Sometimes the stories we tell ourselves obscure our truth. Ken Liu

Stories Propel Your Feelings

Thoughts are abbreviated stories. Over time, we create these placeholder stories and often repeat them out of habit. These thoughts cycle through ironically without much thought involved at all. Like an old and familiar t-shirt, we pull them out repeatedly in our thinking.  

A shortlist of common thoughts include:

I am capable.

I am smart.

I am unlovable.

I am guilty.

I am confident.

I am selfish.

I am loving.

I am threatened.

Unfortunately, our thoughts are often inaccurate or, at the least incomplete. They still stick, though, because we are so used to thinking them.

All the while, we churn these thoughts—whether true or not—that gin up our feelings. Then we act based on these feelings and the internal stories we tell.

When entrenched in our feelings, especially painful ones, we lose sight that feelings are often fleeting. Unchecked feelings like persisting sadness and resentment can become moods that linger into funks, including depression.   

Find the Source of a Feeling 

If thoughts are the source of feelings, some of them quite painful, that impact our actions, wouldn’t it seem logical to test and see if they are true?

Yes, but it’s not easy to break old thoughts.

I’m working on it myself, and I realize it’s ongoing work that requires smaller steps. However, getting a handle on what we feel and why can bring us back to center with a more genuine version of our stories.

We move through our days, often blinded by our feelings that percolate, yet they propel our actions. Either we can’t pin a feeling down with words, or we don’t recognize its presence.

To understand the source of your feelings, we propose reverse-engineering the cause-and-effect model backward. Start with identifying the feeling, then work your way back to the likely thought cultivating the feeling.

We’ve created a “Connect-the-Thoughts” sheet to assist you in pinpointing the story you might be telling yourself.

With a bit of reflection, you can identify the feeling, then ponder the underlying thought (i.e., story) you tell yourself, and then measure the reliability of the thought.

Thoughts Are Just Thoughts

Not to get too philosophical here, but our ability to think thoughts is an incredible human experience. Each of us has the capacity to create the stories we tell.

Since we do this thinking all the time, we take for granted that the thoughts are true because we think them.

I’m reminded of the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. After facing death many times, finally, Indiana stands before a row of chalices in a tomb, tasked with quickly selecting the holy grail among them. The knight, who has been there to protect the holy grail for 700 years, says to Indiana, “choose wisely.” 

Postscript: When things seem out of control like it feels these days, acting where we have control is a comfort. Cleaning up your stuff is within your power! If you need help getting going on organizing your home check out Get Organized Gal’s courses for support.

I used her course to organize my office, and it is in pretty good shape these days. Success in one space has lead to cleaning channels to other rooms and photos as well. Check out he courses here. 

Sherry and Alexandra Borzo together in Lima, Peru

Sherry is the founder of Storied Gifts a personal publishing service of family and company histories. She and her team help clients curate and craft their stories into books. When not writing or interviewing, Sherry spends loads of time with her grandchildren and lives in Des Moines, Iowa.

STORIED GIFTS SHOP

Need a beautiful infusion of inspiration for your storied life? Please check out the Storied Gifts Shop where the theme is Words of Encouragement.

The shop is a mother and daughter venture for Sherry and Alexandra Borzo of Content In Motion. They both work to help their client's stories sing. The shop is their effort to inspire a focus on healthy minds for everyone through positive thought.

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