The Stories We Tell Ourselves
As humans we are very story-oriented and all cultures have relied on stories to pass down information. Sometimes the stories serve as explanations for events in the past or situations that might arise. Other times the stories are cautionary tales aimed at helping our tribe members avoid pitfalls and dangers in the world.
We tell stories in our day to day lives as a way of communicating and connecting with those around us. In fact our brains are designed to listen to and digest stories. When something is presented to us as a story it becomes way more understandable and relatable to us. Even someone’s doctoral dissertation is just a complex and verbose story being told about something.
We Fill In The Gaps
Not only do we tell stories to those around us and in our lives, we also tell stories to ourselves. Our self-talk and conversations within our own heads are often stories or pieces of stories. Our stream of consciousness is a story, not always coherent or flowing perfectly, but a story just the same.
What happens when we are presented with situations or facts that don’t come with full explanations or have pieces missing? Our brains fill in the blanks. They turn whatever is happening into stories. The only problem is that our brains are filling in the blanks to create a story which may not be based on the truth or actual facts.
We in turn can allow ourselves to be lured down the path of assuming that our stories in our heads are THE true story. These assumptions are often what leads to breakdowns in communication and bad ties with the people in our lives. Too many of us carry around resentment and hurt feelings tied to someone who never actually hurt us or meant to offend us. We simply let our brains fill in blanks with fearful and inaccurate storylines and then we accepted those as reality.
Our brains have the goal of keeping us safe from harm and lean into fearful thoughts and stories if we let them. This phenomenon was useful in our caveman days, as it was better to fear something and live than to chance things and end up with a spear through our hearts. Unfortunately our wiring hasn’t changed much from those primitive days and we can be plagued by the same fear and anxieties.
When someone suddenly stops texting us or responding to us we can start making up reasons for their change in behavior. Most of the optional reasons that we use to fill in the gaps have nothing to do with the real reasons that we were left not being responded to. For example our brains can lead us down the path of thinking that the other person suddenly decided that we were not worth their time to respond to, or that we were replaced by someone else who is more interesting, or worse yet that the other party was in a horrific accident and is now dead. The reality of the reason that we were left unresponded to? Something urgent came up with their job and they had to drop everything to deal with it. Without knowing what was actually going on we could let our assumptions and own fears take over our thoughts and push our stories into unproductive and anxiety inducing pathways.
Brene Brown’s Advice
Popular author Brene Brown tackles this very topic and gives great strategies for rising out of these thought patterns and assumptions. She recommends that we write down our “Shitty (or stormy) First Drafts (SFD’s).” Write down the story or stories that we are telling ourselves, no matter how crazy or ludicrous they seem. Write them down for yourself and don’t worry about how absurd they appear. Get all the gory versions down on paper.
Look at those SFD stories and try to find the emotions that are tied to them. Follow those emotions to their roots. Figure out what you are afraid of and how that is tying itself into your stories. This takes a lot of vulnerability because you are looking deeper into yourself and working to be curious about how you got to those conclusions or stories.
Now Brene would say we need to rumble with our SFD’s. This means reread those stories and look for where our fears or anxieties might be influencing the stories. Are we being insecure about something or unlawfully fearful about some aspects which are influencing our brains into creating stories that are off-base?
This part is tough because you have to be open and honest enough with yourself to get down to the roots of why your brain fills in gaps with the things that came up. It is in the rumble that we need to decide if what we are doing is self-protection and how much of it is truth. We then can decide what we need to accept or change in order to live more wholeheartedly.
The more we practice these steps in our lives the easier it is to lean automatically into this process when we get unsettled by stories that our brains make up. Brene’s next piece of advice is to write a new ending to our stories. This can simply be by readjusting our stories to the reality of life. Sometimes it means talking with the person(s) involved in our stories and letting them know “I am telling myself…” and fact checking if that is accurate. Nine times out of ten the other person can explain exactly why they behaved the way they did and nine times out of ten it does not match what we told ourselves at all.
These moments can clear up so many things in our lives and help us to escape anxious ignorance about a situation way sooner than if we simply processed everything on our own. Our brains are so good at coming up with worst case scenarios that it is easy to be tormented by our own thoughts, which don’t actually match reality.
I have had many occasions where I was overthinking a situation, behavior, or something someone else said and once I opened up, became vulnerable, and let them know what story I was telling myself, they were able to clear the air. It is like having a weight lifted off of us. Even if it turns out that our SFD was accurate, it allows us to move forward and adjust our sails for future winds.
Allow And Encourage Others To Share Their Stories
Everybody’s brain fills in gaps and creates stories for them. Not only does the process described above work great when implemented with ourselves but also works well with those around us. Encourage the people in your life to share what stories they are telling themselves and you will often find great growth opportunities for yourself and your own communication.
There are so many times when someone has opened up to me and shared the story they are telling themself that I realize I was not clear or communicated poorly and caused them worries. By them opening up to me I have been able to increase my own awareness and become a better person in their life.
When there is tension with someone else or you can simply tell that something is off, don’t be afraid to make space and an opportunity for them to open up and share what their stories are. This opening up can let some fresh air breathe into your friendships/relationships. We all have a friend who we appreciate for their blunt honesty with us. Friends that will question our behaviors and who help us to grow are invaluable!
Our brains are always going to fill in gaps with faulty information, so growing the ability to question the stories we tell ourselves and reaching out to those in our lives to clarify reality can bring a lot of peace and settle the waves in our ponds.
Don’t be afraid to bring up this topic in your next session with Julie at Posture Massage! She loves to hear your stories and will share her own about times when her assumptions were way off base. If you would like to learn more about Brene Brown’s ideas and recommendations for living more wholeheartedly and with more vulnerability, consider reading her book Rising Strong and Daring Greatly!
