Why Your Story Matters

I’ve been thinking about stories. Not the kind in books but the ones we tell ourselves. I’ve been thinking about the stories we tell ourselves to explain the social world in which we move. Each of us has her own stories that give meaning to the behavior of others, or that explain our reactions to that behavior. Mostly, we don’t think of them as, or call them, stories. For us, they are simply the truth, a set of facts that we accept without question. “She is so controlling.” “He’s a momma’s boy.” “She acts like everything is about her.” “I had to suck it up and be the bigger person.” “He’s a drama queen.” “She ruined my life.”

I know it can be difficult—truly challenging, even—to accept that our interpretations of experience are not objective fact. It can be hard to let go of them, as our capital-R Reality. But they are, actually, little, local realities, unique to each of us. Perhaps this idea is new for you, but I assure you there is nothing new about understanding reality as individual, as unique, rather than shared. Many psychologists and spiritual leaders, alike, both historical and modern, write and speak about how we each interpret the activity around us through our individual filters. Law enforcement professionals cope with the reality that every eye witness to a crime has an individual and unique description of events. There is even a prominent child development and education model, known as Constructivism, founded on the premise that each child constructs a large proportion of his knowledge, particularly his social knowledge.

And all of these theories and approaches arise from a hard science:  neuro-science, the study of the physical brain. Our human brains are unique in the animal kingdom, for the presence of a neo-cortex. The primary job of this largest part of our three-part brain is to interpret sensory input. The neo-cortex is a story teller! Data come streaming in through the eyes, ears, and other sensory organs, and the neo-cortex figures out what those data mean. As if that level of individuality weren’t enough, the neo-cortex is also uniquely created in each individual, a result of early experiences. The variety and nature of the sensory input from birth to five years of age literally build 90% of individual brains’ architectures. The network of neural connections that exist now in your neo-cortex was built, link by link, in the first three years of your life.

Around the age of 2-1/2 to 3 years, a window of opportunity opens, in which we may have begun to recognize that our stories are unique to us. This is our chance to emerge from the egocentrism of the toddler years, and learn that nobody else has our thoughts, feelings, dreams and desires. If your adult caregivers helped you to mine the Childhood Treasure of Independence, then you became aware that, in many ways, you are unique. You learned that others could not know what you felt, thought, or wanted, unless you spoke these internal truths aloud. Or maybe you didn’t learn that.

That we don’t all get to take full advantage of this window of opportunity is evident in our adult behavior. The classic and erroneous statement, “If you really loved me, you’d know how I feel,” is clear evidence of lingering toddler-vision. Inability of a small group of co-workers to decide where to go for lunch is another example. “Oh, I don’t care; wherever you want to go is fine.” Life abounds with examples of ways in which many of us still act as if we believe others know what we know, feel what we feel, and want for us what we want for ourselves. That is toddler-vision, in a nutshell.

Your story, my story; each and both will always be true…to the individual who tells it to herself. Let us suppose that you and I, together, witness a loud dispute between two others whom we both know and love. My story is that I have witnessed a bitter, damaging power-play that diminished one of the two and revealed the abusive nature of the other. Your story is that you have just seen healthy conflict resolution and a strong relationship in action. Who is correct? Which of these interpretations of observed reality is “right” or “true?” Both. Neither. Truly, does it matter?

At first glance, you may hear these words, “your realities—the ‘facts’ as you know them—are unique to you,” as a message that they are “just stories,” as if that eliminates or reduces their validity. That is not true. Each of us does, literally, author unique dramas, moral tales, and comedies of meaning about our experiences AND those stories are true. They are valid for us, and they absolutely shape who we think we are and how we behave. You can create stories that nourish the learning edges of your personal growth. You can also create stories that are a source of pain, tear down your confidence, and taint your relationships.

Your stories are powerful. My stories are powerful. They absolutely define how each of us sees the world. Therefore, they guide how we each interface with the world, and, finally, how we feel about what we think is going on. And that might be the hardest aspect of this situation to accept:  our feelings don’t result from the objective, observable facts of life around us, but from our stories about those facts, our unique interpretations.

When I truly “got it” that meaning is not inherent in experience, I became a new version of myself. This was revelation, a foundation-shaking paradigm shift. Yet, I was also boomeranged back to a younger version of myself, back in the 70s, mentally sporting my “Question Reality” button on denim overalls. As in “The Work” of Byron Katie (Who Are You without Your Stories?), I now give myself permission to question every thought and feeling I have, to become aware of whether they serve my well-being or growth, or perhaps to reject them as soul-dissolving or relationship-killing poisons. I recognize my power to choose my thoughts and, in doing so, to choose my emotional state, which is so closely tied to my thoughts that it occurs nearly simultaneously. When my thoughts (interpretation of data) and their related emotions occur together often enough, I wind up deeply steeped in a story that is nearly impervious to change.

Here’s a story of this dynamic in my life.  I once went through an experience of having someone “hating on me” for a long span of months. Then I learned that the story she was telling herself was that I am “just like” her mother, whom she “can’t stand.” Of course this is a story; I can’t be “just like” anyone else. This woman's filter only let in the data that were echoes of her mother, part me and part projection of her Mother Story, so she actually never saw all they ways I’m not at all like her mother. If my whole self were cut up into puzzle pieces, she was only able to see a few of them.

My stories about her made it equally impossible to see who she really was. “She lives her life as a victim.” “She’s passive aggressive.” “She’s threatened by my self-assurance and personal power.” We were locked into these views of each other. It absolutely didn't matter what either of us did or said. The filters through which we saw each other were so securely in place that we could only see those stories. Any sensory data that contradicted them was simply filtered out. I could only see/hear what affirmed my stories of her and she could only see/hear what affirmed hers of me. These stories were completely shaping our interactions and relationship.

Here’s the real problem:  I didn’t like how I felt. I’d like to think that those feelings were caused by her directing all that hate and anger toward me. But the truth is that my emotions came from the stories I told myself about her, including "she's been hating on me for months." Were those stories true? Maybe. Does it matter? Yes, because there was only one solution to my unhappiness. I could only change my own behavior, my thoughts, my stories; I couldn't change her stories and feelings. But I could choose different thoughts about her, interpreting data into a new story that let me be loving, compassionate, and, well, happier…no matter her story about me.

My new stories:  1) She’s doing the best she can with the tools she has. 2) It is so hard and painful to live life controlled by that much anger. 3) From my own experience of anger, I know it as a defense against fear, the real controller. 4) I have empathy for someone controlled by fear; I’ve been there.

Are these new stories true? Maybe. They’re certainly just as true as my old stories, so why not choose these?

Does the switch matter to her? Maybe and maybe not…but I changed my story for my own benefit. My heart runs a river of peace now, instead of a river of poison. And that matters to me; it deeply matters. Because these thoughts and feelings absolutely shape who I think I am and how I behave. I can create stories that nourish the learning edges of my personal growth. And so can you.