Tell Yourself a Better Story
By: Cameron Jeffries
Tags: Awareness, Narrative, Self Help, Communication, Spirituality

Tell Yourself a Better Story

Finding Our Way Out of the False Narratives We Perpetuate

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

One of my favorite researchers, authors, and speakers is Brené Brown. If you haven’t become familiar with her work, please do yourself a favor and check out her research. She has a Netflix special, multiple youtube videos, and a plethora of books to explore. Brené mainly dedicates herself to the study of whole-hearted living, courage, shame, vulnerability, etc. Something she stated in her Netflix special really resonated with me and turned out to be the inspiration for this post. When discussing an argument she was having with her husband on vacation, she explained how she used a technique to communicate better by using this phrase: “The story I am telling myself right now is…”

Wow. It doesn’t sound super insightful at first glance, but it is actually quite profound. Why? Because it acknowledges the fact that one’s thoughts (the stories we tell ourselves) and reality could possibly be off-balance or out of alignment. In this case, she is admitting that she could be taking his words and actions and attaching a story to it that just doesn’t reflect the reality of the situation. In this case, they were on a vacation and had gone for a swim. She spoke to him in the water about how glad she was to be there with him, but he seemed to have brushed her off each time she made a point to cherish the moment they were spending together. We later find out that he wasn’t ignoring her after all. He was fighting off a panic attack due to a dream he had the night prior about being in the water, concerning the safety of their children. The story she was telling herself about his actions was that he no longer found her as attractive as he used to. Nothing could’ve been further from the truth. He was simply trying to make it through the swim. This is a prime example of how our brains reward us for coming up with stories to explain our reality, something Brené discusses in an interview with Oprah. As good as that can be sometimes, it can wreck many areas of our lives if we allow the stories we tell ourselves to go unchecked. In this case, it caused an unnecessary argument rooted in insecurity.

Now, think back to a time where you may have made false assumptions about how people were speaking or treating you. Has it ever caused unnecessary conflict or tension in a friendship, relationship, or with a colleague? Probably so. If not, please teach me your ways!

This practice of speaking the stories we tell ourselves can really help break past communication barriers, allowing others to peek into the initial reaction of how their actions and/or words made us feel at a gut level.

The stories we tell ourselves are not just confined to the ways in which we have interpreted the words and actions of others but also includes our own embedded beliefs, perception of lived experiences, words, thoughts, and actions.

In this post, I want to explore less about the benefits of the disclosure of the stories and more about being mindful about the content of the stories we tell ourselves, how our words and thoughts inform the stories, and how we end up living into those stories.

Our words and thoughts are powerful and can impact the stories we tell ourselves.

Most religions and philosophies acknowledge this theory in some way, shape, or form.

In Christianity, there are multiple passages of scripture that bear witness to this:

“The tongue has the power of life and death…” (Proverbs 18:21a) “…for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” (Matthew 12:34b) “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.” (Philippians 4:8)

In Buddhist scriptures, it is said:

“Whatever a monk keeps pursuing with his thinking and pondering, that becomes the inclination of his awareness.” (Majjhima Nikaya 19) “Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought.” (Dhammapada)

17th Century philosopher, René Descartes quotes:

“I think, therefore, I am.”

Not only do major religions and philosophies ponder the way the mind and thoughts shape life, but science also brings an exciting discovery in the area of neuroplasticity: The Merriam-Webster dictionary says neuroplasticity is “the capacity for continuous alteration of the neural pathways and synapses of the living brain and nervous system in response to experience or injury.”

A logical deduction could be that thoughts and experiences can literally rewire our brain, whether it be for bad or good. This is why the stories we tell ourselves matter.

Our thoughts have power. They usually become self-fulfilling prophecies in a sense. If we spend years telling ourselves the story that we can’t do something, we are probably going to convince ourselves of that falsehood over and over again, further beating it into our minds. When we get stuck in these negative thought loops, we fail to put ourselves out there after a heartbreak, fail to try that purpose-giving side-hustle that could one day be our primary source of income, or fail to learn more about our hobbies because we feel we will never be the absolute best at them. On the flip-side, if we spend our days telling ourselves stories of encouragement, our thoughts can put us in a headspace that allows us to succeed. Recovering from our negative thought loops can tell us that, contrary to our defeatist stories’ claims, we are worthy of love no matter how someone treated us in the past, that we are capable and competent enough to make the side-hustle our only hustle, and that it doesn’t really matter if we are the best at something because we realize that our worth is not measured by how our talents rank among others.

Finding our way to the truth:

How do we begin to navigate our way out of the negative stories to which we default? Awareness and intentionality.

In order to recover and reshape the stories we tell ourselves, we must first be able to identify and recognize those stories. Once we recognize them, we must be intentional to weed out the false narratives and replace them with narratives that more accurately reflect reality. This is easier said than done, though, because you are essentially rewiring your default perceptions, assumptions, and responses. Once you have started reshaping your stories to reflect the truth it can lead to greater fulfillment in friendships, relationships, spirituality, and ultimately dictate the trajectory of your life.

Let me take a moment to ackowledge that I am not calling for false-positivity here, which says everything is great when it’s not (especially when it comes to interpersonal relationships), because sometimes the stories we tell ourselves are reflective of reality. I am simply asking us to examine those stories and allow ourselves to break past the ones that are perpetuating a false narrative.

We live into the stories we tell ourselves, so tell yourself a better story.

Be aware of the stories you tell yourself. Tell the false ones to run away and be intentional about replacing the narrative with the story of your worth, your value, and the fact that you can work to overcome the negative thought loops that affect us all, because you’re worthy of the truth, and the truth sets us free.