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“It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.”
- Patrick Rothfuss
Our Stories
We humans seem hardwired to tell stories. We are narrative creatures. So much so that the German ethnologist Kurt Ranke referred to us as Homo Narrans ('storytelling human'.) Most of us have an internal dialog that automatically runs in the background of our minds. Its job is to try to make sense of an incredibly complex world. It creates stories to interpret the people and stituations we encounter. Those ‘inside stories’ are often a very helpful aspect of our inner lives.
Until they aren’t.
Sometimes the stories we tell can get away from us. Here’s an example:
You’re walking down a busy street and see your neighbor Joe across the street. You smile and wave to him but instead of waving back, he turns and walks away.
Immediately, your mind starts crafting a narrative to explain what just happened. If you’re anything like me, you might have thoughts like, “gosh, I thought Joe and I were friends. What did I do to upset him? It must have been pretty bad for him to not even want to wave at me.” Your mind starts to create stories that support those ideas.
Left unchallenged, those stories can haunt us.
The problem is that we confuse our stories with reality. In this example, it’s actually more likely that Joe just didn’t see you wave at him. What happens when you tell that story? You avoid a lot of stress and rumination.
Change begins with a quiet but radical realization: What I’m experiencing is not reality itself—it’s a story about reality. Once we come to terms with that fact, then we can start to be more aware of our internal narratives and start to intentionally create stories that serve us instead of haunt us.
It takes awareness and practice. And it’s worth the effort.
Have any of your stories haunted you?
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You can read about my new keynote presentation called The Inside Story - Interrogating Our Internal Narratives to Create Meaningful Change at https://www.dantrommater.com/what-i-do/#speaking