The Stories We Tell
Understanding How We Interpret, Remember, and Recreate Our Experiences
We transform our lives and our history into stories. Stories are how we remember what happened. We turn everything into a story. We teach our children and others with our stories.
Here are a couple of questions to ask ourselves:
How are our stories affecting our family and us?
Do we realize our stories are how we interpret what happened and may not be as accurate as we think?
Have we considered how the stories we tell shape our perception of the past, present, and future?
We tell stories to remember and to make sense of what happened. Think about some memory you have with a friend or family member. Do you tell the story or embellish it with details, feelings, and interpretations at least a little?
Our stories are not as accurate as we think they are. Our own biases, beliefs, and emotions filter each story. We may exaggerate the importance of certain events, minimize others, or even wholly omit details that don’t fit our narrative. How we tell stories can lead to distorted memories, skewed perceptions, and even emotional baggage.
Think about some traumatic event. The story we tell ourselves is how we frame it in our minds. This framing can have a tremendous impact. It can lead to healing or hurting, staying in the past, or moving forward.
We can tell a story that makes us the victim and helpless and only perpetuates our feelings of fear and anxiety. Or we can tell the story as our being strong and resilient and overcoming adversity.
The crucial question I challenge you to ask yourself right now is, “How are our stories allowing our past to affect us? “Are we letting our past define us, or are we using it as a source of learning and growth?”
The actual event probably took much less time than our story implies. We make it longer and more challenging to be sure we have a good story. Our emotions make us feel like it was hours, weeks, and months when it may have only lasted minutes.
The stories we tell are powerful tools. Stories help us understand our world, our relationships, and even ourselves.
Have you considered reshaping your story, changing the narrative, and creating a more fulfilling and meaningful life?
Quotes
“We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories." Jonathan Gottschall
"We tell ourselves stories in order to live." Joan Didion
"To be a person is to have a story to tell." Isak Dinesen
"Stories are memory aids, instruction manuals and moral compasses." Aleks Krotoski
"Storytelling is the essential human activity. The harder the situation, the more essential it is." Tim O'Brien
"The stories we tell literally make the world. If you want to change the world, you need to change your story." Michael Margolis
"It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are." Patrick Rothfuss
"Story is the vehicle we use to make sense of our lives in a world that often defies logic."
Jim Trelease
"Storytelling is the game. It's what we all do." Gary Vaynerchuk