Getting Lost in Your Stories

The mind has been called a “story telling machine” because it uses language to help us figure out how to interact with the world. Sometimes this works out well, for example when our mind tells us to “turn the cap right to tighten it.” However, when it comes to our relationships our minds can get into trouble.

Relationships are complex and the stories we learned when we were young are often simple and don’t always apply. So as adults, we often carry around stories like “There’s something wrong with me” or “I can’t count on other people.” There was a time when things went wrong or you couldn’t count on someone important to you. But when these experiences become stories, the mind tends to use them like “turn right to tighten.”

We tend to get lost in our stories and believe them to be true, even when there is evidence to the contrary. Our minds tend to notice all the life events that fit with the story and ignore all those that don’t fit. To make matters worse, because we believe the stories we often behave in ways that actually reinforce what our minds are telling us. If you believe you are unloveable, you may behave in ways that make it hard for others to love you.

Anne Lamott has said, “My mind is like a bad neighborhood. I try not to go there alone.” Psychotherapy can help you to not believe the stories your mind tells you. It is usually hard to make them disappear, but if you can learn to get some distance from the stories you don’t need to get rid of them. You learn, instead, to live your life the way you want to even though your mind is telling you old stories.