Why We Make Up Hurtful Stories

photo credit: Arlington Research on Unsplash.com

Not long ago, I created a digital product that I planned to sell online. She was the love child born of my passion for helping people reinvent themselves and for creating practical tools to help them succeed. This was my BABY and I couldn’t wait to introduce her to the world.

You’ll notice that I am not naming this product nor am I including a link so you can buy it. This is because when I was finished, I shared it with a couple of friends whose opinions I value greatly. Their feedback was SOUL-CRUSHING and HARSH. I was heartbroken.

OK…what they actually said were things like, “I don’t get this part. Maybe another example would help” and “You should move your story to the start of the video instead of 58 seconds in.” Now I see how loving and supportive my friends were but in that moment — that exhausted, sleep-deprived, angst-filled moment — anything short of “OH MY GOD! THIS IS GOING TO BRING ABOUT WORLD PEACE” felt like a personal attack.

A week and many hours of sleep later, I saw my product in a whole new light. My friends had actually been kind in NOT pointing out the many flaws I could now see so clearly. I hadn’t created the solution that would save the world. I had built a proving ground in which to test an idea and the idea didn’t work, at least not in its present state. I learned valuable lessons about my business, my friends, and most importantly about myself.

I give everything all the meaning it has for me.

This is why I love Lesson 2 from the A Course in Miracles Workbook.

I have given everything I see in this [place] all the meaning that it has for me.

I was the one who had assigned meaning to the thing, to my friends, and to their words. My suffering and angst were a direct result of the stories that I made up in the moment. If I had been able to create the thing and solicit feedback without attaching such deep meaning to everything, I would have had a much more peaceful and productive experience.

We are hard-wired to explain away hurt

Back in 2015, Oprah Winfrey interviewed Brené Brown about her book, Rising Strong. If you haven’t seen it, the 40+ minute interview is well worth the time to watch.

In the clip below, Dr. Brown talks about how we are neurobiologically hard-wired to make sense of a hurt as soon as it happens, regardless of whether the story we tell ourselves is accurate.

Here is how she explains overcoming this instinct.

All of a sudden, I’m making up a whole narrative. How I treat you the next time I see you is off that narrative. It just keeps going and going….

The first thing I have to do is…when I feel something in response to [what the other person did], I have to A, acknowledge, “Whooo, a button’s been pushed. Something emotional is happening here. I’m responding.”

And then I have to be willing to get curious about what it is. So instead of immediately going to my crazy story, I have to go to, “OK, I’m emotionally hooked around something. I don’t know what just happened but I’m feeling like, stressed out about it. It hurt my feelings or something and I need to figure out more.”

As I reflected on what happened, I realized that the SOUL-CRUSHING and HARSH voice that I had heard was actually my own. It was my Inner Critic that constantly talks smack whenever I try something new and her cruelty was amplified by stress and exhaustion. Once I returned to my more calm and balanced self, then I was able to let go of the stories and see things as they truly were.

All reinvention begins with awareness

Unfortunately, the neurobiological impulse to explain away the hurt is so strong that you may respond without even realizing that a made-up story is fueling your actions. The first step is the awareness that you’ve been triggered, but catching yourself before that instinct kicks in is can be challenging.

The next time you find yourself in an emotional maelstrom, try this exercise.

1. Pause and acknowledge that something inside you has been triggered.
2. Don’t assign blame to others. Instead, uncover the meaning that you are assigning to the thing/person/place/event and the story you are telling yourself.
3. Take a deep breath in.
4. As you breathe out, visualize yourself exhaling the story and any and all meaning you have given the situation.
5. Pause and acknowledge how you feel now.
6. Journal about these experiences as they happen either on your phone or carry a little notebook with you for this purpose.

How are you learning and practicing self-awareness? Do you have a favorite way of capturing the moment and documenting the lessons you are learning? I’d love to hear about them in the comments below.