Latest / Amazing Life Breakthrough / Ep 82 | What Story Are You Telling Yourself?

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Ep 82 | What Story Are You Telling Yourself? · Amazing Life Breakthrough

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever had what seemed like a really good conversation with somebody, and then later started picking it apart?
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it lasted an hour.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: You opened up, they opened up.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: There was laughter.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe there were even a few tears.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Things were said that needed to be said.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: And for most of that hour, there was connection, honesty, understanding, and maybe even a sense of relief that the conversation finally happened.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: One person walks away thinking, that was wonderful.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I feel closer to them than I have in a long time.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: But the other person goes home and starts replaying it.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: There was that one sentence.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it came out wrong.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're not even sure what the other person meant by it.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: But they start thinking about that sentence.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then they think about it some more.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty soon, that one sentence has become five minutes in their mind, then 20 minutes.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually, somehow, that one uncomfortable moment becomes the entire conversation.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now they're thinking, why did I open up like that?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: I shouldn't have said anything.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: That conversation was a mistake.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Same conversation, two completely different stories about what happened.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Amazing Life Breakthrough.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Steve Klein, and this is where we explore those everyday experiences, meaningful discoveries, and sometimes very subtle shifts in perspective that can help us understand ourselves a little better and live life to the fullest.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: And today I want to talk about the stories we create after something happens.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because whether we realize it or not, we do this all the time.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Something happens, and then our mind tries to explain it.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: What did they mean by that?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Why did they say it that way?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Was I talking too much?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Did I embarrass myself?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Are they upset with me?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Did I say something wrong?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And before long, we're no longer simply remembering the conversation.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're interpreting it.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: We're writing the story of the conversation.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And those aren't always the same thing.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: The facts might be that two people talked for an hour, listened to each other, said several meaningful things, laughed, cried, cleared up some misunderstandings, and somewhere in that hour there was one statement that didn't quite land right.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: That may be what happened.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: But the story might become something totally different.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: It could become the whole conversation was terrible, or they don't understand me.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: I shouldn't have trusted them.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Or even nothing good came from it.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, maybe one of those things really is true.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's important.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not suggesting that we paint everything with some happy little brush and pretend difficult things didn't happen.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: There are bad conversations.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: People can say hurtful things.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: People misunderstand each other.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes a conversation really does reveal something that needs our attention.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: So this isn't about sugarcoating reality.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the other side of that.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have to make the story better than it was.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And we also don't have to make it worse than it was.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's the part I want us to think about.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Human beings seem to be particularly good at noticing what went wrong.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Psychologists have studied versions of what is often called a negativity bias.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Negative information can command our attention and influence our judgments strongly.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the science around exactly how universal that bias is can be more complicated than the popular saying that bad is always stronger than good, but I don't think most of us need a psychology textbook to recognize the experience.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: You can receive 10 encouraging comments and one criticism.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Which one are you thinking about at 2 o'clock in the morning?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: For a lot of us, it's not the 10 good ones, it's that one.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where something called rumination can sneak in.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Rumination is essentially getting caught in repeated thinking about something distressing without really moving toward a solution.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: You're not learning anything new anymore.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: You're replaying, rewriting, analyzing the tone of somebody's voice for the 37th time.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And researchers have actually studied this.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: In one study of university students, they found that people who were more prone to social anxiety also tended to engage in more post-event rumination, and that this rumination was connected with more negative interpretations of social situations.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, sometimes the longer we stare at one uncomfortable piece of an experience, the more negative the whole experience can begin to look.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's worth noticing.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because our memory isn't a security camera.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And even if there were a security camera recording the entire conversation, two people could watch the exact same footage and still focus on completely different things.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: One person might notice the warmth, the laughter, the honesty, the moments of connection.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: The other might lock onto the one awkward pause, the one comment that didn't land right, or the one expression they didn't like.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: We don't just remember what happened, we assign meaning to it.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: We emphasize certain moments, and the parts we repeatedly return to can begin taking up more space than they should occupy.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: So here's a question I think can help.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Am I remembering the whole conversation, or am I remembering the part that bothered me?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Those are two very different things.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine that hour-long conversation again.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Fifty-five minutes might have been caring, open, warm, honest, even healing.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: There might have been five minutes where things became awkward.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe there was one statement you didn't understand.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: We don't ignore those five minutes.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: But do those five minutes deserve ownership of the other 55?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's where we have some choice.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's another question that's even more useful.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: What else is also true?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: This can help get us thinking about the other things that may also be true about any given conversation or situation.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're thinking, I shouldn't have opened up.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: What else is true?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they listened to me.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: What else?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: They shared something vulnerable too.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: What else?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: We understood each other better afterward.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: What else?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: They hugged me when we were finished.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: What else?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: They actually told me they were glad we talked.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're not manufacturing positivity.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: We're restoring information that our negative focus may have pushed out of the picture.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's actually a psychological strategy related to this called cognitive reappraisal.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's a fancy term for looking at an emotional situation again and considering another reasonable interpretation of it.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's not pretending.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's not saying nothing bad happened.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's more like saying, is there another truthful way to understand what happened?
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Researchers have repeatedly found that people who use reappraisal tend to report better emotional well-being, and experimental research has found that practicing reappraisal can reduce perceived stress and improve life satisfaction.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's encouraging because it means this isn't simply about telling ourselves to think positive, it's about thinking more completely.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I like that better.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes the positive perspective isn't the naive perspective.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's actually the more accurate one.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: If 95% of an experience was meaningful and 5% was uncomfortable, calling the entire experience terrible isn't realism.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's distortion in the other direction.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you may have heard people talk about something called the reticular activating system, or RAS, and say that whatever you think about is what your brain will magically start finding everywhere.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's a little truth buried inside a lot of exaggeration there.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: The reticular activating system is a real network involved in wakefulness, arousal, attention, and our ability to focus.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I wouldn't call it some magical positivity switch in your brain.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: The simpler point is this our attention is limited.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: We don't notice everything.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And what we're looking for can influence what gets our attention.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: So if I walk into every interaction asking, where did they disrespect me?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's a pretty good chance I'll find something I can interpret that way.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: If I walk into the same interaction asking, where did they care about me?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: I may notice things I would otherwise have missed.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Neither question should blind us to reality.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: But our questions matter.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Our attention matters.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the story we're building from those details matters.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: So what can we actually do with this?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Let me give you three simple things.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: First, separate the facts from the story.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: You can even write this down.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: What actually happened?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Then underneath that, what am I telling myself that it meant?
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: You'll sometimes be surprised at how different those two lists are.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: The fact might be they paused before answering me.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: The story might be they're disappointed in me.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they were.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: The point is to recognize when an assumption has quietly become a fact in your mind.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Second, ask, what else was true?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: If one statement bothered you, don't erase it.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Just put it back into proportion.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: What else happened?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: What was kind?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: What was honest?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Where did connection happen?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: What did you learn?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: What went better than you expected?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And third, if something is genuinely bothering you, sometimes the healthiest thing is not to keep debating it alone inside your head.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Ask.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: You may discover that the sentence you've been replaying for three days didn't mean anything close to what you thought it meant.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: I've often thought that some of the hardest conversations happen twice.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's the conversation we actually had, and then there's the conversation we have afterward in our own mind.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that second conversation is much harsher than the first one ever was.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: So here's my challenge for you today.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Think about a conversation, an event, or an interaction you've been replaying lately, and ask yourself three questions.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: What actually happened?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: What story have I been telling myself about what happened?
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And what else is also true?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Don't force yourself into a positive answer.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Just look for a complete one.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because the goal isn't to become someone who pretends everything is wonderful.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: The goal is to become someone who doesn't allow one difficult moment to steal everything that was good.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that conversation wasn't perfect.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe somebody said something awkward.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you said something awkward.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's what happens when human beings actually talk honestly with each other.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe something beautiful happened there too.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe somebody trusted you.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe somebody finally told you what was on their heart.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe two people who had been holding something back finally stopped hiding from each other.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Don't throw all of that away because of one sentence you're not quite sure about.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: We can't always choose what happens.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: We certainly can't control everything other people say.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: But we can become more thoughtful about the story we write afterward.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the breakthrough is simply realizing that the story you've been telling yourself isn't the only truthful way to tell it.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: If this episode made you think of someone, share it with them.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're enjoying Amazing Life Breakthrough, be sure to follow or subscribe so you don't miss Thursday's episode, because we're going to take this one step further and talk about what happens when one negative moment starts rewriting the entire story.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And if you'd like to help support Amazing Life Breakthrough and keep these messages going, you can make a small donation at AmazingLifebreakthrough.com.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate every person who listens, shares these episodes, and helps us continue reaching people with these messages.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Steve Klein.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Take another look at the story you've been telling yourself and make sure one negative moment isn't overriding everything else that was good.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: And remember to live life to the fullest.