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On how to tell yourself real stories, not fantasies · Conversations with My Walls

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: What if you stopped decorating your life with all the wrong stuff?
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Morgan and this is Conversations with My Walls.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get into it.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Why do so many stories lie to us?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think what's worse than realizing that is when you realize that you're in on
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: the con.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because as a writer I'm so guilty of this.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: It started all the way back in third grade when I wrote stories about teenage girls
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: with jeeps and trendy chokers who were being stalked by a crush.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: It seemed so dreamy to my entertainment brainwash eight-year-old brain and deeply,
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: deeply disturbing to my adult self.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: But when I look back, it makes sense.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was a child who had a hyperfixation with Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: which my parents checked out from the library.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Literally,
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: if you're not familiar with this,
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: the entire plot is kidnapping and Stockholm Syndrome.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: But I thought Russ Tamblyn was cute and therefore excused what I thought was
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: a slightly intense but socially acceptable form of courtship.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: I know, right?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: It continued to You've Got Mail where it took me years longer than I would like
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: to realize Tom Hanks is the villain.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And Parker Posey was the coolest and most moral of all of the characters in that movie.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: These
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: stories and tropes devised by men have become the framework of
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: the "every story's been told before,"
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: AKA the norm that we default to unless we step back and take a really cold,
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: hard look at ourselves and ask: "What story are we really telling?"
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Or most importantly, "Whose story?"
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: "Is it reality or fantasy?"
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: "Like or lust?"
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: "His or hers?"
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Rom-coms didn't make sense to me for a while because the endings felt like beginnings to me.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: My pragmatism wondered what the post-happily-ever-after looked like,
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: let alone all the bad behavior that's excused leading up to it.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's something I'm trying to actively reprogram now post-breakup.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: The number of times I've seen both Shopgirl and Gilmore Girls tells me that
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: a man can fail but then do the work and return to the chance that he ruined
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: and reclaim it.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: That hope is just so mean to put out there into the universe.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: While that kind of bettering and reform is possible and real
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: in some real life experiences I'm sure,
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: it perpetuates this longing and hope that the chapter is not closed.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not healthy because we can only control our own reactions.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: But here I am,
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: pining with the hope that he will see the light and change and revisit
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: the really special connection that we had.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: The stories that we consume model to and tell us what to expect from others and
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: that is so dangerous.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: It sets us up for a fantasy of disappointment.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: I was stood up by someone I loved because he couldn't find the words to tell me his needs.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Needs I would have bent over backwards to accommodate.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: I spent what felt like the better part of a day and a half worrying if he was hurt,
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: having an emergency, or just fell asleep and missed our date.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know where on the worry spectrum to land.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: After that radio silence, the response I got was the last thing I was expecting: a breakup text.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: I had told him everything I could to keep the door open for him to be vulnerable
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: with me, but instead he chose to leave.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Those actions do not scream "this man will come back to you."
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: I know that,
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: but my mind is programmed to crave that second act,
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: that second chance,
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: the reform,
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: the betterment chapter,
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: or even just his willingness to try again with the promise of
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: a different communication approach on the table.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Movies and TV make breakups worse, period.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: It is a fact that I believe so deeply now.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of the scenes and films I idolize are so much better utilized
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: as cautionary tales than beacons of hope.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: But it takes so much energy to burn through the dopamine hit
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: that these stories provide to get to the truth,
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: which is the right person won't hurt you at all.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Even as I say that, I'm struggling because I know real life isn't perfect.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: We all make mistakes.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm in the group of people who have more experience watching fake depictions
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: of life than actually being out there living it.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a high-worth,
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: equitable couple out there in their absolute highest value relationship
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: who overcame this kind of situation?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: But I need to strip away the longing for an answer and look at the real story that's
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: in front of me.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: He left.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: He's gone.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: He won't be calling me today.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's two days ago that it happened.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the first time I won't be hearing from him on our regularly scheduled call days.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I can only take that reality day-by-day without projecting anything into the future.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Which is a really big twist and challenge for a writer not to think ahead.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the fact is, it's the best kind of story I can write for myself.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because I am the only character I can control.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you are yours.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think what these stories make us crave is declarations.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: The raw, brutal honesty that breaks down our walls of protection, our guards being up.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: I believed him when he told me how hard relationships are for him
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: and also held space and believed that we were building a beautiful,
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: safe container where he and I could feel the good and the bad of it
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: and navigate it together.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe some of these writers weren't out there to perpetuate unhelpful expectations
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: through their narratives.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: But actually writing from a place of hope,
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: in an act of pure emotional desire,
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: they craved that relational transparency.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: A no-holds-barred approach to love,
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: where the messy admissions are meant to spill over,
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: while fostering the truth that I believe so many of us,
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: my ex included,
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: fight to accept that those are the things that make us even more lovable.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: The flaws, the hangups, the fears.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Perfection is super boring.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Mess is so interesting.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: But you can't love someone out of not loving themselves or believing they're worthy of it.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of the hardest things to accept in this.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Just imagine you are looking at someone thinking they are
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: the hottest man you've seen, yet they don't see it and can't get past it.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: You tell them otherwise, but they still struggle with that.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: You tell them about their soul, the non-surface level stuff, yet they still struggle.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And with more things than you even know about,
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: but are likely still the things that you love them for.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why,
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: but it makes me think of the movie Set It Up,
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: where this one quote, I'm really on the fence about it.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it's enabling or if it's actually transformative.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: One of the characters says, "You like because and you love despite."
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think it opens the door to loving the whole person.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: It seems so easy to rewrite these blocks for them, but it's not.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Quite frankly, it's the opposite.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes pain like that is an addiction and they truly have to want to address it
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: and you cannot do it for them.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Anything else is a fantasy.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's me making up the end result that I desire for my comfort,
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: my hope, my denial of this breakup that I found myself in.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Which are all very human to want.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: But just another source of stretching out the pain of the experience.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's a matter of wanting to win also that's programmed in us.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Without the success of an ongoing union, I have lost.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: Not just in general, but the specific human.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: It creates a dynamic to cling to something even when
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: in your gut you know things weren't optimal.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to turn off the part in my head that keeps replaying "But it could have been."
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: "But he could have chosen differently."
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: We also live in a society that rewards relationships with congratulations.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a huge thing that I think this all boils down to.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Movies about single people achieving something doesn't have an entire genre dedicated to it.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: But it should.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the spotlight moment of this whole thing.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: How real stories need to be told.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: We have to decide who we want to lift up, what narratives we want to lift up.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Celebrating single people is pretty incredible and rare.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: The movie Frances Ha is one of the closest things that I can think of.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's relational elements in it but it spans from friendship to colleagues to
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: a few dates but nothing romantic.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, what should we call that genre?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: the real life reprogramming we need.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I am working so hard to go all in on
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: that story.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: If this sparks something in you, make sure you're subscribed so you never miss an episode.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: As this series continues, you won't want to miss a beat.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're ready to bring more conversations into your life,
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: you can explore my latest art prints at morganlindsaynelson.com.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: And in between then, take care of your space and conversations both inside and out.