Getting Stuck in Stories

When I tell my story I tell my truth.

When I tell my story I also tell my untruth.

What?!

Stories have a good press overall. Tell your stories, say communication gurus. You must have a story, say political advisers and PR experts. And they’re right: if you present your case through stories, it’s easier to listen to and more compelling than a load of abstract concepts. More than that, we want for ourselves to find our voice, to tell our story.

You might say life is stories: we all interpret the world through the stories we tell ourselves. They are our truth. However, there is also a way we use stories to deceive ourselves, and it’s disconcertingly effective and prevalent. We get caught in them and they take hold of us. We have a huge capacity for self-deception! It’s so common, that we often use the word story to mean a lie. If an adult in your childhood ever told you to “stop telling stories”, they certainly weren’t referring to “your truth.”

We’re not always conscious that we’re in a story and stretch the truth almost by accident. Have you ever had the experience of realising you’ve just said something that you don’t quite believe – it just comes out that way, influenced by a particular questioner, and then sometimes develops a life of its own.

“What’s your job?”

Truthful answer – “I’ve just been made redundant and I’m feeling mortified.”

Actual response: “Oh, my old company has just downsized massively, so I took the chance and grabbed redundancy.” (What the …? Did I just say that?!)

Which grows on further telling to:

“Oh, I decided to start my own business – corporate life had got a bit stifling.” (Hey, that sounds quite good …)

Which becomes:

“I run a business consultancy. Working for yourself is the only way – I couldn’t put up with the claustrophobia of working for others, I’m too much of a free spirit.”

Eventually, the statement settles into a form that satisfies our ego and becomes our ‘official’ version of events.

Often, these stories start life as an excuse. Once, I wanted to go skiing, and my boyfriend said, “I can’t go skiing because I have weak ankles.” He presented his story as a fact, and consequently we didn’t go skiing. Later, he happily went skiing – with someone else! If I’d had more experience, I might not have accepted his ‘factual’ defence so readily. I might have offered him remedies for weak ankles; or pointed out that his fitness, flexibility, excellent sense of balance and ability already to skate well might suggest he would manage skiing okay, despite weak ankles.

What was actually going on with his story? It probably started as a bad feeling, probably fear of skiing itself or being shown up to be inadequate, or being shamed into confessing his feeling of fear. So he produced a fact to prove that it was unwise for him to go skiing, a defence that protected his vulnerability. That “because” ?(“I can’t … because …”)?sounds so objective, definite, unanswerable.

We often come up with such reasoning when we don’t want to face feelings. And when the reasoning convinces, we stick to its narrative, which becomes an immutable part of our personal – and often our family – history. You will have heard such stories, cast in stone as it were; sometimes they serve to explain a whole life:

T??I was never given a chance because I had the wrong accent.

T??People like me can’t be entrepreneurs because we have no financial backing from family.

T??I never got a degree because you children gave me no space to study.

T??I couldn’t study medicine because my husband wouldn’t have liked it.

T??I couldn’t start afresh because I was too old.

Phillipa Perry puts it well: “We make sense of how we feel by coming up with a narrative and, because it fits our feelings, we believe the narrative to be true. It feels familiar. We mistake familiarity for truth.” (Guardian 12/3/23)

The trouble is, in selecting a much-simplified narrative, part of us knows it’s not the whole truth. ?And thus we develop a personality split and become less effective as human beings. Then people might enjoy our persona, but never feel that they’re quite getting the real us. We’re always putting it on – and don’t even know we’re putting it on.

It’s the curse of our times. The age of communication has brought about glory days for justification, exaggeration, acting, fake seriousness, over-confidence and face saving.

What’s the answer?

Counter-intuitive, as so often. The answer is not to get increasingly forensic about pinning down our facts with details. The answer is to keep on feeling. Feeling is often not comfortable and that’s why we avoid it. When we stop avoiding it and just allow it to be, we begin to see through subterfuge. Feeling uncovers the mix of emotions that is driving a story and shows us the truth.

At the end of The Tempest, Prospero, wiser through adversity, has the courage to lay claim to what he knows about himself, "This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.” This is as relevant to a business leader as to a parent or partner. Be bold enough to ask yourself, “What am I really feeling here? What’s the core of that feeling? What else am I feeling?” and you begin to understand what’s going on.

Gold dust.

REMINDERS

Coaching: ?Every week, I rejoice in the power of coaching as I notice people take hold of their lives. Really! There are many times when asking for help opens the way to success, undoes a block, reveals something new, restores your mojo, gives you peace. Don’t be afraid to take a step into personal development – whether counselling, therapy, mentoring, training, group work. Or coaching. If coaching, do contact me here to find out more, and we can have a chat if you like.

My TEDx Talk – How your voice touches others. The true meaning of what you say. As I said in my article, we’re living in glory days for justification, exaggeration, acting, fake seriousness, over-confidence and face saving. My talk is more relevant than ever in today’s polarised world. Many people have told me that my TEDx Talk spoke to them. Do share the link if you’d like to recommend it to friends.

My books are a great way to look further at communication:

The Art of Communication – This book is particularly relevant to today’s article, describing in much more detail how we divide ourselves into parts, and how feeling gives us a route back to wholeness. Dr. Jude Currivan, cosmologist, author of?The Cosmic Hologram, wrote: “The authenticity of our relationships depends on our willingness and ability to truly communicate and not only to converse.?The Art of Communication?is a wise, compassionate and enormously helpful guide in how to do so.”

The Art of Conversation – highly practical help with the whole business of how to interact successfully and confidently with other people.

Voice and Speaking Skills For Dummies – Everything you wanted to know about voice and speaking in a book that’s easy to dip into to answer all your questions.

Voice of Influence – The book that became the name of my company, and which has remained popular, translated into 9 different languages. How to get people to love to listen to you.

Butterflies and Sweaty Palms – The book for you if you ever suffer from performance anxiety. Get rid of your nerves now! The information is tried and tested, and highly practical. Read it also in Italian: Farfalle Nello Stomaco e Mani Sudate.