Sometimes I Need An Editor For My Internal Narrative. And You Do Too.
When I first read Brene Brown’s Rising Strong, I was absolutely delighted to hear her using narrative psychology to discuss her experiences. She tells this story of swimming with her husband when he seemed distant and unwilling to connect, so she says to him, “The story I am making up right now is that you no longer find me attractive in a Speedo.” And he informed her that the story he was making up in that moment was that he was no longer young and strong enough to rescue their children quickly in the event of a surprise drowning.
This phrase, “the story I’m making up right now,” has been a part of my daily lexicon for a long time. I recognized many years ago that I was blessed with an active and vivid imagination, and unfortunately my hyper-self-criticism means that I tend to make up stories in which I have disappointed people or made people angry without intending to or entirely knowing how I did it. Sometimes that means that people can easily manipulate me, because they know that’s my default narrative, and thus they never have to take blame — I cannot trust these people to help me edit my stories.
On days when my internal dialogue makes up the story that everything is my fault, from the weather (I’m not great about recycling 100% of the time, so obviously global warming rests on my shoulders) to the latest tragedy on the news (why do I not spend more of my life protesting?), I know I can call a friend and tell them that I’m making up a story in which I am the villain of the world, and my friend will snort and say, “You’re not that special.” They instantly edit my story, removing me as the protagonist. And in this case, it’s good.
When I am feeling anxiety about a situation, I know I can reach out and ask for my friend-editors to help me reframe. They are kind. They know that my brain wants to follow a story it recognizes, so it picks up on a sign that could potentially lead to a trauma from the past, and starts preparing me for that trauma. “You can endure it if that’s true,” my friends tell me, “But it’s not.” And they help me reframe my idea of what is happening to something closer to reality, or at least something less fatalistic.
And when my story was right and tragedy strikes? My editors help me find ways to turn the page and keep my story moving.
Obviously doing this with a professional therapist was monumental for me to get better at doing it on my own. But it also helps to be able to do it with those close to me, to have my friends both delight in my imagination and to help me edit it when it gets out of control.
I am an editor for my friends, too. I suspect it’s a lot easier to edit someone else’s story when you’re not feeling all of the fear and anxiety about that story within your own body. Taking the narrative someone else is telling me and saying, “Why don’t you rewrite it through this lens? What if the meeting with your boss is about discussing how to be even better at your job, and not a pre-requisite meeting to being fired? What if your friend doesn’t hate you and is just acting weird because she’s not feeling well? What if that guy you’re seeing isn’t texting you back today because he’s at the gym and he doesn’t even know that you said that weird thing last night?”
Most of the time our editors are just reminding us that while we might be the protagonist of our own lives, we are not the main character in everyone else’s story. There are reasons why things happen and why people behave the way they do that have nothing to do with us.
It takes vulnerability to admit to yourself, your therapist, or your friends that you are an unreliable narrator of your life and need a little help with editing the story you’re telling yourself about what is going on. It makes you sound a little crazy, but honestly, all of us are at least a little crazy, and no one has a perfect grasp on the different realities and perspectives that contribute to making the stories of our world. We filter everything through the past traumas of our lives, the stories we know, and whether or not we’ve had enough to eat that day.
Find yourself some good editors to help you with your story.
Practice ways to be a good editor to them in return.
Sometimes I Need An Editor For My Internal Narrative. And You Do Too.
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