Improve Your Relationships by Changing the Story in Your Head
“Hey, let’s meet up! We haven’t caught up in a long time. Quite unusual for us.”
“I am sorry but I am very busy these days.”
It was the first time my friend had told me he was too busy to meet. I was caught off guard and didn’t know how to react.
You see, we weren’t situational friends. It’s not like we’d only see each other from time to time when there’s a common gathering or something like that.
We were good friends. The kind you text often to share ideas, books, and podcasts. The friend you meet up with almost weekly to discuss what’s happening in your life.
That’s why the message stung.
It felt like something had changed with my friend but I didn’t know what.
I’d recently been feeling quite down and sad, so this message of his created more uncomfortable feelings. But instead of asking why he replied this way, my mind created a story of its own.
He probably has more interesting stuff to do than meeting up with me. Maybe he’s spending his time with other friends. Sounds like he doesn’t care about hanging out with me anymore.
The story I’d invented was hurtful and sad, but I believed it.
Fine. If he is too busy to meet up, I should be busy too. And I shouldn’t care either.
When we feel hard feelings, like sadness, loneliness, rejection, we are attuned to surroundings detecting potential threat of getting hurt further. Any ambiguous word, intonation or gesture triggers a defensive mechanism and instead of leaning in into discomfort and clarifying, our mind will create a story that is more comforting and protective.
You see, because I’ve already felt sad, my friend’s first message triggered feelings of rejection and further pain. If I’ve asked my friend what was up and hear that he doesn’t want to hang out with me anymore, it would have been heartbreaking. Instead my mind created a story that built a wall to protect me from getting hurt.
Sometimes I wonder why doesn’t our mind create positive stories? I think it’s because positive stories leave us open and vulnerable. And vulnerability is terrifying, especially when we already feel low.
Because I’ve been practicing emotional awareness by separating what I feel versus what my mind makes up of it, I caught myself up with that story. I realized that in reality I have no idea why my friend responded the way he did.
Maybe he didn’t care. But perhaps he was slammed at work. Perhaps he’d had a bad day or other personal issues he couldn’t text me about. The possibilities were endless. But somehow, I chose and stick to only one story.
The only way to find out if the story was true was to ask.
It wasn’t easy. After all, I felt hurt and asking might have got me feel even worse. That’s what I was so afraid in the first place. But I reminded myself about courage to lean into discomfort.
“Hey, I understand you are busy, but it’s unusual and hurtful to hear that you can’t find time to meet with me. We haven’t seen each other in a while. It’s been annoying me already. What’s up?”
“I could feel you were annoyed. I felt pretty bad and guilty for not catching up with you. I actually felt pretty guilty for not catching up with a lot of my friends. I’ve been blamed so many times. I thought it was easier to not meet up instead of hear that I suck again.”
Aha. My friend’s text message didn’t mean he didn’t care. He was dealing with his own uncomfortable feelings of blame and guilt. The story my mind made up was not true.
While it takes courage to be vulnerable, first it takes awareness to see when the story in our head is created. Whenever we are making assumptions, judgments or guess work, we should stop and ask, “Do I have enough evidence to believe this story?”
One message, one face expression or one conversation doesn’t show the whole picture. We simply don’t know what’s going on in someone’s head. And our assumptions most of the times are false rather than right. It’s much better to ask.
Brene Brown, a best-selling author and a researcher of shame and vulnerability, gives a great framework to work with when we need to clarify with others the sensitive topics that involves triggered emotions and made-up stories.
In her book Daring Greatly, she advises to start the conversation with “The story I make in my head right now is that … it’s not that you are busy, it’s that you don’t care/ you don’t text me anymore because you don’t want to see me/ your angry tone means that you think I am a fuck up.”
Instead of blaming “You suck for making me feel this way”, Brene’s approach helps to take responsibility for our story and show other person how we really feel.
So what did I learn from this incident of mine?
The next time you find yourself emotionally reacting to someone — whether that be their words, actions or gestures — become aware of what your mind makes of it.
Ask yourself how true is your story and if you have enough evidence to support it or it’s all assumptions. If you’re unsure, clarify.
Be courageous and ask the person — no matter how hard it is. But instead of blaming, share with them the story in your head and how you really feel.
You might be surprised to hear that reasons for someone’s words or actions are not even close to the story you’ve made up in your head.
After I told my made-up story to my friend, we went on and shared how each of us felt and how our messages triggered not intended emotions — rejection for me and guilt for him. From that place we were able not only resolve the issue but build a stronger bond of honesty and vulnerability.
And that’s what this whole process is about — through honest and open conversation build stronger relationships we deeply desire.
