The story I am telling myself….
This is a Brene Brown classic line. Brene describes how she has used it time and time again to salvage potentially very destructive situations.
And how it goes is like this..
There are the external facts of a circumstance. And then the “inner chat” which makes sense of the external.
So far so good; except that often the inner chat does not adequately or appropriately represent what is going on “externally”. The inner chat often ascribes all sorts of emotions (often negative) and judgements to a situation.
Worse still, it then acts on the “inner chat”; often leaving the other party to the situation understandably bewildered.
We spoke last week about how different people see the world through different lenses. Then, when you add “the storytelling” into that equation, it can really distort “reality”.
Then add in the perceptions of communication in electronic form and you can see how time and time again, situations occur when one person starts forming a story in their head and just runs with that, ending up with a “story” that often bears little resemblance to the actual facts of the situation.
So Brene suggests this.. When it becomes obvious that things are going off the rails and a “situation” is brewing:
- Take a Breath
- Be Brave
- And tell the other person “the story I am telling myself about this is….”
You’ll be amazed at the number of times the other person shakes their head quickly and says “oh I so did not mean it that way”.
Give it a go. And then report back. What happened? Did it work?
