Recognizing and Stopping Story-Based Perceptions From Complicating Life

photo by Katrina Cimmermane, edited by me

When something happens, there is the truth of what occured, and then there is the story I tell myself about it.

When I’m caught up in a story about something that happened to me, it makes things so much worse.

For instance, I’ll use a time I was driving and this person swerved right into my lane with seemingly no regard for anyone else’s safety.

In retrospect, I don’t know if it was intentional. I was upset about it, but no one was hurt and things seemed fine. That was a great chance to acknowledge it all and move on, but I didn’t do that.

My mind was busy building a story that validated me being upset by saying it was totally intentional and that they ruined my day. Then I replayed that story over and over, rekindling the fire of being pissed off and pointing that energy towards them in my mind while the only real victim of my anger was me. Not fun.

The stress of perceiving life through my mind’s stories creates a loop of misery that I have a hard time stopping once it gets started.

The best way I’ve found to check if perceptions are based on stories or not is to hunt for judgments.

There is always a bias or judgment creating resistance within when stories are involved…