The Stories We Tell

057—We are all natural-born storytellers. Whether or not we realize it, we craft the story of our lives, piecing our experiences into a coherent storyline. We carry these stories with us, and they become so much a part of our lives that we start to identify ourselves with them—the good ones and the not-so-good ones, alike.

But here’s the little-known secret: our stories aren’t always accurate. 

Listen to Mary as she shares the role stories play and the power of a rewritten story to create profound shifts in our lives.

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To learn more about Mary Obana, visit her website:
maryobana.com

To learn more about having Mary connect you directly to your own spiritual guidance, visit:
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To learn more about Mary's work with The Food Whisperers, please visit:
thefoodwhisperers.com

To learn more about Mary Obana, visit her website:
maryobana.com

To learn more about having Mary connect you directly to your own spiritual guidance, visit:
maryobana.com/private-reading

For more information about Mary's book "Shine: A Simple Guide to Finding Your Light and Letting It Shine on the World", visit:
maryobana.com/amazon

Transcript

Mary Obana 0:05 

I'm Mary Obana. Welcome to Shine. I’m all about friendly, soul-nourishing, spiritually-inspired conversations that expand perspectives and offer practical guidance so you can live joyfully and shine brightly. 

I believe:

Everyone has something special within them, a unique gift—a light you are to find and share with the world. You are meant to shine. 

I believe:

You have a deep knowing; guidance that is ready to serve you. It is always available if you listen.

I believe:

You are meant to live with complete joy and peace—nothing less. It’s just awaiting your allowing. 

Ready to get to it? Here we go!

Mary Obana 00:54

Hi there and welcome! 

Everyone loves a great story. My husband, Michael, is a gifted storyteller. He has this way of pulling you into whatever he is talking about – sometimes, it’s a story that’s purely entertaining (usually hilarious), and other times it’s a story with a message deftly woven in. After being pulled into yet another one of them, our son Kai used to say when he was younger, “Dad, does everything have to be a lesson?” But the funny thing is Kai always remembers these stories. Coincidentally, just this past weekend he played back one of the oldies but goodies in a conversation! Stories help our connection to others.

Stories also shape the way we look at ourselves. Whether we realize it or not, we are ALL storytellers. We use stories to connect the dots between our beliefs and past experiences. This is how we make sense of things. And, over time, these stories have a way of cementing themselves in our minds and lives -- so much so that they can become part of our identity, informing how we think about ourselves.

This is what we are going to tackle today – the stories we tell and how re-writing our stories can have massive impact on our well-being. I’m glad you’re here.

When I was young, my father was hyper-focused on education. Getting good grades wasn’t just a goal in our family; it was an expectation. Dad would always tell my four siblings and me that what’s in our minds no one can take away from us. So I worked hard, not wanting to be a disappointment. It wasn't as easy when I got to college – Stanford definitely raised the bar. Classes were more challenging. I had to work a lot harder than I ever had to before. For someone who had always gotten straight A’s, suddenly, I wasn’t anymore. Would my dad still be proud of me? My first year was among the most challenging for me. I was having fun (that’s for sure!), but beneath it all, I carried this shame and self-doubt. Was I smart enough to be here? 

This is actually a “thing” – studied by anthropologists and psychologists, among others. It’s called “narrative identity.” Northwestern University psychologist Dan McAdams has studied this phenomenon for over 30 years and describes “narrative identity” as an internalized story about yourself. It is said that by taking disparate pieces of our lives and placing them together in a narrative, we create coherence.

McAdams has identified two types of stories we can create -- Redemption and Contamination. Redemptive stories transition from bad to good, where a struggle, for instance, results in finding deeper meaning in one’s life. Conversely, a contamination story is when people interpret their lives as going from good to bad. No surprise, McAdams has found that people who believe their lives are meaningful tend to tell stories defined by growth – their challenges have resulted in positive outcomes. 

But here’s the thing. We are the authors of our stories. Sometimes our stories serve us supporting us positively, and sometimes they don’t. One of the most profound learnings from research is that editing our stories can create massive shifts in our well-being. 

Recently, I was working with a lovely woman that I coach. One of the things I see – because this happens to ALL of us! – is that we create these frameworks in our mind, these stories that become so deeply engrained they become the foundation for how we think of ourselves. I’m going to share this example, and I do so with her permission. 

Jamie was feeling down. And it became clear that she was holding onto lots of stuff – you know what that feels like, don’t you?! Her energy had a heaviness to it. You’ve heard me say a million times that everything is energy. Energy feels best when it moves freely through us, but sometimes it can get stuck within us. When we face certain types of circumstances, something that makes us feel bad or disappointed or worried, we tend to HANG ON TO THEM. We don’t allow the energy of that circumstance to move through us like we are supposed to. Things happen, of course, but ideally, we don’t attach to them; instead, we are to observe them. When we observe them, we create some objective distance that enables us to see them for what they are without holding onto them. But we don’t always do that – especially with things that strike a negative chord within us. What results when we’ve collected enough of them? This feeling of heaviness. That energy gets trapped, and we feel stuck. It even can manifest in physical issues, with pain and discomfort felt in areas of our body. 

In this session with Jamie, we worked on this, trying to understand what she was holding on to. Then, before you knew it, she blurted out, “I feel like I’m a failure.” There it was. I was so proud of her for saying it. She admitted she’d never said those words aloud before, but it’s what she had been feeling all these years. “Failure about what?” I asked. Jamie – amongst other things -- is a talented artist, but shared that she had always felt she was a failure because she wasn’t a prolific artist, selling her paintings for large sums of money. 

So we dove in! Perceived failure, as you can imagine, is when there is dissonance between where you are and where you think you should be. She didn’t feel she was living up to the expectations she had created for herself. But as we talked about it, she received this profound insight – this clarity popped into her head. She realized, “Wait! The art was never about that. It was a way for me to get out of my house when I was young!” 

This is what happens when you open yourself up to the wisdom of your guidance, the Universe, your higher self – whatever you want to call it, insight and clarity emerge. 

You see, Jamie had a complicated childhood. Her art was truly her sanctuary. When things were difficult, she could just lose herself in her art and what a gift that was. Her troubles would melt away, and she could just focus on something that brought her joy and comfort. It was that safe place all of her own. 

But for years, Jamie had created this false framework for herself: she was to be a prolific artist selling her work for significant amounts of money. Not fulfilling this self-imposed expectation left her disappointed, questioning her value and self-worth. BUT in that epiphanic moment, she understood her engagement with her art was never about that - it was for her OWN salvation. Her sanity. Away from the complications she endured as a child and, frankly, into her adult life as well. Her art is a gift for HER - a source of joy and peace. And when she looks at herself through THAT lens, everything feels different. That long-held belief that she was a failure loosened its relevance. The story of being a failed artist has been rewritten. 

She had lived with this feeling of being a failure for decades. And, she admits, she started to define herself this way. Anytime things didn’t go as she expected, just another thing to validate that she was a failure. And all the while, the foundation of this feeling, the story she created, was false all along. Imagine for a moment the relief that Jamie must have felt. Reframing her story, editing her story, and viewing her art and herself from this new perspective, changed everything. She felt lighter that day.

I share this because it’s an example of how we all create these stories in our mind – stories that can leave us feeling unworthy, or guilty, or unloved, or that we are a failure and that aren’t even based in truth! Yet they shape who we think we are. We craft this narration of our lives. We do this to ourselves. 
 
 

These stories start to form early. McAdams shares that life stories speak directly to how people come to terms with their interpersonal worlds, with society, and with history and culture. A large and growing body of research traces the development of narrative identity from the infant’s first glimmerings of human intentionality to the reworking of life stories as we age. Many studies address how people construct stories to make sense of suffering and setbacks in life. And how these redemptive narratives of the self, contribute to psychological health, well-being, and maturity.

I talk a lot about how our perspective informs our experiences. Things, of course, happen – sometimes unwanted or undesirable things. And it’s true we cannot always control our circumstances. But as I always say, our experiences aren’t our circumstances. Our experiences are the RESULT of the perspective we bring to our circumstances – and our perspective is entirely within our control and ours alone. 

Our stories are the result of the perspective we bring, too. And often, our perspective or point of view is narrow. We, humans, tend to over-aggrandize things as we fixate on them. Their importance can often play a disproportionate role in the grand scheme of things. We see things from a narrow perspective rather than through their broader context. And this “narrowness” distorts everything.

And further, when it comes to the stories we tell ourselves, it turns out we can be very unreliable narrators. 

A friend of mine described her high school years as quiet. She didn’t have a fairytale high school experience. For her, there were no proms or high school sweethearts. She claims to have never caught the eye of the popular crowd. She felt a bit unnoticed. This experience became part of her story. The girl who stayed home when others were out, in her room alone while others were at the prom. She always felt she was living outside of the typical high school scene. That’s how she had always characterized her early years. It became her story. And part of her young identity. It’s how she thought of herself and assumed others thought of her then.

She would go onto shine in her beautiful way – invisible no more FOR SURE, but all the while, this perspective of her early years was always part of her narrative.

Then, some 40 years later, she connected with one of her high school classmates – and this wasn’t just any classmate. This was that big man on campus, handsome team captain classmate. She remembered having a bit of a crush on him back then but felt he was out of her league. As they conversed and reminisced about their high school years, he confessed that he had planned to ask her to the prom his senior year. But when he shared this plan with one of her friends, her friend put the kibosh on it. What!? There may be a whole story of its own there, but with respect to THIS story, it blew her mind. What!? No, how could that be!? That didn’t play into her – as McAdams calls – narrative identity! After all, she has been telling the story of her invisible childhood for decades. Not only did it shock her, but at that moment, she was confronted with the reality that the stories we tell ourselves – and even carry for more than 40 years! – aren’t always a reflection of the truth. It’s incredible how we can be so convinced that our stories are based on fact when they are simply the stories we created. 

When we construct our personal narratives, we call upon real personal experiences but to create coherence; we fill in the blanks. This is where our stories can get distorted. Let’s use my friend's example; the memory of her being home alone when others were at the prom was real. This happened. But, the REASON she applied to the situation was how she filled in the blanks. To make sense of things, her mind rationalized that she didn’t go to the prom because no one noticed her, she was unimportant, maybe even undesirable. And the reasons we concoct (the blanks WE fill in) can often contribute most strongly to our narrative identity. So while the circumstances can be factual, you can see how the story we can weave related to the circumstance may not be. As in this case, she had it all wrong.

This is what we do. To create coherence, we develop frameworks and stories in our minds to make sense of it all. We construct these stories that we believe to be true. And, we become so deeply invested in these stories that before you know it, they shape our identity – how we see OURSELVES. 

My gosh! Why do we do this to ourselves? After all, if we were to create stories, you’d think we’d make them GOOD ones! But we don’t always do that. Research has revealed that our identity isn’t often a truthful representation of who we are. And here’s the danger of having distorted, negative narratives. McAdams found in his research that our narratives guide behavior in every moment and can frame not only how we see the past but how we see ourselves in the future. 

But here’s the good news! We can alter our narratives. 

Here’s how:

First, ACKNOWLEDGE that we all have stories! We piece together these stories to create a narrative of our life. Some are positive; others are not. But MANY are inaccurate! We are the authors of our stories.

So first, accept that YOU have crafted a narrative about yourself.

Second, NOTICE when you have negative feelings about yourself: “I’m undesirable” or “I’m a failure” Where do these thoughts come from? What stories have shaped the way you feel about yourself? Do they support a narrative of loneliness? Unworthiness? Disappointment? And a common one: imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is when you feel deep within that you don’t deserve what you have – that if people knew the truth about you (that you’re not as smart as people think you are, that it’s just been luck that has landed you opportunities – not your capabilities, etc.) things would be different. It’s amazing the stories we carry within ourselves. 

SO second, IDENTIFY the stories that leave you feeling negative about yourself and recognize that these aren’t beneficial to you. 

Third, thinking of that story you have identified, go through the exercise of writing that story from another point of view. Why? Because not only is it possible that your negative story is downright INACCURATE, but a positive story will shift the way you experience everything. What have you left out of your story over the years? How might that story be seen from a more positive, beneficial perspective? If you do this earnestly, it inevitably opens up the possibility that the story may not be the way you’ve told it over the years. Let’s take my friend’s story about not being asked to the prom. If she went through this exercise, forcing herself to write this story from a different point of view, who knows? She may have landed on some story about the handsome team captain wanting to ask her to the prom, but then he chickened out. Now, she may have felt the exercise was fantastical, but look at what emerged as the truth! See what I mean!?

The other option is to choose a DIFFERENT story that contradicts the negative story with a more positive experience or perspective that supports and strengthens you. And notice the perspective from which you are telling it – is it from the FIRST person or THIRD person? Observing the story from a THIRD person's perspective enables you to take a more objective view of it.

Finally, you get to choose. How do you want to CHOOSE to see that story? If you find yourself wanting to keep the story you’ve always told, it’s because you are likely more comfortable there. It’s like that well-worn pair of jeans. You’ve worn that story for a long, long time. And even though you don’t like it, it feels familiar. And you have gotten used to the way it fits into your narrative. But, I ask you, how is that working for you? If you DESIRE it, then great. If you don’t desire it but want to keep it anyway, I challenge you to reconsider. 

Back to that story I shared about feeling that good grades equated to being worthy of love from my dad. Sometimes we are lucky enough to have our stories rewritten for us. Here’s how my story evolved. When I was a junior in college, I came home from school for spring break. I was taking a course called Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, where we studied landmark Supreme Court cases to analyze how our rights and liberties have been shaped over time. Dad asked me how my classes were going, and we got into a discussion about a case we were studying called Korematsu vs. the United States. Fred Korematsu, a Japanese-American citizen was 23 at the time, sued the US Government, challenging the constitutionality of the government’s order after he was arrested for not reporting to the detention center. 

You see, about ten weeks after the U.S. entered World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. The order authorized the Secretary of War and the armed forces to remove people of Japanese ancestry from designated communities in the United States. The order set in motion the mass transportation and relocation of more than 120,000 Japanese people -- two thirds of whom were American citizens – to  internment camps in seven western states, including Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, and Arizona.

Dad was familiar with this supreme court case and the experience. It was then that I learned for the first time that Dad and his family were interned during World War II and shipped off to an internment camp in Poston, Arizona. He was just 15 in 1942. This is a story unto itself for another time, but they were ordered to leave everything behind -- their Salinas Monterey farm, their home and belongings, taking only that which they could carry with them – basically one suitcase. This was a “dot connection” moment for me – things started to make sense now. For someone stripped of everything he had, the mantra “what’s in your mind, no one can ever take away” took on a whole new meaning. I learned that my perceived understanding that good grades and accomplishments equated to being worthy of love was wrong. The deep-seated wish for us to be equipped with the security that comes from an educated mind was in and of itself the gesture of love. This understanding – this re-writing of my story – changed everything. 

I have witnessed profound shifts when people become aware of their stories. You’d be amazed at what shifts by merely acknowledging the stories that exist within you. As with the examples I shared in this episode, stories can become deeply rooted in our life narratives and entwined in our identity – stories that are often misconstrued and sometimes entirely false.

The stories we tell ourselves contribute to how we think about ourselves. But this is the truth. We are the author of our own stories. When you live with awareness and are conscious of this reality, you get to face your stories. A lightness comes when you let go of those low-energy, negative self-talk stories that leave you feeling “less than.” Rewrite the ones that don’t serve you. Because YOU can. 

I hope this episode was helpful to you. If so, I would be grateful if you could rate and review it and share it with someone you know who can benefit from it so we all can all rewrite the stories that don’t serve us. It makes it easier to shine that beautiful light within each of us. Goodness knows, the world needs that. 

Thanks for joining me today. Until next time take it easy.