The narratives we create about ourselves
When I was in college,
there was a guy in my class who was part of a group I used to hang out with. He was a drinker and he fluctuated between being a mean drunk and a weepy drunk. In one of his weepy drunk moments, I was trying to console him as he was crying over a woman. We talked for a while and my heart went out to him.
Another time he was drunk, he started telling the guy I was seeing that he shouldn't want to be with me since I had "made my rounds". I overheard him, which wasn't hard since he was proclaiming this loud enough to be heard over the music at a party. I was hurt and angry. Why would he say something like this to a guy I was seeing?
After that second incident, I remember wondering how I had misjudged him so egregiously. I decided then that I was a bad judge of character. And for the next 10+ years, I lived my life as a bad judge of character: I wouldn't trust my own judgment about people. I would ask other people their opinions about someone and I would weigh it against my own opinion. If they didn't match, I would believe the other people.
I know exactly where the idea came from. It stemmed from one incident. What I find remarkable is that I wrote that narrative on that day, and then proceeded to live out that narrative for over a decade. The only reason I was a bad judge of character is because I had declared myself to be.
I came across that guy's picture on Facebook years later and the incident came back to me in a flash, as well as my decision that I was a bad judge of character. I thought about it, and decided that no, I had been full of shit. Actually, I wasn't a bad judge of character. And just like that, the sentence was lifted and I now live my life as a good judge of character who occasionally gets duped.
What narratives do we create about ourselves? Well, I am a night owl. I love to sleep and I never wake up "bright eyed and bushy tailed", no matter how many hours of sleep I manage to get. I love to eat and I'm not a fan of exercising, but I do love to dance and dance isn't really exercise, which is why I love it. I'm slightly OCD, but only organizationally, and only about some things, like my silverwear drawer. I don't like pink because it looks terrible on me. I'm not a bad singer, but I can't do karaoke. All of these facty sounding statements are stories that I made up about myself and that I propagate by telling them to other people. I mean, how can it be a fact that I must organize my silverwear drawer? What happens if I don't? If I'm a night owl, does this mean I can never wake up early? Is there no shade of pink on earth that compliments my skintone? Have I never sung in public? You can imagine the answers. (*Actually, I'd sneak back and reorganize the drawer; I can and do wake up early and I kind of hate it every single day, but I do it; dusty rose doesn't look half bad on me; and not only was I in chorus as a child, but I have, in fact, sung karaoke - okay, okay, it was in another country where I knew exactly 1 person, but the audience sang along!)
Where do these ideas come from? How is it that they stick so tenaciously? Is it really possible to get rid of them - to re-write our narratives - so easily? I admit that I surprised myself with my judge-of-character narrative: both decisions were instantaneous. I wish I could do the same for some of my others. Why can't I convince myself that I don't like cookies and ice cream?
So, a few years ago, I decided to try an experiement. I started telling people that I didn't like sweets. These were my friends I was telling; people who knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that chocolate chip cookies were my downfall. I explained to them why I was saying this and I asked for their support. Being my wonderful friends, they were completely supportive, not offering me any sugar-laden desserts, up until the bitter end, which meant giving me cookies when I broke down and cried, "I can't do this! I can't do this!"
Some narratives are a lot harder to re-write.
