The other day I started to play an episode from one of my favorite podcasts, Things That Will Help by Buffy Barfoot.
I instantly noticed something was off with Buffy.
She didn’t speak with her typically warm, smooth-as-warm-honey voice with its soothing Southern accent…a voice which makes her podcast an instantly calming oasis.
That voice was gone.
In its place was a harried voice with an unpleasant edge.
My first response was concern.
“Is there something going on with Buffy…maybe trouble with her kids (she has two little ones)…or something else?”
Then, I hate to admit, I got a little judge-y.
I wondered if for some reason she had either decided to be more hard-edged in her persona or if that was really who she was all along.
Then I had a thought.
I checked the playback speed on my phone app and discovered it was at 1.2x speed.
I switched it back to 1x and amazingly enough, Buffy returned to her usual warm, comforting, soothing self.
I smiled to myself at what a perfect metaphor this little moment was for how we all tell ourselves stories about why someone is doing something — or not doing something — and how those stories are just that…they’re stories.
They aren’t facts and they often incorrect.
It also was an amusing reminder of how we sometimes think someone’s behavior or response to us is a statement about them, when it ends up being more of a statement about us…the mood we were in in that moment, their natural response to how we treated them, or some unresolved childhood wound we continue to act out.
So in this case, I was the cause of the problem, not Buffy.
Ironically, the next episode I listened to was in part about her learning how to challenge the stories she tells herself by first becoming aware that this is what she’s doing.
The episode, titled The Three Jewels, focused on three practices that were game-changers for her. One practice was to say “The story I’m telling myself about ______ is _______.”
This is a powerful practice to do internally when we find ourselves “explaining” to ourselves another person’s motivations and intentions or the meaning behind a difficult situation — e.g. not getting a promotion or being rejected in a dating situation.
It is perhaps even more powerful when we use this language pattern with others when we bring up a difficult issue.
Instead of assuming the story we have created is true and basing our entrée into the conversation on that presupposition — which often results in a judgmental or accusatory opening — we simply share with the other person the story we’ve been telling ourselves about the situation.
Doing this makes it clear that we own our interpretation and are not stating it as a fact, and that we are open to having our story revised based on what they share.
If you’ve ever had someone say “The story I’m telling myself about…”, you know how disarming and inviting that is, especially compared to an opening that contains incorrect assumptions stated as facts.
So…to put this into action…
1. Pay attention to the stories you tell yourself about someone’s words or actions — i.e. the explanation you came up with — and ask yourself if you are taking your story as fact instead of as your theory. Ask yourself if you could come up with a more productive and perhaps generous and compassionate story about what they said or did.
2. When bringing up a difficult issue, experiment with opening up your courageous conversations with “The story I’ve been telling myself about ______” rather than starting off with a confrontational or accusatory statement. See if it leads to a softer response from the other person.
