The Mindful Storyteller

Your boyfriend goes to the bar with his friends, while you are stuck at home. You feel no real insecurities about the situation and even if you did he said he’d call around 11:00pm.

10:30 You remember that most of his friends are single and you start to think…

Hmmm I bet there are a lot of girls around, well I’m sure they are having a good time!

10:45 Everything’s okay it’s just him and his buddies at the bar. He never puts

up a fuss when I go out for girls night, and we all know what the guys are like at bars.

10:55  Oh no…"What guys are like at bars?!?!?!?!?” Am I referring to what his

friends are probably like at bars?

10:56 I’m just overthinking it

10:57 No I’m not.

10:58 There’s probably girls all over them who am I kidding?

10:59 He still hasn’t called???? He said 11:00… Oh…

11:00 He has to be kidding me, he is so rude and unreliable. I can’t even.

11:05 REALLY?!??!!?

11:20 Ring, ring

“Hey babe, sorry I didn’t call earlier me and the boys ended up just staying in at Rick’s place to watch the game! How was your night?”

This is basically an excerpt from The Story of My Life. However it’s an example of how our minds can get the best of us sometimes. I call this “story telling” and what I mean by that, is the reality of the situation was much different than the story that got built up to the point of anger. Story telling is not limited to the scenario above, anytime you make yourself the victim of a situation you are story telling.

           

            Story telling is something that is so easily avoidable until it becomes a habit of constantly trying to feed our ego after a bad experience. There isn’t a big difference between lying and story telling. When you story tell, not only are you lying to yourself but you are also mentally torturing yourself. Lying has quite a negative connotation to it so, I’ll cut you some slack and we’ll call it story telling. 

            

              Why do we story tell you ask? Well sometimes when you’re in a sucky situation it can feel really good to play the victim card and have people feel bad for you. The reality is that your ego feels hurt and hungry and can only be fed by attention. (I cut you some slack already with the lying but I have to be brutally honest with that one.)

            For many people, including myself, story telling has become a habit (and a bad one at that.) It’s easier to make yourself the damsel in distress rather than accepting that maybe he really just didn’t get around to calling. The first thing to do to stop the story telling is to catch yourself in the act. Whether you’ve already done it or you’re just about to, just be aware that you are story telling. Once you become more aware of when you’re story telling you can begin preventing it before it even happens. You will notice right away that not only does this eliminate most conflicts but it will also greatly lessen your day-to-day stress levels.

           

So now that we’ve found the problem here is the solution: mindfulness. Yes! One word will fix this whole hiccup in the road. To be mindful is to be aware and conscious of your emotions, body and feelings and recognize them fully before reacting. In this context it is to be mindful of the reality of the situation. The reality of the first example is that her boyfriend didn’t call at 11:00pm. The reality is simply the known facts of the situation, not a hunch or a thought of what may be behind the reason he didn’t call. 

When you mindfully accept the reality of the situation it stops it from unraveling further and halts the negative snowball of emotion right in its tracks. The easiest practice to be mindful is to sit with your feelings breathe through it and distinguish the real truth of the situation.

For example: you go home to your wife after work and tell her about how your boss came in to your office today and yelled at you for a small mistake that you made. You then blame it on the fact that him and his wife aren’t getting along at home and he probably needed to blow off some steam.

The reality is: your boss had to give you a harsh talking to when you made a mistake because he is your boss. It’s his job to make sure you’re doing your job to your full ability.

            Don’t get me wrong some stories really do need a hero and a villain! But is it worth it to wreck your credibility, have people pity you and increase your level of stress just to feed your ego? If so then grab a snack for the road because people can only feed your ego for so long. If not then you are on the right track my friend!