Which Stories Do You Listen to?

Have you ever thought of your mind as being like a library of stories?

Our mind is like a library - it holds many, many stories about ourselves, about how we understand other people and the world in which we live. We hold stories with memories, images, successes, failures, disappointments, achievements - these stories build up over the course of our whole life and are stored in our minds.

A library of stories

When we go into a library there are many stories with many different fiction genres - thrillers, children's stories, fantasy, historical fiction, romance, horror and the list goes on. We enter the library and then borrow the book that appeals to us and enter into the story we read.

In the same way our mind's library holds stories that help us make sense of what we have experienced and felt. There are stories that we tell about ourselves - I am strong, adventurous, weak, a failure, courageous, not good enough, creative, practical, worthless, loved or maybe, unlovable. There are also stories that others such as our parents, teachers, friends, or social media tell about us - you are amazing, wrong, a loser, not good enough, a super star, courageous, a good team member, a misfit, practical, smart, stupid and many more.

Stories serve a purpose

All of these stories are in our mind’s story library and exist as separate stories ready for us to pull off the shelf and read. When we encounter a situation we often retrieve a story to help us navigate that experience. When we meet up with a person we know we retrieve a story about how to relate to that person - good friend so safe to share with, been hurt by them before so be careful what I say. Or perhaps we experience a stressful event that triggers a story about a similar experience in the past. We go to that past story of how we dealt with that previous event as a way to protect ourselves, solve problems, avoid pain, and then we act in light of that story.

Stories can hook us

Sometimes there are favourite stories that we go back to as we feel they are helpful. You discovered as a child that the way to make and keep friends at school was by pleasing them. It is a story you tell yourself - I get on in life by pleasing others. Yet as life changes and we grow and encounter different situations those favourites may no longer serve us. If we are open and flexible we can go looking for new stories that we can draw on to help us. Sometimes though, we struggle to find new stories and get hooked by one story, returning to the same story again and again. When we get really hooked we don't even return the story to the shelf, we hold on to it tightly, never letting it go. For example, to continue the situation mentioned above, the story we tell ourselves is that to be liked and get on with people we must please them even if it means crossing your own boundaries. The story is now an unhelpful one that we have become attached to as our only go to.

Coaching helps us turn to helpful stories

Coaching has the aim to help you lead a rich, full and meaningful life. It can help you notice the unhelpful stories that get us hooked. It helps you explore the whole library of stories you have access to and which one are working for you. Coaches help you to understand the story, how it started, the purpose it serves in your life, and why it is hard to let it go. The aim is to help you flexibly hold the story, accepting that it is just one of many stories in your Library that you can access. You get unhooked by putting the no longer helpful story back on the shelf. When you do this, you can find other stories that might be more workable and helpful. Or you create new ones through discovery and practice.

Values

Here’s where values can come into play again. See a previous post about the role of values. If you get in touch with your values, you can access those stories that are based on the values that you want to put into action in the situation you face. Instead of the people pleasing story, you find stories that remind you of times when you were courageous enough to set your boundaries. Instead of the 'I must do it right' story, we can let that go and tap into the value of self-compassion, and pick up the ‘it is good enough' stories we have experienced.

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If you have a story that is on repeat in your mind and it is proving unhelpful, then coaching offers a great way to help you discover new and more helpful stories that move you closer to that rich, full and meaningful life you are seeking.

• Photo by Olena Bohovyk on Unsplash