We are back with another episode in our Unschooling Stumbling Blocks series and this time, we’re talking about the stories we tell ourselves.

Stories is a topic that comes up a lot in conversations on the Living Joyfully Network. In fact, we had a monthly theme by that name! When we start to get curious about the stories we tell about our own lives, about other people and their intentions, about our children, and on and on, we realize just how powerful it can be to rewrite some of these stories! The stories we choose can empower us and give us confidence or they can pit us against others and make us miserable. We have the power to choose the stories we tell and there are endless possibilities!

We really enjoyed diving into this topic and we hope you find our conversation helpful on your unschooling journey!

THINGS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE

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The Living Joyfully Network

Watch the video of our conversation on YouTube.

Follow @exploringunschooling on Instagram.

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Check out our website, livingjoyfully.ca for more information about navigating relationships and exploring unschooling.

Sign up to our mailing list to receive The Living Joyfully Dispatch, our biweekly email newsletter, and get a free copy of Pam’s intro to unschooling ebook, What is Unschooling?

We invite you to join us in The Living Joyfully Network, a wonderful online community for parents to connect and engage in candid conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling. This month, we’re talking about supporting our children’s autonomy. Come and be part of the conversation!

So much of what we talk about on this podcast and in the Living Joyfully Network isn’t actually about unschooling. It’s about life. On The Living Joyfully Podcast, Anna Brown and Pam Laricchia talk about life, relationships, and parenting. You can check out the archive here, or find it in your your favorite podcast player.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

PAM: I’m Pam Laricchia from Living Joyfully, and I am joined by my co-hosts Anna Brown and Erika Ellis. Hello!

So, today we are diving into another unschooling stumbling block, and that’s the stories we tell ourselves. And I think this is such an interesting lens to bring to our days. 

I know one of my favorite quotes about stories is from Jonathan Gotschall, in his book, The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human. He writes: “Story is for a human as water is for a fish – all encompassing and not quite palpable.” That resonates so much with me and I found it truly paradigm-shifting to begin recognizing the stories I was telling myself!

But before we dive in, I just want to take a moment to invite you to join us in the Living Joyfully Network. There is so much value in doing this deep personal work that the unschooling journey asks of us in community because while everybody’s journey absolutely is unique, many of us face similar obstacles and challenges, like recognizing the stories that we tell ourselves, and that is where the power of community shine in helping people feel seen and heard.

And in the Network you can learn from the experiences of other unschooling parents, draw inspiration from their aha moments, gain insights from the unique and creative ways that they navigate both their own and their families day-to-day needs. It is just a conversation that comes up quite regularly. To learn more and join us, just follow the link in the show notes or go to livingjoyfullyshop.com and click on Community in the Top Menu.

So, Anna, we have just kind of gotten ourselves swimming in the water of stories. Would you like to get us started? 

ANNA: Yes, I am ready. I feel like it’s big, so we’ll see. We’ll see where this ends up. But I do feel like understanding the roles that story plays in our lives can be so helpful. 

We are humans. We write stories, so I love the quote, right? It’s everything. We just write stories. And I think it can be a helpful tool. So, this is not about trying to stop writing stories, one, that’s never going to happen. And two, it can be a helpful tool. For me, the story I tell about my life can help me cultivate the energy I want to have.

It can help me attract the people that I want to be around. I found for me, if I’m focused on everything’s doom and gloom and all the tough parts, I end up attracting more people that are stuck in those tough places and pointing out more tough problems that I have. But when I focus on the joy that’s there, even in those dark moments, I attract people who can see that too, or hold space for me in a different way.

That helps me stay in the energy that works best for me, and I can always switch it up and choose where I want to stay. But there’s something about that little bit of separation and knowing that it’s a choice and that the stories are a choice has just been critical to me and my growth and personal development.

And, but then there’s this other aspect of stories that I know we want to touch on, and it’s how we write stories about other people. So the challenge there comes when we don’t check in with the other people and we start to act from our story, the story that we’ve made up. And it can be really surprising and disconcerting to our partner or our friend who’s on the other end of that.

So just a quick kind of silly example is, let’s say David’s out of town and he tells me he’s going to text me that night. He’s on an overnight trip. Well, the text never comes. And so I might start writing stories. Well, does he not realize, he said he was going to text me?

Does he not care about me? He’s too busy having fun? I’m here holding down the fort and doing all the house stuff. I can start writing this story and then when he comes home. I might be snippy or annoyed, which could come as a complete surprise to him because he had no signal last night and he’s super excited to be home and to see me and to see the kids.

And so me operating from that story impacts our night, it impacts us coming back together. And if it’s a pattern of me doing that, it impacts the relationship. And so being aware of when I’m writing a story helps me pause and check in with myself and when possible, the other person involved. But in that situation, I couldn’t check in with him right away, but instead of just writing a story of, he doesn’t care about me, he’s just off doing whatever. I can say, I wonder if he has a signal or it’s weird that he hasn’t texted. I wonder what’s going on with him? 

That’s where we talk about being open and curious. I don’t have all the answers. It’s not feeling great that I’m not getting a text, but what’s going on? And when I can come from that place to someone, it’s completely different. And sometimes, I’ll use the tool of, “The story I’m telling myself,” when I’m talking to someone so I can be like, “The story I’m telling myself is, you didn’t care at all that I was home. And you said you were going to text and you didn’t.” 

Then he can recognize that’s about me. He can recognize like, oh my gosh, I can understand why you’d feel that way, but it doesn’t put him instantly on the defensive. Like, why didn’t you text? It gets us back into the I messages and that really helps with defensiveness.

And you know, I think it just helps us have a conversation that ends up not going sideways. We can just learn more about each other. And that again, is the beauty of being open and curious.

I feel like there are so many aspects to stories and I feel like we all have a lot to say. So I’m going to pass it to you, Erika, and see what’s bubbling up there.

ERIKA: Okay, this is one of my absolute favorite topics. I just think the power of our stories is so amazing. And I only realized it was actually so deep and so important once I started exploring the idea in the Network. And so for me, the first step was just learning that I am telling stories. I don’t think I’d really consciously realized that until we talked about stories and it definitely hadn’t sunk in just how powerful they can be.

And I think when we’re in our heads and in our own experience and not aware that we are writing stories, the stories just feel like just the truth of what’s going on. I’m just observing and I know what’s happening. That’s what it feels like. And once you start thinking about this, then you’ll notice all the people around you who are believing that their stories are the whole truth as well.

You can just see it happen, and it’s one way that people become so disconnected from each other and it’s a big reason for a lot of relationship issues and ruptures. To me, when I’m in that, it feels like, I see what’s happening here. I’m smart. I know exactly why they did what they did, the meaning behind every little thing.

But the truth is that I don’t know. All I know really is how it felt to me and that first initial gut response of what this means. But I don’t know about the other person’s internal state or their version of the story unless I’m open and curious to learn more. And I feel like we could do a million examples in this episode, which might be fun, but just a benign example where you won’t really ever know the full truth.

I was thinking about just being in traffic. I could drive around Miami feeling attacked and hurt. If I tell the story that every person who’s cutting me off means to do it and they hate me and they’re rude, or I could tell the story that the people are busy and overwhelmed and maybe they’re uncomfortable driving, or they don’t know the area very well.

Maybe they’re running late or they really need to go to the bathroom. It’s not about me and I don’t need to tell the story that all these people are purposefully being mean to me. There’s a tiny chance that they are, but even then, there’s something going on for them that I don’t know about that led them to that choice.

And so, the story I tell myself as I’m driving helps me either feel peaceful and safe, or it can make me feel scared and upset. The fact that I have the ability to change the story gives me so much power. And obviously we won’t be pulling over and asking all the drivers about their versions of their story, though that would be super interesting.

But when we’re talking about situations with people we know and love, then we can be open and curious and ask questions to clarify. We can learn where those stories are way off base. And I love that line that you shared. Just say, “the story I’m telling myself is,” whatever. Because it really helps our partner hear us without getting defensive about it.

And it just opens up the conversation so we can see what things we’re missing. And I’m always missing things, because I’m only seeing things through my own lens. And so, we can just use our awareness of the existence of stories as a form of self-care and to make our days feel lighter. Realizing that we’re always telling a story about our own lives and intentionally tweaking it to make it feel better is just a really cool idea.

I know I’d love to share more about stories I’ve told myself, but I will pause for the moment, Pam.

PAM: I know we all just have so much to say! But yeah, I do want to just bubble that back up, Erika, what you were talking about with the traffic. It’s just a perfect example because you can see how we can tell the story and which one feels better. Which one sets us up for the next moment of our day and the next moment. We’re not telling lies to ourselves. Like you said, we don’t know. We’re not going to try to stop them and say, “Hey, why did you cut me off?” But self-care wise, what feels better? What sets up my day better? Because I’m the one I’m caring for. So, the story that I tell about things really is my choice.

And then the other piece that bubbled up for me that I love so much is that, and it goes to our people are different mantra, is really at first, before we recognize that these are all stories. They look like facts, right? This is the fact of the situation because I’m seeing it through my lens.

It must look the same to everybody else like that just happened, right? You all feel that same way in reaction to the thing that happened, right? It’s another layer of people are different because, people will see things differently. And of course people are different from different hair color and styles and, and everything.

But then personalities. But then to recognize that a situation that’s unfolding before you also incorporates and needs the idea that people are different because people are experiencing that same moment differently. And those are the stories. And when we recognize that, oh, this is how it looks to me, for me, it was adding the, to me until, Anna’s idea of stories came to life because, it’s different how other people see things, each of us are different in how we show up into a moment. So how we experience a moment differently, what it looks to us, how it feels to us, what it means to us is different for each person.

And to recognize that those are the stories that we’re all telling ourselves. And then to get to that next step of being, as you said, open and curious about what the story is for other people. That was just a huge paradigm shift for me. As I mentioned, right up top, it was like the world is so much bigger and more interesting, and now I don’t have to control, I don’t have to think other people are wrong, I don’t have to go in and fix things. I can learn instead of fix, right? There is no one right way. I don’t need to have an agenda. Like all those pieces that we talk about really fundamentally boil down to the stories that we tell ourselves, right?

ANNA: And we don’t have to defend or explain either, right?

I think it really leaves us open, it’s a much more reciprocal kind of relationship because we’re learning about each other. So it’s like, “Hey, this is the story I’m telling myself. This is how that was landing for me.” That gives you information about my sensitivities or how things land for me, or what feels easy and hard for me.

And then as I understand your story, I’m learning about you. And especially if you’re somebody that I care about and love, then that helps us relate. That helps us be aware of how things are landing and what’s happening and we can ask better questions and we can show up in the conversations differently.

But I do love the traffic example because it doesn’t even have to be something that we check. It’s still something we control. And I’ve said this before, but I always would tell my oldest, if you’re going to make up a story, make up a good one, because she would make up these stories that just were doom and gloom about everything.

And I’m like, you don’t have any idea if any of these things you’re saying are true are going to happen. And so how interesting to spend that energy creating something that’s going to make you feel a certain way, like you were saying Erika, maybe scared in traffic or feeling frustrated then going to the next moment angry and frustrated because you’ve had this traffic experience when you could change that story.

And sometimes in traffic I’ll do an over the top story. They have a baby. Their baby’s on the way. They’re trying to rush to the hospital, you know, just to kind of make myself laugh and get out of my head about it and just slow down because really what difference does it make if I’m a little bit later or one more car behind the other car?

But sometimes it takes me being silly and making up a story that kind of over the top to do that. But like you said, Erika, I loved that piece that before we’re even aware that stories exist and how integral they are to our day, it really does just feel like the facts, well, the facts are this, you said this, you did this, but we never know what someone else’s motivations are, what drove them, whether it’s from childhood trauma or from the context of something, of a conversation, they just walked out of another room and came into this room with that still weighing on them.

There’s so many things that go into, people are different and it’s just so important for me to leave space for that and just have it be this opportunity to learn about the people I care about. And story is such an important part of that.

ERIKA: And doesn’t it feel so closely tied to just the differences in our personalities, the type of stories that we’re going to tend to want to write? I think initially it doesn’t even really feel like we do have that choice. And it’s something that takes a little bit of thought and diving in and playing around with. I remember when I first joined the Network, one of the biggest a-ha moments right away was just the idea that people could have a different response to the same issue and have a different feeling. 

The way I grew up, I have that vision of how my mom thought about things. Then I have my vision of my just natural emotional responses to things. And so the idea that maybe a child could say something that seems really scary or disturbing and that it would be okay for someone to not freak out.

I was just amazing, it’s okay to not freak out. I’ve never even heard of such a thing. And so just that idea of people are different. That kind of started to open me up to. It’s not like a foregone conclusion that I have to respond in this one way to something that happens. And, then I was also thinking about how, when you hear parents of young kids saying things like, they are doing this to annoy me.

They’re doing this because of something, and so we put intentions onto everyone, including little babies. We put these intentions on them like they’re doing it for this reason. And so when those kinds of thoughts pop up, that could be a little flag of, okay, I actually am not inside of their brain.

And so I don’t know what the intention is. And that reminds me of those underlying needs, like getting more to underlying needs or learning more about the context of the situation for someone else. Assuming everyone is doing the best that they can in the moment with what they know and with whatever context they’re dealing with.

All of those helpful thoughts. I feel like it’s like a calming thought to think everyone’s doing the best that they can in the moment, and that helps me get away from the story of everyone is doing everything to annoy me specifically, or to just make my life difficult, which, you know, in some moments it can feel like that.

PAM: I think that is such a huge one, Erika. I love that because it’s so true. It depends on our capacity, et cetera. You know, people are doing things that are frustrating around us and we are thinking, they know I don’t like that they’re doing that to piss me off. And it really feels like that’s the full story. That’s it, the facts.

Everybody around me is doing things that they know is just going to get me more and more frustrated. Like, why are the kids fighting again? And so to be able to shift the story to look for the underlying needs, to see that we are being triggered but it’s not about us. 

If we can get to the story about, oh, you know, what’s happening for them because they’re the ones doing it and chances are they’re not doing it to piss us off, right? Stuff’s going on in their lives. There’s a whole different story going on for them. When we can start to recognize that, I think that really helps in our relationships.

And I wanted to mention one other layer underneath. I needed to learn about stories for other people, and understand their perspectives to then get to the layer of my self-talk and how I spoke to myself, the stories I told about myself, because those were very automatic.

If something went wrong, ah, I did that wrong again. Or, I’m a bad person. All those stories that we tell ourselves. To recognize that, this grace I’m giving to other people in recognizing that their story is different from mine and not assuming all sorts of things around it, I could also start to try and give myself that grace and tell the stories differently. 

When I think about it a lot of people, when we start talking about stories, they kind of come to it with the impression at first that you’re just making things up. You’re just kind of lying to yourself so that it feels better, so that things look better, et cetera, et cetera.

When you recognize that that’s not what’s happening, that there is more than one way to see a situation, right? When you’re stuck thinking there’s one right way, you’re just putting your head in the sand or you think that when we write a different story that we are. 

But when you recognize that there really are different ways, then you can bring that grace to yourself and how you choose to speak to yourself through situations, through anything that’s going on. For me, that was and continues to be, not just a challenge, but so helpful in moving through things because it actually resonates more deeply than just trying to guilt myself into something or trying to beat myself up.

Gotta do that better next time, or whatever the story is, but recognizing what’s actually going on. I learn more about myself and so I have more context. As I think you mentioned, I like slowing down to actually recognize what’s going on. I can give myself that grace instead of just beating myself up quickly because that is just the normal reaction that I’m used to.

Giving that space to recognize the context of things helps me have better, more accurate language and stories as to what’s going on, rather than just leaping to the typical story that I’ve always told myself.

ANNA: That makes sense. I love that connection with self-talk. I had written myself a note from what Erika was saying, but it actually fits with that too, which is basically our stories tell us a lot about ourselves.

It is kind of a litmus test of, okay, wow, I’m really writing stories that are very harsh towards myself or harsh towards someone else, or whatever it is. That tells me a lot about where I am, where my mindset is, what’s happening for me. I think it can be a really good clue that I’m needing some self-care.

I need to slow down. I need some help. I need some support because this is happening. So I think it is really interesting to look at our stories as giving us information about where we are, mentally. How we’re feeling, what’s happening for us. Because I think we all have generous hearts and we want to do that, but there are times where it feels really heavy and overwhelming, and we can start to write stories that just keep us in that space.

And so when we can step back and have that pause of like, wow, I’m being really harsh towards myself, or I’m not giving myself space, or I’m being really harsh towards this person in my life that I care about. Where’s that coming from? I think just that little bit of separation to recognize they are stories, it just starts this whole process of self-awareness and how we’re showing up in the world and all of those different pieces.

And just again, to repeat the piece of, everybody sees things so differently and there isn’t a right or wrong, but it is really freeing. Because Erika, we talked about this when we were having some of those epiphanies, it’s pretty amazing to think, okay, so then you get to decide does this way of thinking feel good to me? Does it work for me? 

Because here are three other people that are doing it completely differently. And so how do I feel about that? Instead of thinking that there’s one way. One that came up early in the network was “worry equals love”. And it was really freeing for a lot of people to think it doesn’t have to be worry to be love.

You don’t have to be worried about everything to show that you’re loving your children or other people. And again, people have to find their place on that spectrum, but there are people all over that spectrum, you know? And so I think it’s so powerful. And so I just love that idea of using our stories as just a, hey, checking in with myself, what are the stories I’m telling myself about my life right now?

Because I have also found when I can switch it, that’s when I get out of the stuck place. That’s when things change. That’s when a new door opens up, that’s when something else happens. I. It’s a powerful, powerful tool.

ERIKA: One other thought popped into my head. I know this is stories we tell ourselves, but also stories we tell about ourselves to people.

That’s a big part of this as well, because, you kind of mentioned it at the beginning, Anna, but just like what you present about your life is you’re going to receive different responses based on different things, and this is something that I’m still working on for myself because I realized that I tended and still tend to want to tell the hard negative story about what I’m going through in my days. I think because of a desire for connection, wanting someone to care in response to that, but it is me ramping up the side of the story of things that are very challenging and downplaying the good things.

And that is one attempt at getting connection, but it’s not the only way to do it. And so it’s something to play around with. Like when Josh comes home from work, I’m telling the story of a great day. How does that type of connecting conversation feel in comparison to the, I need to make sure to tell him all the hard things that happened.

How does that feel? And it’s interesting because it’s all there. Like on any given day, both parts are there. I can choose to tell which version of the story I want to in that moment. And it’s just kind of getting curious about how it plays out differently with the different versions is interesting.

PAM: I’m glad you mentioned the word play there because, that’s exactly what bubbled up for me when you were talking because that’s so true. And the different context too. I know when we would be visiting extended family, et cetera, you know, and they’re asking, how’s it going?

The story that I chose to share in various contexts made a difference. Because even there, extended family loves you but have their opinions. We did an episode recently about, it’s not the unschooling, but for them they would see the big changes, the unschooling. So if I said I was having a hard time with this kid, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

The “answer” for them would be to send them to school. They would really be trying to help. It’s so fun to just play around with. I learned to change my story, and it’s not even that one’s right or wrong, it’s just selecting the part of the story of what I want to emphasize about our days, right? And picking out the pieces that these are the things that I want to share with this person or the, these people, et cetera.

And, just be more purposeful and intentional about it. And I say play because play with different aspects that you share and see how it feels. See what kind of reactions you get. That is another way to learn about the impact of the stories that we tell. So again, it’s not ignoring things, but it’s how we tell ourselves the story, how we tell others the stories of our days.

I think it just helps us to observe more, to see more of the things that are happening and not to give more weight to any one aspect, to any one particular part than all the rest. So, now you’ve got a much larger smorgasbord of stories to choose from, and you can go from one to the next, to the next, to the next, but play around with them and just get a sense for which feels good and which makes that connection that you’re looking for with the person that you’re talking to. 

ANNA: That’s what I was going to say. I love that point, Erika, to look at the underlying needs, so stories are a tool, right? A tool to move through the world to get what we need to figure out these pieces.

But if we can understand what is our need that we’re trying to meet, then we can play around with the story that gets us there. Because depending on the person that you’re talking to, with that end of day story. They might be a nurturer, so they hear that kind of sad story about the day and swoop you up in a big hug and snuggle you.

But if they’re not that nurturing personality, that actually can be really off-putting, like, okay, I don’t know what to do. You’re upset, I don’t know what to do. That’s too hard. And so if connection is the goal now, if to be heard about your tough times is a goal. Okay, then we can figure that out.

But if it’s connection, then you know what? It might be sharing the amazing things that the kids did today. And then that brings that person closer because they feel excited to learn about that. So playing around with what need am I trying to meet? And then what story serves me and the situation? What do I want to present to help get that need met?

What gets me there? And same with the in-laws. What am I trying to do here? If I’m looking for support for unschooling or parenting or different things. Is this the environment where I want to tell the story about what’s happening in our life? Or do I want to do it in a place where people understand where I’m coming from or have information that might be interesting to my journey.

I think all of that’s really important, but I think the slowing down gets us there. What’s the need? What’s happening? What’s my point? And then playing around what, how, what can we do?

ERIKA: And just wrapping your head around the idea of, it’s not lying about your life. It’s all there.

It’s all there, all of these versions of the story are true. You’re not kidding yourself to tell a positive version of something. It is just super interesting and, and a lot to play around with.

PAM: So much to play around with. Well, thank you so much for joining us, everybody listening, Anna and Erika, it’s always such a pleasure and we all hope that you enjoyed our conversation around the idea of stories.

Now maybe you’re seeing some of the water that you’re swimming in. I think that’ll be really fun to play around with and consider joining us in the Living Joyfully Network where we dive into these kinds of topics regularly and with other kind and thoughtful unschooling parents. We have amazing families in the network and we are excited to welcome you to learn more and join us.

Just follow the link in the show notes or go to LivingJoyfullyShop.com and click on community in the menu. We wish everyone a very lovely day. Thanks. Bye bye. Take care.