Watch Your Story: Becoming Aware of the Narratives We Live By

21:34Heidi Rose:OK, I understand that. So let's talk about other examples of stories that we tell ourselves. I heard Rosie O'Donnell in an interview once talking about the person she was dating at the time. If you know her and her talk show or anything about her, she talks a lot about losing her mother when she was very young, like five or six years old. Her mother died, I think, of cancer. And that she would often say, like, well, as a motherless child and like, this is how I approach stuff and I have this kind of damage because I lost my mother. And she talked about her girlfriend at the time saying, it's interesting to me that like a motherless daughter is the story you tell other people about yourself.

22:13Because I look at you and I see one of the most successful, wealthiest women in the United States who started a talk show, who built this career from nothing with no connections, who did all this other stuff and whose mom died 55 years ago, 50 years ago. So is it possible that you've moved on or you've built something on top of this motherless daughter story? are you still centering a story about five-year-old you that may not be the right story for 55-year-old you or however old she was at the time?

22:48Heidi Rose:And what was the outcome for that? Was that good advice and Rosie stopped centering that part of her story or was it was the outcome it's not that easy? I think the outcome and she would not have used this language was like this is something I'm constantly going back to one on. You are not going to become a person who's like wow great point. hi everyone i'm a successful millionaire talk show host this was back in that talk show host days no you're not going to suddenly change your story because someone told you about it but i think and we talk about this with our kids all the time like if you have a kid who had out of control adhd as a five-year-old who you couldn't take to restaurants you couldn't take anywhere was bouncing off the walls ripping things off the walls just you know really struggling with behaviors when they were five.

23:34It's very possible that through no fault of your own, you have this kid who had this very marked behavior at five. At 15, are you still parenting the kid with ADHD who may have through therapy, medication, and just growing older, calmed those behaviors down? I mean, you talk about this as like, oh, don't even bother giving it to him. He's too picky. He won't eat it. don't put a story on your kids either.

24:03Heidi Rose:Yeah. You know, ADHD has this, not a comorbidity, but something that happens called rejection sensitivity dysphoria. Like, I knew you didn't like me. I knew it wouldn't work that kids with ADHD may be more likely to do that. And they're looking into why. And one approach is like, it's not actually physiological. It is that if you have ADHD, by the time you're 10, you will have been corrected approximately, you know, 15 ,000 more Times and somebody who doesn't have ADHD. And so it is maybe a version of the story you tell yourself because you learned it from an early age that you don't do anything right.

24:37Heidi Rose:Like Rosie O'Donnell's not a bad person for having been strongly affected by her mother's death, right? There is no part of this that is like you're doing something wrong. Everybody has, think of it as a computer. I'm on a beautiful like a MacBook. I see you on the screen. I see my backup track. I see the notes for this episode. This computer, the reason I see those things is because this computer has an operating system. That operating system is now Mac OS, you know, Thunderbird. Exactly. I don't know what the heck the operating system is. Otherwise, you would just see like crazy code, right?

25:13It's a front for what I'm seeing. That is how narrative identity works. It's just the way that you are putting the stories together. Somebody may have put this story on you. If I raised you from birth every day to be like, you're worthless. Your narrative identity story would be gathering evidence for your worthlessness like that. Somebody could put an identity narrative on you. If your narrative identity is we can't take you anywhere, you destroy everything that's going to affect. Now, it doesn't mean your parents are terrible people for putting that. I mean, if they put you are worthless, maybe they are terrible parents at least, but everybody has these operating systems.

25:50Everybody has these stories based on their life experience. You know, I have people in my life who have served in combat areas and have PTSD, right? They sit with their backs to the door because their narrative identity is in busy places. I have to constantly scan for where a bomb might go off. They're now home and doing that in their local tavern, you know, like still sitting with their back against the wall scanning because their narrative has taught them that thing. None of this is bad. Thank God that person had that to protect them when they were in a combat situation to be like, don't sit near the garbage can that could explode.

26:27Watch that guy. He's walking around like you might have something in his backpack. That's a survival instinct in that place. But it's saying, do I still need that story if I'm sitting in now a restaurant in Phillipsburg, Ohio, where there is much less likelihood that there's going to be a bomb that goes off.

26:48Heidi Rose:And maybe the first step is being aware like, oh, this is the story. This is water, baby. This is water. It's all this is water. I am over applying a lesson that I needed to learn in one place and another place. And these are extreme examples. But let's talk about some other stories that we tell ourselves. I'm not good at math is something that I said to my roommate from college who was a physics major and is now a physics professor. She was like, that's not true. You probably are good at math, but at some point you didn't feel good at math and you were encouraged that girls don't do math. And you should give me this long lecture about it.

27:24I'm not sure which part of that is true, but it's worth at least examining. I'm not good at math. I mean, believe me, in college, I was a theater major. I was like, guess what? Hooray, I never have to use math again. And now I have a calculator if I need to do anything basic. But and I also have Amy when I'm like, what's how do you calculate 70 % of this. And she's like, that's algebra. I was like, yeah, I stopped before then. And she does it for me. Those kinds of stories can be harmless, but it's just always good to know what your story is. What is your water? I am bad at math. I am not athletic.

27:59My sister-in-law always says I'm not athletic. I grew up, you know, I was not an athlete, an athlete. I was not an athlete growing up. And then in her probably 20s, she found a huge love of running. And now she like competes in races and she loves it. So like she didn't let her story, I'm not athletic, stop her from finding this cool thing that she really enjoys.

28:21Heidi Rose:Because that's my story is that I don't, I mean, I was a kid who would get tummy aches every Tuesday and Thursday because those were gym days. It only worked for, didn't work for very long, but I was really afraid of my gym teacher because we play dodgeball every week. And I have, you know, since then growing up to be somebody like, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm bad at sports. If you want me to play pickleball with you, like you think you do, but I'm terrible. And you will end up being mad at me, at least for one of my kids, mad at me for being bad. No, thank you. And it's a story that's preventing me from perhaps finding my great love of pickleball.

28:55Heidi Rose:Or not. Or not. But worth asking the question. Right. It's worth knowing that it's something I'm choosing to construct. Going to come in hot with my friend Robert's grandmother's version of this where we were sitting and saying, oh, well, this professor and he probably doesn't like us. And I think the reason he did this, signing all these. And she said, you all will have trouble enough. You do not need to borrow trouble. And borrowing trouble is a form of storytelling, right? This will all go wrong. what if this weird spot is face cancer like whatever your story is watch stories that borrow trouble it's so easy to see this in other people too so easy what if when i go to college i don't have a good roommate or what if i what if what if what if what if you can say like don't do that don't decide ahead of time and what is that that's another natural thing i guess that we can see other people's stories as stories, but we think our own stories are real.

29:58That's right. The capital T truth is, and your truth is part of an operating system that was built through a series of experiences that you had as an individual. Some of those, I think, are more marked if you grew up in a childhood where you were told you are a bad kid, like things like that. Those are going to be very, very recognizable in your narrative, but we're all doing this. Right. The final example I want to use is my sister who always jokes when people tell you about themselves, believe the opposite. This is so true. I have totally taken this on. This is not the thing I tell people. Oh, my gosh.

30:38Right. I am so laid back. It's like, oh, God, no. Like, why are you saying that? That ain't it. But people tell themselves stories that are wrong, too.

30:48Heidi Rose:This is like, as a longtime time watchers, Sister Wives or other reality shows, it's such a great way to approach watching reality television. Like, hi, I'm Amy. I'm not an athlete, but I'm really easygoing. I'm like, oh, watch out for her. She's going to be. She's going to have a surprisingly good pickleball serve, but she'll, you know, she will not be easygoing at all. Yes. Watch out. Watch out for Amy. She's a pickleball hustler, people. You heard her here first. The opposite of however they introduce themselves. Absolutely. All right. So we're going to take a break and come back and talk about whether or not it's really possible to change our stories.

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34:00And now, what type of car mom are you? From the What Fresh Hell podcast, the camp counselor. All right, kids, that was a great game of I Spy. Next up, let's all play the license plate game, the music historian.

34:16Heidi Rose:How dare you? This is not old people's music. This is a seminal 90s R &B classic, Just Kicking It by Xscape. They are sometimes referred to as the hip-hop version of En Vogue. They were discovered by Jermaine Dupri and went on to have hits like The Professional. In you go, kids. We've got 7.45 a.m. drop-off at Swim Team, and then we'll be right on time for our 8.02 drop-off at the baseball field. Then, Swing by the Browns, drop-off Henry, pick up Christy. As long as the left turn lane on Maple isn't blocked, we'll be right on time for 8.30 at the Girl Scouts. The Karaoke Queen. Oh my god, kids, here comes the key change.

34:51Heidi Rose:You're here, there's nothing I fear. I believe that my heart will go on. The cars are my time for heartfelt talks, Mom. So listen, guys, how's it going? How are the friendships? Who's feeling peer pressure, huh? I just want you to know, like my kids know, I am always an askable person. Any questions? No topic off limits. Any questions about sexually transmitted diseases, friends? Anyone? This is Ben. What type of car mom are you? From the What Fresh Hell podcast.

35:34Another part that you were talking about with sister wives is, do you have people in your life that are telling you stories that are not great for you? And sometimes it's just about putting the piece of paper in. You pick up that baby too much, you're spoiling that baby. You should let that baby cry or they're going to grow up spoiled and rotten. It's just the moment to take a breath and be like, oh, someone told that person that story and now they're repeating it. It can help you put a little distance between like, my mother's a bad person who hates me and doesn't think I should love on my baby because she wasn't capable of love.

36:07She was told a story and she still believes that story, but I don't have to believe that story. I can see the water. I can change what I think.

36:15Heidi Rose:Wow. Pretty deep. I like that. We had a babysitter in our past who was a yoga instructor and we both knew somebody who was just impossible. And I asked this woman how she was able to engage with this person so calmly. And she said, I always imagine a difficult person as a tiny baby being held. You know, somebody loved them and they were a loving, lovable. And then probably something happened to make that person turn against the world in the way that they do, but they were once a baby. I'm like, okay, I'll try that. Okay, fine. We'll be generous of spirit. Fine. There's an amazing scene in Eat, Pray, Love where Elizabeth Gilbert, the narrator, is working at a yoga retreat.

36:54And she's been at this yoga place for a couple months or however long she's been there. And she feels this kind of sense of ownership of it. And like, we're here to stay calm. And I understand how it works around here. These people start coming up to register And they're, you know, kind of like rich people come to a yoga retreat and they're like, I can't believe you don't have my name. That's spelled wrong. They're like yelling and carrying on. And she's like, these horrible people are just buying their way in to this experience that I've worked hard for. And that the like yogi monk, whoever it is sitting next to her is like, you can see how scared they feel, can't you?

37:32You can feel how frightened they are to be trying something like this. they're taking the exact same information and processing it as two different stories.

37:43Heidi Rose:Yeah. And there's just a tremendous amount of possibility and magic in that. And it doesn't mean that you're going to go through life as a Zen monk who's like, thank you for yelling at me, child. You've really, I understand. I'm your safe space. And it's so great that you trust me with this emotion while your child is like slamming doors. I don't even know what you should try to get to that place because we are humans and we have to be treated with some kind of respect and that's all fine. But it's just a good reminder of like, I think, in fact, this is the ultimate human power. It is. Is your ability to change your mind.

38:21Heidi Rose:If you can create your own story, right, then you have agency and then you can create a different story. That possibility exists, even though it's hard because you're choosing to create something subconsciously in the first place. Yes. And I don't like to get facile with this, but I'm going to just give this example. A person who is imprisoned, right? Taken into prison. That person still has what David Foster Wallace would call their skull size kingdom. They have a kingdom within themselves that can never be stripped away from them. You can take my freedom, my clothing, you could take everything away from me.

38:58But foundationally, no one can take from you your skull-sized kingdom, like your way of interpreting the world. And so if the imagining an unjust imprisonment, if the point is to take everything from you, they can't actually take the most important thing from you, which is your mind and how you think about things. Nobody can touch that. It's very facile. Don't put me in prison. And it's very easy to say, very hard to practice. Right. But I think there's worth in imagining this practice.

39:28Heidi Rose:It is your skull-sized kingdom, so you might as well make it a place where you want to be. You might as well try. Yeah, you might as well try. Well said. Here is an article called Take Control of the Story You Tell About Yourself from Psychology Today by Samantha Boardman, MD. According to psychologist Dan McAdams of Northwestern University, wanted to go there, got waitlisted, and then rejected. but I'm not here to bring up my bitter past. Don't put that in your skull size kingdom. I'm freaking it out of my skull size kingdom. Two narrative themes emerge as key predictors of mental health. Do you have any guesses of what the two things are?

40:04Well, I'm peeking at the notes.

40:05Heidi Rose:I know the first one is agency. So that's it. Okay, you have agency. When we tell our story, we describe having some control over past events and recognizing our role in shaping the outcome. This is big. And this is something that you can work with your kids and yourself on daily agency. If the world is just happening to you, I have one child who I have this discussion with fairly often. Okay, fine. I guess I'm just a terrible person. You know, when I get mad at him for leaving wrappers, hamburger in my bed, for example, I guess I'm just terrible. I'm like, no, that's really not allowed. You can't just be like, Well, the answer to me leaving hamburger in your bed and being in trouble is I guess I'm just a terrible person.

40:53No, you had agency. You could have made a different choice. You didn't make a different choice. Next time you will make a different choice. Agency is so important in your story. Things happen to you and things may have happened to you that were terrible.

41:10Heidi Rose:It seems to me that the first step, though, is being like, oh, I do have agency. I could create a different story. Things don't get better only when the different story is so locked in. You never remember the old one. Things can start to get better once you realize, oh, I do have power to make this a little bit different for myself. Yes, and there may have been times in your life when you didn't have agency. You might have been a small child in an abusive home. You had no agency. And there is tremendous damage that has been done to you in those years that will be with you for the rest of your life.

41:44But maybe now as a 40 something mom with children of your own, you may want to be asking yourself, what is my agency now? I am no longer a child with no agency. I am an adult with agency. Does that look like getting therapy to deal with this trauma? Does that look like reading and listening to parenting topics about changing outcomes when you had an ACEs childhood or a childhood with high conflict and abuse? so again very facile like easy for me to say like hey abused child now you have agency so you know change it all around agency is hard but until you step into agency you cannot change

42:25Heidi Rose:anything about your life right but just realizing you have it is a really good place to start and then you can stay there for a little while i think like oh i could do something different though and then let that sit and then start to think about what it might be there you go there's a scene And it's a spoiler. If you haven't seen the movie Waitress, it's been out for like 30 years. So I don't feel too bad giving any spoiler. But Keri Russell is in an abusive relationship throughout the whole film. And she can't get away from this guy. And she keeps making excuses. And then she has a baby. And the minute they hand her the baby, she looks up and she's like, get out.

42:59Like everything about her mind is changed the second she's handed this baby. I actually am not a huge fan of this story because I don't think that's really how it works. Right. I think it's much more of a back to one. Like, I think it's very rarely that you have a single experience or someone says a single thing to you and then you open a door to a new life as it is portrayed in that movie. But I still like the idea of it that moments where you're like, I need to bring agency closer in are useful. And the next step of this that is talked about in the same article is the other key predictor of mental health for people is redemption.

43:40When we recount challenging times, we are able to find some kind of positive meaning or personal growth.

43:47Heidi Rose:So you tell yourself the stories of redemption that you have for yourself, like you think about the times that you overcame? I'm trying to think of an example that's not incredibly depressing. Our dog died unexpectedly, and it was horrible, but it reminded us of how capable we are of love. As we come away from the experience, we realize that we clung to each other as a family to get through it, that we were able to take this sadness and we were all able to pick it up together rather than having to do it alone. The way that you have come through difficult experiences, as opposed to my dog died, my life was ruined, and here I am, which is a ridiculously huge example.

44:31But I will use an example of getting a divorce, right? Your husband cheats on you and leaves you for like a 20-year-old, let's say a 25-year-old. So he's not such a creep. But your husband leaves you unexpectedly and is like, you're too old and ugly. I'm leaving you for this younger woman, right? That's an extremely painful experience of which one version of the story is the rest of your life is defined by like, I had a happy life and then this jerk left me and left me with these kids and now I'm alone. And no one is to be trusted ever. No one is to be trusted to your kids. It's like this guy is a horrible person.

45:13And again, I don't blame anybody who takes any take or story after this. Right. But that's a skull kingdom that's difficult to live within. Right. It's just that it's so painful for you and everyone around you. and I definitely know people who've had that experience and gotten very stuck in that place and for them I have a lot of sympathy and I know other people who spent two or three years in that space and then went back got a degree started a new career all things that would have never been possible if this thing hadn't happened and are able to say this darkness is the beginning of redemption and a beginning of a change that I can make positive?

45:55Or who is the poet? I think it's Rumi. Someone gave me a box of darkness and it took me years to realize that it too was a gift. And it's just like, someone's going to give you a box of darkness. Will it be a gift or a punishment? And the only person who can really control that is you. That's right.

46:15Heidi Rose:That's what I was going to say like this is not a process that can be rushed like you're not turning your frown upside down a week later that you were betrayed by your husband no you're not like starting the redemption the next day right and you're also not telling your friend that she really has to get some perspective and realize that there's a possibility for good like this is for you to do for yourself it's not for you to do for other people or to tell other people to hurry up and do but it is possible The Box of Darkness is from Mary Oliver's poem, The Uses of Sorrow. And the quote is, she's so incredible.

46:48Gosh, if you haven't read Mary Oliver poetry, stop fighting with people on the internet and read some Mary Oliver. It'll change your life. Do you have the name of this poem here? It's called The Uses of Sorrow, and I'll give you the exact quote. Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too was a gift. The part I'm getting out of that, it took me years. It took me years. But that's right. It doesn't mean that the day someone punches you in the face, I once got mugged in a somewhat violent mugging. And I was talking to a friend of mine the next day.

47:22And she said, well, yeah, desperate people do desperate things. And I was like, yeah, I'm not ready for that perspective yet. And now as I look back, I'm like, yes, socioeconomic forces and lots of things come together to cause crime and we should attack those things at the roots. But I was not ready for that 24 hours after getting violently mugged to see it from the muggers perspective. Right. Right. And there may be things that you're never. It also doesn't mean you forgive the person who gave you a box of darkness. It doesn't mean you let the person who gave you a box of darkness back into your life.

47:54It just means that you allow yourself to see the box of darkness years later as a gift in and of itself, that you keep your mind open to that. Right. You don't say it wasn't a box of dark

48:07Heidi Rose:that it didn't happen or that it was actually a box of light. No, absolutely not. I love that. I love that. John Cunningham. There's a quote here. We become the stories we tell ourselves. We also become the stories our parents tell us. Well, that's true to an extent, but we're trying to say, I mean, I hope by the time you are an oldie locks like me, that you have given yourself the gift of doing the work to move beyond the stories that other people put on you. Yeah. And I think that, you know, if this topic resonated with you, there's a lot of resources you can find, including therapy, but a lot of resources you can find about how to start thinking about what your story is and changing it.

48:45And I'll finish with this quote from Bruce Feeler, I believe his name is, in the New York Times. He lost his wife. I know. So anyway, think of that in mind when you're listening to this. If you want a happier family, create, refine, and retell the story of your family's positive moments and your ability to bounce back from difficult ones. This act alone may increase the odds that your family will thrive for many generations to come. It's not denial, though. No. It's not nothing bad ever happened to us. It's not nothing can hurt us because we're a great family. it's we have been through some really hard things and those things almost broke us but here we are and here's how we came back from those things you can also start letter like i'm thinking of a story

49:32Heidi Rose:that we were supposed to go on a vacation with another family the house fell through at the last second the airbnb that family then went to kiowa island in south carolina that became their favorite family holiday destination and the story was like if we hadn't had this thing happen i was like oh no, the house was canceled. We would never have found our new favorite place. I mean, that's adversity of a very small sort, but it is a story. But these have to be small and large. And the larger they are, the harder they are. And be gentle on yourself. It may take you five years after the mugging to be like, OK, I can see from a young teen boy's point of view where mugging me would have felt like the right choice or whatever.

50:07You don't even have to get there. It's just a little bit what you hold and what you let go of and how you interpret things. Lots of work to be done here and more than we could get to in a single episode. But I really loved this research and talking about this topic.

50:22Heidi Rose:Yeah. Narrative identity. OK, we'll put the links to everything that Margaret researched in the show notes for this episode and Mary Oliver poem, which was amazing. I loved this one. Yeah, me, too. I really enjoyed talking about this with you. And friends, remember, as we said in the beginning, we are nine reviews from the finish line or really the start of another chase. I will say I was on Apple Podcasts recently listening to a podcast that I like. You know what? I am going to take my own medicine and I'm going to leave these people a review right now saying how much I like it. I could not figure out how to do it.

50:54Heidi Rose:So we are going to put foolproof instructions. I mean, review us wherever you listen. But if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, that's where we're being silly about these thousand reviews. We'll put link in the show notes to how you can do it because I honestly couldn't find it. And I thought, oh, that's the only thing. I'm holding that's the only reason those nine people are not coming through. You change your story. You were like, it's not that everyone hates us. It doesn't want to take the time to review us. Amazing work. Right. And with that, everyone, thanks for listening. We'll talk to you next time.

51:21So long.