Our Work Cultures Need us to Drop the Storyline

Finally, I got it.

We are a storytelling, storysharing species. This is great because stories are interesting, and they are how we get to know each other. They are how we get to know ourselves and how we make meaning out of our lives.

Brown quotes Jonathan Gottschall saying, “Ordinary, mentally healthy people are strikingly prone to confabulate in everyday situations.” Confabulation is to fabricate a story to compensate for a lack of memory. It means we tell lies, but we tell them honestly.

The trouble, then, with this default programming of our brain is that these stories we come up with are often inaccurate, false, and even uncivil. Unfortunately, our brains reward us with dopamine whenever we achieve this recognition of pattern completion (stories are patterns).

So, not only do we make up these storylines to protect ourselves, but we also reward ourselves for the stories we create even when they are blatantly false! Not all of our stories are false, of course, but the ones born out of reactivity and defensiveness certainly are not our friends, nor are they accurate interpretations of reality.

Have you ever had a days-long or weeks-long conversation with your boss IN YOUR HEAD? Yes, of course you have…because we all have. We have these pretend conversations in our thoughts with people that infuriate us because we just keep playing out the storylines over and over again…even if they never happened. We make up plot lines where we are always the protagonist, and we always win and we’re always right…in our thoughts.

Dropping the storyline is about stopping all of this useless, delusional activity. Because, none of it is real! It’s all pretend. We have lengthy conversations with our “boss” in our head, but that is not really our boss. We play out elaborate dramas and soap operas in our heads where we tell people off or where we are the super hero or whatever plot line is our favorite for the day. But it’s all illusion.

Our feelings are certainly real…but the ways that we use our feelings to interpret reality are not always real. Let me say it again.

This is because our feelings are temporary. They pass by, and just because we are angry in the moment does not mean that is how we must remain, frozen in time and space.

There is a saying that tells us that we harvest what we plant. Some call it karma.

Harvesting what we plant goes like this…weaving a storyline of resentment will always bring us more resentment. Weaving a storyline of bitterness will always bring us more bitterness. Weaving a storyline of gratitude will always bring us more gratitude. We will always harvest what we plant.

Dropping the negative storyline is stopping the cycle of being stuck, and this happens when we give the other person the benefit of the doubt.

When we learn to be generous in our interpretation of others, then we will begin to assume good intentions on their part, and we will be able to drop the storyline. Now, this doesn’t mean I make generous assumptions without being guided by boundaries and integrity, but it does mean that my first interpretation IS a generous one instead of a negative one.

TO BE CLEAR, our stories ARE important and vital to empowering our own voice, but it’s good to be generously CURIOUS in our storytelling and to ask ourselves regularly, “Is this storyline real? Is my boss really such a jerk? Or, are they just having a bad day? Or, maybe I AM the one having a bad day and interpreting my boss in an inaccurate way.” This is what we call PROJECTING, and it’s a very powerful defense mechanism of self-protection.

Once we can figure out what WE are doing, then we can figure out how to RESPOND and not REACT. We can then determine (with integrity) if their behavior and actions are acceptable or not acceptable for our work relationship. Those are the boundaries, but first, I have to figure out my own interpretations and thoughts.

Sometimes it’s good not to trust EVERY single thought that runs through our head. They are just thoughts after all. They aren’t solid. They aren’t real. They are just opinions. Yes, our thoughts are only our opinions, and it is up to us to choose to interpret those opinions with generosity and integrity instead of with resentment.

So, let’s add some generosity to our communication…and generosity is always contagious.

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