Stories are powerful.
The stories we heard as children often stay with us throughout our lives, and we retell them to our own children, generation after generation. We all know of great novels, movies or theatre productions that touched our hearts or made us think differently. Perhaps they revealed something beautiful or deeply meaningful that we weren’t previously aware of.
All of this affected us and even ‘infected’ us with a new awareness – a new way of seeing or being in the world that opened our minds to new possibilities. It might even have changed our fundamental beliefs.
The best poetry also does this. The great poets show us how to observe and interpret everyday events and experiences in remarkably new and meaningful ways.
Actually, all art forms can have this effect, but art isn’t always beautiful, and just like life, some of it can be disturbing or even shocking. The stories presented can depict the darkest aspects of our individual souls and collective humanity. They can challenge the boundaries of what we find socially and culturally acceptable. And even this can shift our perspectives.
All of what I’ve described so far relates to stories that we receive from the outside. But what about the ones we create internally – stories about ourselves, about other people and about the world around us? These can be at least as impactful and profound as the external variety, and often more so.
What I’m referring to here is our self-talk, our internal narratives, and our internal discourses. Although these take place completely in the mind, they can be much like spoken conversations as they conjure up an internal stream of words and language. Sometimes, they take on a more subtle non-verbal form – an internal mélange of impressions, feelings, images and intuitions. I’m sure we’ve all experienced both versions at different times. Nevertheless, it’s a flow of consciousness that most of us will probably recognize.
Our internal narratives allow us to make sense of life experiences by creating meaning from them such that we can tell a story about them. It’s important to remember that the story we create isn’t an objective reality. It’s simply a way of interpreting or representing reality in our own way, subjectively. If you and I experience the same event at the same time, it’s quite possible, and even likely, that we’ll tell different stories about what happened. The difference may be slight, but equally, it may be so great that we have difficulty agreeing with what we saw or heard. We might even get into serious conflict as we debate our two versions. This can lead to broken relationships, damaged family ties, and at a macro level, nations have even been known to go to war over such differences. So this is indeed a serious issue!
All of this results from what has been called ‘structures of interpretation’. The idea is that we don’t actually respond or react to reality itself but rather to our own internal and often unique ‘interpretation’ of reality. We tell ourselves a story about reality and behave as if it’s ‘the truth’.
We need to be careful with this. I have an internal narrative that describes me, just as you do. We’ve been repeating these narratives to ourselves for a long time and perhaps for many decades. My narrative describes a version of how, what and who I am. It tells the story of what I believe I’m good at, and what I’m not good at. It might inflate my self-perception to narcissistic and over-confident proportions or diminish my self-concept to the point of wanting to hide away with feelings of uselessness and lack. Or maybe my narrative is somewhere between these two extremes. Whatever story I tell myself, it’s my truth, and I have all the evidence to prove it.
The question is: How true is it? Could it be that I’ve got it wrong? And if I’ve got it wrong, to what extent am I limiting my potential and diminishing what I could possibly become?
And what about my internal stories about other people and the labels I’ve placed on them – my colleagues, friends and those I love? Do I ever diminish them by subtly or not so subtly emphasising my perception of their limitations rather than reinforcing their possibilities?
The Enneagram is a model and map of the human condition that is dear to my heart. I use it a lot in the work that I do. I particularly like to explore the habits of mind of each Enneagram style – those internal drivers of more visible behaviours. Of course, there are variations across individuals within each style, but there are generally common features within a style. It can be intriguing and useful when working developmentally with oneself or with others to explore questions like:
- What are the repetitive stories that I tell myself about myself and about others? Which of these stories is limiting? What if these limiting stories are not the whole truth? What possibilities could this open up? What possibilities could I be closing down?
- If I could truly shift or change my stories in some way, what would I be able to do or explore that I can’t right now?
- What if I start challenging my narratives by looking for evidence suggesting that my limiting internal stories are wrong? Am I brave enough to try?