The Stories That Keep Us Trapped
An excerpt from my book “Doing What Matters – Resilience at Work with ACT”
The conversation with his director lasts less than fifteen minutes. When Thomas steps outside again, he realizes that the tension he carried into the meeting that morning has disappeared. The conversation turned out very differently from what he had imagined. His director wanted to ask him to lead a new project and wanted to know whether he would be interested.
Thomas stands there for a moment before walking back to his desk. His thoughts return to the short message that appeared in his inbox that morning.
Could you stop by this afternoon?
That was all it said.
Only now does he see how quickly his thinking had filled in the empty space. A simple invitation had almost imperceptibly turned into a series of assumptions. Perhaps he had pushed back too much during the last meeting. Perhaps a complaint had been made. Perhaps it had something to do with the reorganization they had been discussing for months.
None of those thoughts had felt like an assumption. They had presented themselves as a logical explanation for what was probably going on. Only after the conversation was over did Thomas realize how easily he had gone along with the story his brain had created.
A silence during a meeting takes on the meaning of disapproval. A colleague who does not call back seems irritated. A brief remark stays with us for the rest of the day. We often fail to notice how quickly our thinking gives meaning to what we experience. As though that meaning were already contained in the event itself.
Thanks to language, we can make connections, think ahead, and learn from what we have experienced before. We make plans, assess risks, and prepare for situations that have not yet occurred. Without this ability, we would be far less able to build on what we already know and have experienced.
That same ability allowed Thomas to turn four innocent words into a story within minutes.
When something is uncertain, our brain tries to make sense of it. Where information is missing, it fills in the gaps. It searches for explanations, makes connections and tries to create a story that makes sense of what is happening. Most of the time, this happens so quickly that we barely distinguish between what we have observed and what our thinking has added to it.
Stories are indispensable. Without stories, we would hardly know who we are. They give coherence to our lives and help us understand our experiences. Within organizations, families and societies, too, stories arise about who we are, what we value and where we want to go. They give meaning to the past and direction to the future.
The problem only arises when we forget that they are stories.
Then a thought no longer feels like a possible explanation, but like reality itself. An assumption becomes a certainty. An expectation turns into a prediction. The story begins to determine how we see, feel and act.
We saw an example of this earlier with self-stigma (Chapter 3). When people begin to internalise society’s judgments about illness, psychological vulnerability or reduced capacity, a story can easily emerge such as: “I’m not the same person anymore,” “I’m worth less,” or “I’m no longer capable of doing my job.” Such thoughts often feel like facts, when in reality they are stories the mind constructs in an attempt to gain a sense of control over a profound change. Because we become fused with them, they begin to guide our behavior.
Within ACT, this is called cognitive fusion. We become so connected to the meaning our thinking gives to things that we barely notice that meaning is being assigned at all. We respond not only to what is happening, but above all to the story our thinking tells us about it.
Someone who becomes convinced that they will fail is more likely to avoid challenges. Someone who sees themselves as a person who disappoints others will look for confirmation of that story. Not because it has been proven, but because it has come to feel self-evident. In this way, stories can quietly determine which possibilities we are still able to see.
The question, therefore, is not how we can change our thoughts.
The question is how we relate to them.
Within ACT, this is called defusion: relating differently to what is there.
Our thinking will continue to give meaning, predict, explain and warn. That is exactly what it is designed to do. What can change is the way we relate to it. We learn to see that a thought is a thought. No more, but no less either.
Perhaps you will notice this over the next few days. A silence that immediately seems like rejection. A critical question that turns into self-doubt. Or a conversation that has not yet taken place, but for which your mind has already imagined an outcome.
At such moments, one question may be enough:
What story is my thinking telling me right now?
Sometimes simply noticing is enough for the story to lose some of its self-evident truth.
A few days later, Thomas receives another short message from his director.
For a moment, he feels the same tension as before.
Almost immediately, he recognizes what is happening.
There’s a story again.
He does not yet know what the conversation will be about. Nor has the unease disappeared. But this time, he does not have to get ahead of what might happen. Only in an hour will he know what is really going on.
As he pulls his chair forward, he notices that his attention has returned to the corridor where colleagues are walking past, to the murmur of the department and to the work still lying on his desk.
His thoughts have not disappeared. They simply no longer determine what he sees.
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Doing What Matters – Resilience at Work with ACT.
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