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In my last post, “Stories that Aren’t Stories,” I discussed how our earliest stories—those we mostly passively receive from our parents when we’re children—often don’t even seem like stories we tell ourselves when we’re adults because the relative truth of them is so ingrained in us. But as Rick Carson said, “Beliefs are opinions that […]

“The most powerful stories we tell ourselves are the ones we don’t realize are stories.” In Chapter 6 of The Stories We Tell Ourselves, I discuss this idea at length, but the gist is this: sometimes the scripts we use to live our lives don’t seem like false beliefs because they’re all we’ve ever known. In […]

In my last post I said that we all need to become better fact-checkers because the stories we tend to use to fill in the blanks of our relationships all too often increase our anxiety and bring unnecessary stress to our relationships. Now, think back to a recent event where what you assumed was going to happen […]

When it comes to your relationships, the fact is you don’t have all the facts.  In fact, you rarely have enough facts to really know the facts. And to put it as matter-of-factly as I can, your lack of facts makes you a better fiction author than friend or spouse. When you lack knowledge—especially about […]

When something bad happens in your life, what’s your first inclination? Do you want to eat something?  Or do you want to call your mom or dad? Do you want to go into your room, shut the door, and pretend the unfortunate circumstance didn’t happen? Or does your anger burn against the entity responsible for […]

“The stories we tell ourselves about other people can be like wrapping a warm blanket around our scarred, scared heart.” That particular line from the fifth chapter of my book, The Stories We Tell Ourselves, encapsulates so much of why I believe we use imaginary stories to pacify ourselves. Our made-up stories about others help us […]

Many of our relationships rely on the stories we tell ourselves about the one percent of factual information we actually know about the other person. For instance, you might really know only four facts about your boss: she’s my boss, a single mother, and only takes fifteen minutes for lunch every day. From that scant information—likely even less […]

I remember the first time I went scuba diving. Though gearing up for the dive took some time, as soon as I plunged into the ocean, I knew the wait was worth the payoff. As the cool water engulfed me, I witnessed a very different and captivating world. At forty feet below surface level, I […]

Whether you believe it or not, your earliest experiences as a child still affect you today. That’s one of the reasons why so many therapists want to talk about your childhood and the people who raised you. How they treated you then has a direct impact on how you perceive and react to the world […]

As humans, we are innately safety-conscious. Even a child who touches a hot stove knows not to make that mistake again. When presented with a life-threatening situation, our fight-or-flight responses kick in whether we want them to or not. Our bodies and minds want to keep our bodies and minds safe. This isn’t a bad […]