How does this work in practice?
How can we learn to see the shame stories we’re telling ourselves and change them into something better?
We have to learn to tilt the lens. You need to tell yourself a different story. You tell yourself so many stories about yourself. You need to learn how to see the stories you’re telling yourself from a new perspective. Through a new lens.
And how do we learn to do this? Same way we learn anything. Practice! Just plain practice. So let’s practice together right now, and after that I’ll share the three questions I ask to help my mind zoom out and reframe the shame stories in my head.
Here’s a scenario we can use that I based on case studies in the book Mindset by Carol S. Dweck:
One day you go to your twelfth-grade chemistry class. You like the class, but when your test is handed back, you got a 65%. You’re bummed. You tell your best friend, but she whisks by you in a rush somewhere. You feel brushed off. Next, you head to your car to drive home and see you got a parking ticket.
How do you feel?
If you’re anything like me, you’re completely shattered.
What stories are you starting to tell yourself?
You’re telling yourself, “I’m horrible at chemistry. I’ll never get into college. My best friend hates me, and I don’t know why. I’m so stupid that I parked where I shouldn’t have. I am having an awful day!”
But when you look closer at the scenario, maybe you can start to see more context. Can you tilt the lens a bit? The chemistry test was just a test, not a midterm, not a final exam, not your final mark. How many classes have you taken where you bombed something along the way? I’m guessing lots. We all have.
What about your best friend? You feel brushed off because she was in a rush. You don’t know why she’s in a rush! Did she get bad news? Is she off somewhere important? Who’s to say she wasn’t rushing to class or had just gotten an important call? She didn’t ditch you. She doesn’t hate you. She didn’t shove you or give you the stink eye. Have you ever been in a rush when a friend or family member wanted to talk? Of course you have. We all have!
And the parking ticket? It’s just a ticket. Your car wasn’t towed. You didn’t get into a crash. Who gets tickets? We all do. It’s a money making machine for the local town. They got troops driving around just looking for wheels a smidge over the line or a meter that just expired. Ticketers gonna ticket. It’s not a black smudge on your record. You’re not going to jail.
And that’s the point.
Our brains are so quick to adopt the view that the indignities we suffer are part of some grand plan to upend our entire lives.
But they’re not.
All we need to do is learn how to tell ourselves a different story.
“I guess I should study hard for the midterm next week.”
“I hope my friend is okay. I’ll check in with her tomorrow to see if she needs to talk.”
“Oh, they ticket right at 3:00 p.m. outside the school. Next time I’ll put a little extra in the meter in case I run late.”
Is it easy to tilt the lens?
No, of course it’s not. It’s hard! Really hard. It takes practice to learn how to tell ourselves a different story.
So what helps?