It’s time for the three big questions.
These three questions help crowbar my brain out of the dark place it wants to nestle into and help me tell myself a different story. They work for me and I think they will work for you.
Here they are.
I find this question helpful no matter what story I’m telling myself. And it’s such an easy question to ask because the answer is almost always “No!”
So you had a half-dozen fender benders. Are you okay? Will it matter on your deathbed? No. It won’t. Tell yourself you were just getting in some driving practice.
So you got fired. Sure, it’s terrible now. But will it matter on your deathbed? No. Tell yourself, “I’m glad I had that experience, because now I’m better prepared to find a job I love.”
So you mix up there, their, and they’re all the time. So what? I do, too. Will it matter on your deathbed? No. Definitely not! Nobody will care about your grammar at your funeral. Least of all you! You won’t really even be their.
Did you ever see the article in The Guardian about the top five regrets of the dying? Palliative care nurse Bronnie Ware witnessed thousands of deaths and shared the biggest regrets she heard. They were:
“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”
“I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”
“I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.”
“I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”
“I wish that I had let myself be happier.”
Do you notice anything about this list?
People on their deathbeds don’t wish that they were prettier. Or that they had better spelling. Or that they had better abs.
They’re looking back at their whole lives.
To soak up a lot of my shame about having one ball, I asked the question: Will it matter on my deathbed? The answer was a pretty clear “No.” So I realized the shame story I was telling myself was really a choice. Proof? Well, here I am shamelessly talking about it.
Okay. On to question two.
If you wet the bed as a kid and your father made you feel shame and you’re still carrying it around, then sure, there are things you can do about it: therapy, counseling, journaling, talking to a friend, sitting down to talk to your parents about it.
Get it out of your system.
But if you feel shame about your bipolar disorder or your miscarriage or your inability to grow a beard, well, you may not be able to change that thing. I’m not saying that solves the problem! I’m saying that remembering you can’t control them should help. Why? Because you’re off the hook. There’s nothing you can do. Now you can tell yourself a different story to help yourself move forward.
So you lost your wallet? Instead of telling yourself “I’m an idiot for losing it! Somebody savage stole it! I’ll never trust a soul again!,” try “Well, maybe somebody really needed help to be that desperate. I hope my wallet helps them buy a hot meal or a bed for the night.” Is that true? Maybe. Maybe not. But it could be. It adds perspective. And it’s a story that will help you move forward instead of swimming—and sinking—in the deep.
Let’s try a more heart-wrenching example. This one hits close to home. A few years ago, my wife Leslie had a miscarriage. We were devastated, and the stories we were telling ourselves were causing us even more pain. What did we do wrong? Who was to blame? Was it this fight we had, that thing we ate, that place we went? Then we started telling ourselves a different story: “The fetus wasn’t developing properly and a body is smart enough to know when it’s best to end a pregnancy.” Did that tilted lens, this new story, take away all the pain? Of course not. It still hurt. Of course it did. But by telling ourselves a different story we moved away from toxic self-blame—and it helped us slowly move forward and move on.
Maybe there really is wisdom in that old Serenity Prayer that asks God to grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Because when you ask yourself, “Can I do something about this?,” there are only two options, right?
If you can, well, hey, go do it!
If you can’t, well, you can’t. Why waste time worrying about things you can’t change? I can’t change having one ball, but I can do something about the story I tell myself. Leslie can’t change that she had a miscarriage. But as a couple, we could choose to tell ourselves a different story that avoided endless wondering and finger-pointing.
And finally, question three.
Are you ready to get a bit meta?
Because this may be the biggest question of all!
This is about peeling and peeling and peeling away all the little stories we are attaching to the true facts in our lives. Because so often we’re attaching stories to facts… and we don’t even know it. Be vigilant. Search for absolute truth. Husk away all those mental attachments causing unnecessary suffering. Keep peeling and peeling and peeling until you find the solid and objective core, and then use that core to tell yourself a different story.
So I’ve got one ball. Some of you have one breast. Or one lung. Or one leg. Some of you have anxiety or alcoholism or Alzheimer’s. We all have something. The key to this question is separating what we have from what we attach to it. It’s about finding the core fact and noticing that we’re just telling ourselves stories on top of it. “I have one ball” is a lot different from “I’m disfigured with no chance of mating.” The first is a fact. The latter is a story. “I’m an alcoholic” is a lot different from “My family will never trust me.” “I failed my biology exam” is a lot different from “I failed my parents.”
Those are the three questions:
Will this matter on my deathbed?
Can I do something about it?
Is this a story I’m telling myself?
It doesn’t mean it’s easy.
It just means that on our road to resilience, on our journey to awesome, on our path to getting stronger, we recognize there’s an opportunity to be kinder to ourselves and we’re able to use a few small tools to help us get there. Because the truth is that most of what we think is a story we’re telling ourselves.
Only you can decide what story you tell yourself.
So tell yourself a better one.