The Fictional Stories We Tell Ourselves: Decoding Our Inner Narratives

(shaker shakes) (mouse clicks) (uplifting music) Headspace Studios (gentle music) (water rushing) Hi there. Welcome to Radio Headspace, and to Wednesday. It's Eve here with you. Today I wanted to spend some time talking about the stories we tell ourselves and that very often what we believe is happening is actually fiction and not fact. I was speaking with a friend about this recently. She'd convinced herself that she was not going to get a job that she'd been interviewing for. In her final interview, where she was meeting the CEO, she was understandably a little nervous and she said she thought it showed. She walked away from the interview thinking that she'd tanked it and that she was never going to get the job. The story she was weaving in her mind was that she wasn't good enough for the job, the other candidates would never have been so nervous, and she definitely wasn't going to get it. Hopefully you can see where I'm going with this. It was all fiction. She got the job. Not only did she get the job, but she received glowing feedback from everyone. The CEO even sent her a message saying congratulations. (uplifting music) (water lapping) Our mind loves to make sense of the world by weaving narratives, but the power of the stories we tell ourselves can be very limiting and they really shape our perceptions and beliefs about ourselves and the world around us, which in turn can hold us back or impact our relationships. My friend spent so much time talking down to herself instead of seeing that there could be a completely different reality. She focused on all the little failures she perceived to have occurred. Of course, our past experiences can deeply impact the way in which we view ourselves, as well as societal influences, telling us that we're not suitable for a certain job or should've done things like buy a house or have children by a certain age. Stories like this can significantly impact our lives and mean that we don't believe in our own self-worth. (soft music) (water lapping) My husband and I have been going through fertility treatments. It's been deeply challenging experience with so many ups and downs and someone asked me the other day why hadn't I had children. Did I not want them? Now, I did not know this person well, so I was really taken aback and pretty upset that they would even ask this. I felt so judged and wanted to say, "We've been desperately trying." For days afterwards, I could not shake the storyline that we should have tried earlier, I should have a family by now, and now it's just not going to happen. It was my husband who helped me to come out of it. He told me this person knew nothing about us and that we were forging our own path and doing it our own way. Unhelpful stories like this can sometimes become self-fulfilling prophecies. The more...