When I was about five years old, my parents bought me a red helium balloon. I loved that thing, for about half a day. Later, we were walking through a market in a town square, my balloon attached to a string that I gripped in my little hand. Then my hand held nothing. I turned to see the balloon floating up into the sky. I jumped into the air. My hand missed the string. The balloon was five meters up. Ten meters. I called to my parents.
“Oh, look at it go!” they said.
The balloon drifted away, untethered, into the vast sky.
I was devastated. I can still remember the feelings of grief and loss.
In recent newsletters, I’ve emphasised the importance of “insight” – your ability to reflect on yourself and on how others see you. Last newsletter I provided some basic questions to give you some insight about those two things.
There’s another way of thinking about insight: it’s about keeping the stories you tell as closely tethered to reality as they can be.
Because your mind, or the stories that you tell yourself, is like a helium balloon. Your stories need to be attached to the ground of reality or they’ll drift off into the sky of fantasy and delusion.
The farther your stories are from the reality of a situation, the more hurt you are likely to do, to yourself and others.
This is true in all areas of life. Think about climate change deniers. Or holocaust deniers. Or “breatharians” (people who believe you believe you can live without food or water).
Each of us has stories that are like this too. Sometimes they are stories about other people and sound like his: “People will betray me,” or “People can’t be trusted.” Sometimes they are about us: “I’m not good enough” is common. There are equally damaging overly-positive stories we can tell: “I’m perfect” or “I’m always right” (these are the kinds of stories narcissists tell).
Almost everyone tells this story: “I’m an honest person.”
Almost everyone isn’t. The most honest people will say: I try my best to be honest. Sometimes I fail.
We usually turn to our narratives when we’re trying to make sense of difficult events: a breakup or a personal or work conflict or a traumatic event. And they particularly get activated when we don’t have all the information about what is happening. Where there are empty spaces between the facts we do know – these we fill with our stories.
The more our narratives drift away from reality, the more dangerous they are to us and others.
This is one of the most important ideas to understand. At every level we look at – society, the workplace, the family, us as individuals – this is central.
We all need regular ways to keep our pictures of the world aligned to reality.
Our society has various ways of doing this: science and social research is one way. Democracy is another.
As individuals we have ways to do this: therapists and counsellors, good friends that we trust, sources of information like media outlets, authors or journals. We check in with them to find out “what’s true.” Insight – and the tools I sent last newsletter – is one part of this process.
So, hold onto the helium balloon of your stories. Your individual ones. Your community ones. Your workplace ones. Your society’s ones. Keep them tethered to the truth.
If they drift too far from the ground, there will be grief and loss. If they are tethered to the truth, you can act with power and purpose.
In future newsletters, I’ll discuss how this plays out in different arenas, for individuals and for workplaces.
If you’d like to examine your stories with a compassionate therapist, coach and trainer, email me at rjurik@me.com or find me on my website at primetherapy.net
留言