“When writing the story of your life, don’t let anyone else hold the pen.” Unknown
In the first episode of “The Mind Explained”, a world memory champion named Yanjaa Wintersoul was interviewed. She has an incredible memory that is incomprehensible to most of us, she even memorized the IKEA catalog! In explaining her process for remembering long strings of numbers, words, or pictures she begins by creating a story. It is not only a strategy used for mind champions but these basic techniques have allowed many medical students to memorize hundreds of acronyms and facts by creating mnemonics or stories. If you are married to a doctor you probably know a few of them yourself!
Our brains are wired in such a way that it subconsciously constructs narratives to make sense out of the world, and our lives. Yanjaa, the mind champion, consciously uses what the mind naturally does.
When presented with pure facts our minds get busy filling in all the possible details, creating a mental image. Let me give you an example.
Here are some facts:
- married to a doctor
- 3 kids
- New York
Quickly, and with very few details, our brains begin putting together a story based on our prior memories and experiences.
Maybe the story your brain created was a narrative similar to this:
The doctor is a male, married to a female. They have 3 kids, 1 boy and 2 girls. The kids are all under 7. One is an infant. They live in New York City and have a two-bedroom apartment. He is doing a radiology residency. They have 2 years left. The mom doesn’t work. Money is tight. The apartment is crowded.
The potential number of stories that could be created with the given facts are innumerable. Your version will of course be different. But the process is the same. Using the information you have been gathering, sorting, organizing and storing for decades you create a story.
We do it with our own lives too!
We take the facts of our lives, those things that are absolutely true, and give them additional meaning with thoughts, values, and beliefs. Those meanings are further reinforced with emotion. The more intense the emotion the more intensely it is remembered. Emotion acts as flag that says this is vital information.
What is the story that you are currently telling yourself about your life?
It is an important question. Not only is your brain making connections and drawing conclusions from facts, it also likes to be right! Even if being right isn’t in your best interest.
If the story you are telling yourself is that your husband’s work is more important than his family, you will continue to find evidence to support your story. Each time you collect the evidence your brain gets a little hit of dopamine from “being right”, and the circuit is completed. You could say the brain is addicted to being right! This is illustrated in the diagram below.
Without realizing it, you may have turned over the writing of your story to the circumstances of your life. But, you are the author of your story. You are the main character. You get to determine your supporting characters. You get to decide whether you are the victim or the hero. You get to decide how you will think, feel and respond to events in your life. You get to steer your narrative where you want it to go.
How do you rewrite your story?
You begin by acknowledging what your current story is. Start proving that story wrong by challenging old plots (thoughts). Then, put your imagination to work creating the story you want.
We create our lives mostly with our minds. What you choose to focus on will determine your story.
Just like the world memory champion, Yanjaa, create a deliberate story that serves you. What kind of story will you write? Will it be a comedy, tragedy, or romance? Will it be the heroes journey, a rebirth story, or perhaps the beloved rags to riches?
If you can change the story you tell, you can change your life.
