DEEPER DIVE: MEANING MAKING - REWRITING STORIES
The following exercise is one you can use for any relationship. It is an advanced practice in integrity. Remembering, a relationship is any form of engagement, connection, or interaction between you and a person, place, thing, or circumstance. For the purposes of this particular lesson we will focus on a relationship with another human being. Follow the instructions below without reading ahead.
Go back to your journal entry from the first lesson (Desire), and review what the desire is that we’re focusing on in this course. Think of a strained relationship, conflict, or lost connection, for which there is direct negative impact regarding the desire you’re focusing on in this course. or example, if you desire to have a new car and that requires you to make more money on your job, but your strained relationship with your boss means you can’t ask for a raise. Or if your desire is to live stress free and a disconnection between you and your life partner is creating dissonance that is stressful. Or perhaps you just hold energetic trauma, resentment, guilt, or shame around something that happened in a relationship or circumstance, that has you harboring self doubt, fear, or perception of lack.
Write down the story of what happened to cause the conflict, disconnection, or strain, and how you feel that impacted your relationship, and the rest of your life in negative ways. 800 words or less please. Go ahead and freely express all of the disempowered language that comes up in your mind around this story. Do not moralize, critique, or correct any of your emotions, fears, or perceptions. Let’s just call a thing a thing and be honest about all emotions you have around what happened. PUT THIS ASIDE AND DO THAT NOW. DO THIS BEFORE YOU READ THE REST OF THESE INSTRUCTIONS. DO NOT CONTINUE TO READ BEFORE DOING THIS STEP.
Read Rewriting Stories Demo Part 1 and complete the Relationship Impact Inventory at the end of that demo. When you finish, continue reading Rewriting Stories Demo Part 2, and then return here to continue with #4
Write your story again. This time, however, you’re going to write it in with the following guidelines:
Keep it clean and simple: What happened. What emotion did you feel? What sensations do you feel in your body about what happened.You may only tell the facts of what happened, do not include any form of embellishment such as your opinion about why you think the other person said or did what they said or did, such as what you made this story mean about them, such as what you made this story mean about you, such as what you made this story mean about any other perceived thing. So, for example,
“She did that because she doesn’t care about me.”
“My life was ruined because of their divorce.”
“Because he lied I can never trust another man again.”
Skip all non-factual meanings you’ve concluded and attached that are not necessarily actually and factually true. Leave all of that out. You can instead, for example, simply state what was said, what was done, and the emotion you felt. Emotions are not opinions. Emotions include the following:
-happy, sad, angry, afraid, irritated, frustrated, insulted, attacked, lonely, betrayed, neglected, abandoned, disappointed, impressed, discouraged, encouraged, empowered, endangered, furious, surprised, upset, excited, bored, depressed, annoyed, humorous, insecure, unsafe, lacking, afraid, loved, unrequited, misunderstood, etc...
Emotions do not include any form of presumption, assumption, or opinion about intentions or outcomes. This would look something like this:
“She lied to me. This made me feel unsafe. I distanced myself from her and decided I will never trust a friend again.”
Or: “He didn’t show up for our date. I felt angry. I choose to never make plans with him again.”
Or: “Last time I was there, she said something racist. I was offended. I didn’t say anything about it because I didn’t want to be bothered. I now think she’s a bad person. I will never associate with her again.”At the end of the story, you can write about the outcome in the following ways: Include in this second version your ownership of your own actions, of your own perception. Use empowered language that puts you in direct responsibility for how you feel or think about what happened.
“I chose to see what happened as meaning_____”
“I believe that when people do_____that means _____ about them”
“I made _______ mean_______”
“I didn’t like this because to me it meant_______”
Do not use language that makes these thoughts seem factual. Write this part as honestly as you can... as if they are simply the perspective you chose.And finally, write why you think the relationship can or cannot be salvaged, and why you think you can or cannot find closure and peace regarding this person. Can you forgive? Can you see ways in which you blew the thing out of proportion? Did you have unreasonable expectations? Did you withhold in a way that made it impossible for the other person to practice sovereign decision making? Are there ways you dehumanized the other person and made assumptions about their intentions? Do you love them enough to be a big enough person to squash the conflict and/or part ways and wish them well on their way? Were you out of line? Have you restored integrity with this person (this means have you acknowledged how you contributed to the situation, misunderstanding, or conflict)? If there is nothing to salvage, can you at least find closure? What do you need to shift inside of you to find that closure? Write about this.