The stories we tell

Have you noticed you tell a lot of stories?

I'm not talking about the "once upon a time" stories, but the everyday stories.

The stories that stress you out and make you feel terrible.

Whether we tell our stories to others or keep them privately replaying in our heads, humans love stories.

An example of a story would be my drive to work today.

Here's my story: I woke up late and ran out the door. I spilled coffee on my shirt and then got caught in traffic. Some idiot cut me off and almost caused me to wreck. THEN, it started raining! If traffic wasn't bad enough, this caused gridlock. It took me an hour to drive 20 miles. I'm so stressed!!

My brain finds my "story" full of adjectives and exclamation points very entertaining. My body, however, doesn't find it entertaining. It finds my story stressful.

An alternative to my story would be just the facts.

I drove to work today.

It rained.

The drive took 60 minutes.

But that's pretty boring, right.

But, nobody wants to repeat that story over and over.

I don't feel stressed when I boil it down to the facts.

But, unfortunately for my body, my brain is in charge of my stories.

My brain goes wild sometimes, creating drama in my head.

Most of the time, it's not helpful and leaves me worn out.

So I have to watch my brain and redirect it back to just the facts.

Facts are boring. Facts don't require exclamation points.

Facts don't get repeated over and over in my head.

I'm on watch of my brain and its stories. Especially when the stories make me feel bad.

If your brain is telling stories that stress you out, you can be on watch too.

Have a lovely week.

Alisa