I recently read the book Pebbles in My Shoe: Three Steps to Break through Interpersonal Conflict by Linda P. Outka. It’s not as simple as it sounds, but let me tell you about one transformative idea: Fact vs. Story.
Here’s a sample scenario:
I returned home from an evening meeting to find my daughters still awake and the toys strewn over the floor. I was furious. “Girls!” I barked. “Get this place cleaned up and get ready for bed.” I shouted to my wife in the kitchen, “Why didn’t you put the girls to bed on time? I’m tired of never having an evening with you!” Then I began to let out my frustrated by kicking the toys together on a pile and gathering large armloads and dumping them into the toy box. My anger left me with no space to read to, pray with, or connect with my girls before bed.
What are the facts in this scenario? I was gone for the evening. The girls normally go to bed by 8:30, but when I returned home at 9, they were awake and the toys were not put away. I shouted at them and at my wife, and then quickly helped them clean up and go to bed.
But there’s more to the scenario than this. In that millisecond after I opened the door and saw the girls still awake, and before I barked instructions to them, an entire story played out in my mind.
What was that story? My wife is forgetful and unaware and doesn’t really care about us having time together in the evenings, and she got distracted by some other task and forgot about the time.
Outka says that “Stories are the assumptions we make that help us interpret a situation” (p23). They are what we tell ourselves in order to clear up ambiguity and feel more certain. My story helped me feel as though I understand what had happened and what to do about it.
In reference to neurologist Robert Burton’s work, Outka points out that our brain rewards us with dopamine, a feel-good hormone, when we see patterns and make sense of a situation. What gives us the reward is not the accuracy of the story we create, but how much certainty we have about its accuracy (p24).
All this means that whenever we run into a triggering or difficult situation, we immediately tell ourselves a story that then tells us how to respond. As Outka says, “When we don’t understand why someone acted as they did, we make up stories. Then we act like these stories are true (p25).”
When I entered the door, my brain sought to make some kind of sense of the situation in front of me, so I quickly cleared up the ambiguity and acted on my solutions. It gave me the feel-good hormone and put me back in control.
The next time you realize you got triggered or reacted to another person’s actions, try replaying the situation in slow motion and finishing this sentence: “The story I am telling myself is…” (p29) Separate the facts from the story, and see what happens.
Then replace your story with curious questions to discover the real story, and see how that changes your relationships. More on this another week…