Most of what you think you know is just a story you’re telling yourself or other people have told you.

This has both horrifying and liberating implications.

In the category of horrifying: It means that most of what you believe is likely entirely fungible, partially or completely objectively false, or, at the very least, a very limited view of the world that is constraining the depth and breadth of your thinking.

In the category of liberating: It means that you can put your stories aside, consider other perspectives, choose different stories or refinements to your story, and completely change your perspective, thoughts, and feelings on everything around you. Perhaps most importantly, you can change your actions and, therefore, your who life.

The problem is, however, truly embracing this reality is terrifying and extremely difficult to do.

This is because…

1. Many of our stories are deeply linked with our identities, or they protect us from uncomfortable (or horrible) truths - so we don’t want to look past them for fear of what we might have to confront.

2. Some stories are almost impossible to see in the same way that it’s impossible for a fish to understand that it lives in water. They are just too intrinsic to the fundamentals of the world as we know them.

However, having a conscious awareness that most of what we think we know and believe are just stories is a superpower.

One way to keep this top of mind and maintain perspective is to add the phrase “I have a story…” to the beginning of most of your assertions about anything. This helps hold your beliefs and comments loosely and keep space to accept helpful alternative narratives.