Process: What new story will mine joy from your imperfect life?
Crush your stories into pieces and build something new from them.
Untitled (1970) by Dorothea Tanning
Wow. I want to thank everyone who shared their old stories yesterday. I’m incredibly moved by your words and your honesty. I want to do justice to every response and honor the breadth of what I’ve learned from reading everything you’ve written, but it feels impossible. I just want to urge everyone to go back and read all of the comments from yesterday. It’s incredible to encounter so much intelligence, insight, and heart in one place. I hope we can all work hard to honor what we’ve stumbled on here.
Self-seriousness is antithetical to my writing style, and it’s also a direct contradiction to my oldest stories, which I realized, while reading your comments, are always extreme: I am everything or nothing. I am brilliant or I’m an idiot. People love me or they hate me for the wrong reasons or they hate me for very good reasons, so I need to change everything immediately.
Many of my oldest stories — and so many of the stories you shared — are about control. If I’m amazing, I don’t have to change a thing. If I’m terrible, at least I can change everything, erase myself, recede, hide. Or as one reader wrote, “I reject myself so that no one else has to.”
More than sadness or darkness, what we’re trying to avoid is uncertainty: We want preemptive answers to every unanswered question. We want to avoid asking: Do people actually like me? What can I offer to others without erasing myself? Can I state my needs and still be loved? Is there something slightly off about the way I move through the world? Have I been deluding myself into believing that I’m great when I continue to step on toes? Do I tell stories about rejection as I fade out and back away from others? Have I somehow been tricking myself into thinking I’m powerless and small and hated when I am just a person on the face of the planet reaching out for love like anyone else?
If you’re hated or loved, you’re special. If you are small or erased, there’s a specialness in that persecution. Being huge or being tiny, being hideous or being gorgeous, being brilliant or being an idiot: These things bring you special rights. We’re looking for some sense of agency, some power, something we deserve — which is understandable, given how diminishing so many of our stories are.
What’s missing is the ambivalent, ambiguous middle ground of real life, where a person can be smart and also flawed and foolish at times, where misunderstandings and missed connections and awkwardness unfold without fanfare, where you don’t always know the solution to every problem or the moral to every story.
So many of our stories are heavy with moralism:
"I'm cursed. Things don't work out for me."
“Nothing will help.”
“I don’t deserve to live.”
“Never make mistakes.”
“No one is coming to save you.”
“I’m going to be a great artist someday and that will show them.”
“I will always fail no matter what I do.”
These morals make all action pointless. You are destined to greatness or you’ll always be invisible. You’re doomed or you’re superior to others.
Such extremes take their toll in similar ways: If you’re the chosen one, if you’re the gifted one, if you’re the smartest one, everything bad that happens is your fault. Your failures are proof that you’re terrible. If you’re cursed or invisible, everything that happens is out of your control. Any work you do is pointless. Talking it out or creating close connections is worthless. You’ll still lose and be left to fend for yourself.
Ironically, we’re protecting ourselves from the ambiguity and uncertainty of ordinary life with stories that isolate us from others while locking us into a state of learned helplessness.
And why are we so slow to shake off these stories? Because shame and pride emanate from them in equal measure. We often believe that they make us different in ways that are humiliating and should be hidden. We don’t want anyone else to know how deeply out of sync we are with so-called normal people. We don’t want anyone to know that despite appearances, we’re doomed, or we’re failing, or we’re sure to be alone forever.
Yet look at how similar all of our stories are. Look how much downright Biblical hellfire and brimstone is bearing down on us, every day, as we go about our mundane lives. Just like the adults who taught us these rigid and destructive narratives, we’re choosing the safety of knowing the ending to every story over the insecurity (and also promise and possibility) of the unknown.
There’s so much more to discuss here, but I don’t want to wander down too many paths without addressing the central point of this experiment, which is to revise your oldest stories until they feel more flexible, more optimistic, and more open to the unfolding mysteries of the real world. Instead of being shielded by morals and foregone conclusions, our project as rapidly changing humans is to welcome the glorious gifts of this mundane day under our skin.
I’d like each of you who contributed your old stories yesterday to try to rewrite them so they support you and give you more rights, more space to experiment and fail, more room to love and connect without fear, more time to show your heart to others. Here are my rewrites:
“I’m too fucked up for anyone to tolerate me for very long.” —> “I am brave enough to show my confusion and bewilderment to the world so others will feel less alone.”
“I can handle any task on my own. When other people get involved, everything becomes frustrating and difficult.” —> “I can savor my solitary work and also enjoy the uncertainty of collaboration and communion with others, because I’ve grown and I’m not afraid of what’s difficult and awkward anymore.”
“No one sees me clearly or cares enough to truly understand me. No one loves me enough. Other people will always let me down.” —> “I am seen clearly and loved deeply. I won’t keep abandoning myself by ignoring this truth.”
(Here are more examples from Freedom Dance, who anticipated the point of this exercise and offered countless ways of reframing old narratives.)
As you rewrite your old stories, remember that no one is uniquely cursed. Every morning is a blank slate. Our solemn job is to take the magnificence that lives in our cells, that we share, and honor it however we can. Our job is to recognize that same magnificence in the faces of the people we meet. We’re here to feel our way toward each other, through the fog and confusion around us. In spite of all of the forces working to split us apart from each other, we’re here to cling fast to each other and lift each other up.
Isn’t it strange how so few of our old stories are about mutual support in the face of the unknown? There is no community there. Our role, in isolation, is to give everything and take nothing. There is rarely any acknowledgement of the divine light we all feel burning brightly inside ourselves. Yet the more we honor the beauty of that divine light and the strength of what we are — naturally, without any need to compete or conquer or destroy or disguise ourselves — the more we’ll recognize and support that beauty out in the world.
We are right to feel special, of course, because every living thing on the planet is special. Our burdens and our fears are reflected in every face we see. Our desire for love echoes in everyone else’s words. We don’t have to feel like we’re fighting all alone just to survive. Our new stories need to start with this understanding:
You are here to encounter every face as a mirror. Everything you’ve suffered through, every ounce of despair and loneliness, every bit of joy and optimism, is reflected in every face you see. You are special, and so is everyone else. Give your love until your heart is full. Everything else is a distraction.
Don’t drain yourself with ancient messages and archaic imperatives. Stop repeating the same shameful stories about your failures. Surrender yourself to this mysterious world. Recognize the full-hearted allies around you. See the suffering and the love behind their masks. Show up for this frightening world with everything you have.
Thanks for reading Ask Polly. I’m grateful that you’re here. 50% of today’s subscription proceeds will go toward helping a friend escape Gaza. Pray for the Israeli hostages and for the terrified, starving people of Gaza. They deserve a better world.
I will start this new story process by shifting to neutral acceptance stories that focus on where I truly have power because, for me, quickly shifting to a new story that takes a 180 degree turn feels phony.
I don't exist properly. -> I am that I am.
I am only meant to understand, not be understood -> I am worthy of the same patience, consciousness, and curiosity that I give to other people.
I feel most whole when I am alone. -> I can have alone time and have a non-transactional relationship where I do not question my value and worth solely in relation to the other person.
I am the best thing that has happened and will ever happen to me. -> Kindness is real and often quiet so it needs my patience and humility to notice and accept it. I can focus on the people who treat others with gentleness and reassurance without bullshitting.
I'll confess that your point about moralism rankled, since so many of these stories were originally formed when I was a tiny, tiny kid being subjected to horrible abuse. "No one is coming to save you", for instance, was a story that got formed when I literally watched my oldest brother's feet departing down the hallway while I was held under the bed by the younger of my older brothers so he wouldn't be discovered abusing me. The "story" made some literal sense from my four year old perspective.
That said, I think I get your point, which isn't about the original creation point of the story, but about the process through which we repeat and ingrain those stories over time, collecting evidence beyond the confines of their creation to underline and cement them. And that is when some sense of a moral (or immoral) universe can come into play. I'll have to think on that one a little more deeply. To that end, I'll play along with the reframing exercise, since I've had to do a lot of that over the years.
1. No one is coming to save you. > All the things you needed saving from have already happened, long, long ago. And look! Here you are, having saved yourself and also been saved by the love of so many people over the years. You don't need saving anymore, honey. You just need to continue to be here for everything that will happen, trusting in yourself and the web of relationships that hold you.
2. Never make mistakes. If you can't help it, hide them. > Everyone makes mistakes, love. That's how we learn. And that's how we are afforded the opportunity to develop the skills of grace and mercy, which are two of the most beautiful capacities we have as humans in relationship to each other. You *will* make mistakes, continually. That's how you know you're alive. And what a great gift that is, to still be alive in this imperfect, poignant, gorgeous life you have. Everyone around you will also continually make mistakes, too, just to be clear. The extent to which you can model mercy for yourself is powerful medicine in their healing. The extent to which you can offer grace to them is powerful medicine in yours.
3. Love and pain are inevitably intertwined. > Yes, they are. But there's also a difference between the pain of being witnessed and vulnerable, taking risks, experiencing grief, and fucking up (see #2) and the pain of abuse, diminishment, and disrespect. Like the Buddhists say, there is pain and then there is unnecessary suffering. You can't get out of the potential for pain if you want the exquisite joy of love in your life, but you can walk away from unnecessary suffering. You can and you have! (See #1, Self-Rescuing Princess) You also have developed the capacity to hold the unavoidable pain that comes with love. Your heart is so big now, love. You're going to be fine.