The Stories We Tell Ourselves
- Rachel Jones
- Sep 8
- 5 min read
If you’ve been following along for a while, you may remember that I started a year long training program last October that I have been utilizing as the main way I work with my clients now. This training gave me a new framework for working with couples as well as working on my own marriage. It has been incredibly transformative, and I continue to learn more about myself with every level of training and with the application to my own marriage.
One of the key sessions that I do with my couples is a session focused on “The Stories We Tell Ourselves.” I thought for this month’s blog post, I would share my own version of one of the stories I have been wrestling with over the last few years and talk about how I have been challenging this negative belief or story I have told myself.
The Story I have been telling myself recently, among others, is that I’m too much.
Too much for my husband.
Too much for my friends.
Too much for my family.
Too much as a therapist.
We all have stories or negative beliefs we have about ourselves. Some common ones are:
-I’m not lovable.
-I don’t deserve good things happening to me.
-I’m going to be abandoned or rejected.
-I have to be perfect.
-I need to perform.
I’d like to challenge you to think of one story or negative belief you have about yourself and keep this in mind as I share my own journey to rewiring the story I tell myself.
Feeling like I am too much in my relationships has been around for a long time for me and that is how most of these stories begin—way back to our younger childhood selves. I can recall many examples of finding confirmation that I was too much in my relationships.
One of my friendships in High School ended because I wouldn’t take sides during a breakup. I was friends with both of them and wanted to stay friends. I lost a close friendship, and I found myself sayin,g “I’m too much for her to want to be friends with me.”
A few years ago, I lost one of the closest friendships I ever had, and to this da,y I still struggle to make sense of it, but I know I went back to that story of “I’m too much” for this friend. I’m too involved, too emotional, too caring, just simply too much.
Once we have negative beliefs about ourselves or a story we tell ourselves, we engage in this unfortunate behavior of looking for confirmation that it is true, even if there truly is no confirmation. The other week, I did just this with one of my friendships, where I decided that the fact that she had not read a few text messages from me meant that I must have done something wrong, and I used that to get back to this belief that “I am too much” for my friend. The reality is, my friend has a ton of unread text messages often. Her lack of response had nothing to do with how she felt about me or our friendship—it was simply connected to her having a busy week and not having a chance to catch up and knowing she would see me in a few days.
I’m using the example of my friendship here, but my own insecurities, negative beliefs, and stories I have impact my marriage too. I work very hard to be a cool wife—easy-going, calm and collected, easy to please, etc. And when I am not a cool wife, I feel like I’m failing, like I may lose connection or love from my husband, but it also means I sacrifice myself and what I need in our relationship. It doesn’t actually bring us closer together ,and it creates a lot of unintentional hurt.
The first step I had to take, which is what I encouraged you to do above, was to identify these stories I tell myself. I mapped them all out, wrote them down, and reflected on them. If you’re thinking what I was thinking when I did this, you are not alone. I really did not want to do this. I wanted to hide away from these stories and pretend they didn’t exis,t even though I am so familiar with them. We want to do this because these stories are rooted in shame, and shame wants to weigh you down and make it so you always believe it’s the truth, but it is NOT the truth.
Second, to break free from the shame of these stories, I had to share them with someone, and in this case, it was my husband. We each took turns reading the stories we shared and reflecting on what we each heard and how it made sense to one another based on what we knew about each other. I definitely learned so much about my husband and felt tearful as he reflected backon what I had shared.
He and I now have a repair script we can use to help each other get out of those stories and look for confirmation that they are not true. I teach this same script to my couples who have also referenced how valuable it is.
That is one way I work to rewire the stories I tell myself, AND there is a second way I am working to change these negative beliefs, too. The other way is to actually look for confirmation of what is true—the positive, secure stories I want to believe about myself.
Such as,
-I am loveable.
-I deserve connection.
-I have friends who love me.
-I am enough.
-I am important.
There are many ways you can look for proof of these, but one simple way I have been doing this daily is by having a reminder go off on my phone each day that says “Look for proof you are important.” I pause and look for actual proof. Or with my friends, “Identify three friends you have and have talked to this week.” I can come up with an answer for each of these, and I work to lean into them and work to believe them.
While I still do struggle with my own insecurities and stories, I have a better ability to help move through them in a healthier state than I used to. I am able to quickly more into the true story of who I am: that I am important, I am enough, I am not a burden, and I am lovable. Being able to seek this truth out has increased my confidence, my self-belief, and my connection in my marriage and my life.
If this post is speaking to you and you find yourself saying, “I need this”, I want to encourage you to reach out and request a free 20-minute consult with me. I am passionate about getting this information into the world as I believe it would make a huge ripple effect in your life and others, just as it has in mine.
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