Not the curveball but the reaction to it
We love to tell ourselves outrageous stories about ourselves just to be jerks
Write about how your react to life throwing you curveballs. In particular, also dig into the story you tell yourself when things go off the rails.
Recently, I was driving a couple of hours away to something fun I was really looking forward to. The moment I got on the highway, however, I ran into car trouble.
There could have been any number of stories I told myself in that moment: that whatever was happening was going to be detrimentally expensive, that maybe I didn’t deserve to do fun things, that I was helplessly stranded on the side of the 405, that my car and I might burst into flames and die and blah blah blah.
Instead, I felt clear and calm (annoyed at the inconvenience, mind you, but calm about it) and recognized there were a dozen stories I could be telling myself in that moment, but none needed to be true. All that needed to be true was: I was on the side of the highway and needed to get myself and my car elsewhere. And I did that. And it was fine. And it didn’t need to mean anything else.
So, dig into that today: the outrageous stories we invent to punish ourselves when things inconvenience us. Let’s write.
