What If the Story You Tell Yourself Is Missing Some of the Evidence?

There are things we think we know about ourselves. Things that have been with us for so long that we don’t actually think of them as beliefs… We see them as facts.

Things we are… and things we aren’t. Things we’re capable of… and things we don’t think we can do. Things we’re good at… and things we believe we aren’t good at.

And the things we tell ourselves – and others – based on them.

I’m not creative.

I’m terrible with money.

I’m not brave.

I never stick with anything.

I’m just not the kind of person who could do something like that.

At least… they feel like facts...

But I started wondering…

What if some of the stories we’ve developed about ourselves aren’t necessarily wrong?

What if they’re just incomplete?

The Sentence I Carried for More Than Forty Years

When I was young, my dad told me: “You never finish anything.”

And apparently, my teenage brain decided this was very important information. So it filed it away. I sort of visualize it as a manilla folder labelled: Johanna doesn’t finish things.

Except… well…

I did. I actually finished lots of things.

I stuck with things I enjoyed… things I was interested in… things I felt supported in doing.

There were also things I stopped doing because I discovered I didn’t actually enjoy them. And the truth is that sometimes when something isn’t enjoyable, or fulfilling, or doesn’t really have value or serve a purpose, it really is okay to stop doing them.

There were other things I would have loved to pursue more actively but couldn’t, due to the financial expense.

One of those things was swimming.

When I was a teenager, I volunteered at the YMCA, doing many things, including teaching swimming lessons. I had a free membership because I volunteered there, and I spent a ridiculous amount of time both in that pool, and really, doing anything where they needed free labour for assistance.

I spent enough time in the pool that one of the swim team coaches noticed me.

He’d watched me swim and teach for a couple of years, and eventually he encouraged me to try out for the swim team.

I hadn’t asked him. He asked me.

Someone who actually knew something about swimming had watched me long enough to think I might be good enough to join the team.

There was just one problem.

Joining cost money.

And the answer was no. We didn’t have the money. And eventually, partly due to disappointment, swimming disappeared from my life too.

And somewhere in all of that complexity, my brain apparently looked around at the experience and said: “See? Another thing you didn’t finish.”

It didn’t keep the whole story. It didn’t keep the coach asking me to try out. It didn’t keep the years I’d spent consistently showing up. It didn’t keep the financial circumstances. And it didn’t keep the fact that stopping something and failing at something aren’t necessarily the same thing.

It kept the verdict.

Johanna never finishes anything.

And I carried that verdict for decades.

Our Memories Aren’t Filing Cabinets – Just ‘Something Like’…

I used to think memory worked a little like a filing cabinet.

Something happens… your brain records it… puts it into a folder with a nice label… the file gets tucked away somewhere.

Years later, you pull the folder back out and there it is - exactly as it happened.

Except human memory doesn’t really work like that…

Memory is what they call “reconstructive”. We don’t store perfect recordings of events and experiences, and just pull them out to replay them later. Details can fade... New information can become incorporated. Our present-day knowledge and perspective can influence how we understand something that happened years ago.

Sometimes retrieving a memory can even make it susceptible to being modified or updated before it’s stored again.

Which I find utterly fascinating – and maybe a little unnerving too…

Because this can have an impact on our life moving forward. When we experience something new… when we want to try something different… when we want to initiate changes in our life.

You see… Our brains use our previous experiences to help it predict what it feels might happen next.

Which can mean that if the information being used for those predictions is incomplete… or the file contains a verdict that is based on old data or assumptions… while some of the contradictory information and evidence has been moved to the back of the folder… or deleted altogether…

We can sometimes edit our current sense of self – or who we think we are.

And here’s something else that’s interesting.

Sometimes the most important part of a memory isn’t what happened. It’s what we decided what happened meant.

Maybe somebody criticized something you created. Our conclusion: I’m not creative.

Maybe a relationship ended badly. Our conclusion: I’m terrible at relationships.

Maybe you tried something and failed. Our conclusion: I’m a failure.

An experience that was complex or difficult becomes a complete sentence. And we just repeat the sentence.

Again… and again… and again.

Often, not only do we never really stop to explore where it came from – sometimes it simply becomes part of who we believe we are.

There’s a popular theory in neuroscience known as Hebbian learning, with lots of research behind it, that’s often summarized as: “Neurons that fire together wire together.”

Which is really just a simplified description of something much more complicated, but the basic idea is useful: patterns repeated often enough can strengthen the neural pathways involved in those patterns. So the more we repeat a thought, the more familiar the behaviour or response becomes to our brains, making it easier for the thought or behaviour to travel that same route again.

And sometimes… we’ve unknowingly been travelling the same mental road for decades.

Editing Can Go the Other Direction Too

We don’t always edit ourselves downward.

Sometimes we also edit the past upward.

There’s a phenomenon called rosy retrospection. In essence, it’s our tendency to sometimes remember past experiences more positively than how we actually experienced them at the time.

The rough edges soften. The painful or irritating details fade. The hard parts lose some of their intensity.

And sometimes… that is a very good thing. I’m thankful that time has softened some of the most painful experiences of my life. I can remember them. I know what happened. I remember how much they hurt... and sometimes a diminished version of the pain will return to wash over me. But I don’t experience every memory with the same raw intensity I once did. I wouldn’t want to.

But an issue can arise when the edited version of an experience gets amended to be evidence that we shouldn’t change our present.

We remember the old job… but forget the Sunday-night dread.

We remember the relationship… but forget how lonely we felt inside it.

We remember a previous version of our life… but forget some of the things that were actually never particularly ideal back then.

So, what we’re doing is comparing an uncertain future – or an unhappy right-now… with an edited past.

Not a level playing field.

Known Discomfort Can Feel Safer Than Uncertainty

Often for most of us, there’s something oddly comforting about knowing what to expect – or staying in a current comfort zone. Even when what we expect, or what we’re experiencing, isn’t particularly good.

A job you don’t enjoy… A relationship you’ve outgrown… A routine that leaves you feeling unfulfilled… A version of yourself that no longer quite fits…

To our brain, the familiar has one enormous advantage - We know how it works.

The unfamiliar doesn’t come with those guarantees, and one thing our brain isn’t comfortable with is uncertainty.

So… when uncertainty is part of the picture… we choose known discomfort over unknown potential.

Not out of laziness. Not because there’s something wrong with us. Not even necessarily out of fear.

It’s because the familiar can feel safer.

But I want to make an important distinction here. Sometimes people genuinely do feel stuck.

Finances matter. Children matter. Housing matters. Health matters. Relationships matter. Responsibilities matter. Sometimes we are just unable to simply change the thing that is making us unhappy.

But sometimes the circumstances aren’t the only thing holding us where we are. Sometimes… well… it’s the version of the story that was last saved in that folder affecting what we think we’re capable of doing next.

Another Sentence

Years after my dad told me I never finished anything, another sentence found its way into the same general filing cabinet drawer.

I had started volunteering as a speaker for Threads of Life about two years after my son Micheal died as a result of a workplace injury, and speaking gave me a way to do something constructive with something devastating.

When I told my parents what I was doing, my dad was in hearing distance of the conversation, in the other room watching hockey.

My mom asked him, “Did you hear what Johanna is doing now?”

And his response was… “Yeah. But is she any good at it?”

I’m sure you can identify with how much that hurt. But what’s interesting to me now isn’t simply what he said… It’s what my brain did with it.

Because the sentence I eventually carried wasn’t, “Dad wondered whether I was good at public speaking.”

It became something much bigger. Something closer to… “Could Johanna actually be good at anything?”

Was that what he meant?

I don’t know.

Maybe. Maybe not.

But what’s important in this whole conversation was the meaning my brain created.

And meaning? Well, it can stick around for a very long time.

What Evidence Never Made It Into the File?

Here’s where things get somewhat humourous if you put them in perspective.

Since that conversation, I’ve spoken for Threads of Life somewhere around 150 times. I’ve facilitated workshops. I’ve stood in front of rooms full of people and talked about some of the hardest things human beings experience.

And then… after years of questioning whether I was qualified, interesting, knowledgeable or remotely competent enough to do it…

I started a podcast.

Then I kept doing it.

Episode after episode.

Which raises a rather inconvenient question for the previous version of the story in the Johanna Never Finishes Anything file… What exactly are we doing with all of this new evidence?

Because I wonder if maybe one of the most important things we can do when we uncover an old story that is impacting our current life… is not necessarily to immediately try to replace it.

What if what we choose to do instead, is to simply reopen the file… look at the original verdict… examine the evidence that supported it…

And then deliberately look for evidence that might have gone missing from the file that doesn’t support that verdict.

What circumstances have I edited out? What did I end up feeling the experience meant about me? Is that meaning still accurate? What evidence about myself have I been ignoring because it didn’t match the story I’d already placed into that folder?

And perhaps most importantly… What evidence has accumulated since then that I’ve never added to the file?

You Don’t Need a New Story

In spite of having talked about it on my podcast before, I’m becoming increasingly suspicious of the idea that personal growth requires us to constantly “rewrite our story.”

In my explorations for this episode… I’ve become suspicious about even the way I’d been thinking about how our internal narratives were written. Or that we can simply replace one outdated narrative with another prettier one.

I’ve come to realize that, although it’s important to examine the narratives that were written for us… sometimes we also need to examine the ones we’ve inadvertently developed ourselves.

And it’s not just a matter of replacing, “Johanna never finishes anything” with, “Johanna ALWAYS FINISHES EVERYTHING SHE STARTS!”

Because the truth is… that’s bullshit too. Sometimes I quit. Sometimes I change my mind. Sometimes something that sounded fascinating turns out to be incredibly boring. Sometimes priorities change. Sometimes continuing something no longer makes sense. And sometimes stopping is exactly the right decision.

Maybe the more accurate story is simply that I am capable of persistence and commitment.

And… I am also allowed to stop doing things that no longer make sense for me.

That's a very different file.

So Maybe Just Reopen the File

I want to finish off by saying that I don’t think awareness should give us another reason to beat ourselves up.

I don’t want anyone reading this and thinking, “Great. Now apparently, my brain has been fucking with my memories ...”

Human brains are incredible mechanisms. They do weird things. They reconstruct. They predict. They look for patterns. They prefer familiarity.

But they also create meaning… and sometimes they hold onto assumptions long after the conclusions they developed from have stopped being useful.

And none of that means there’s something wrong with us. In fact, it’s the opposite. It’s our brains doing what our brains evolved to do.

What I think it does mean though, is that maybe there are some things worth getting curious about. So, think about one thing you’ve believed about yourself for a very long time. Something you rarely question anymore.

Maybe it’s true… Maybe part of it is true… Maybe it was true once… But maybe it was never true at all.

I’m not saying you need to turn your life upside down to edit or re-write it. I’m just suggesting that you reopen the file. Look at the evidence - including the evidence that never made it in there the first time.

Because maybe the story you’ve been basing your decisions on isn’t wrong.

Maybe…

Well, maybe it just isn’t complete.