Cracking the Reality Code

Ask any pair of siblings about a shared childhood event, and you can pretty much guarantee they’ll each have their own radically different version. 

Our reality is subjective.

It’s shaped by our perceptions, our memories, the literal physiology of our own unique nervous system, and the meaning we attach to what happens around us and within us.

It’s made up of two key elements:

• the facts

• our interpretation of the facts - the stories we tell, the meaning we assign

The facts might be:

I have a cup of coffee

It is time to go to work

Today I’m wearing my blue shirt

The stories might be:

• I like this coffee OR

• This coffee is crap, but I crave caffeine because I’m a weak loser who can’t control her addictions so I’ll drink it anyway while hating it

• I love my job OR

• I hate my job and those terrible people I work with and the customers who yell at me

• This blue shirt is my favourite OR

• The blue shirt is really scratchy and too tight under the arms but I paid a lot for it and I’m gonna get as much wear out of it as I can

How does it help to know our reality is full of story?

This is NOT about ignoring your preferences for a nice shirt, a fun job or a decent coffee.

And it’s not about ignoring the facts of systemic oppression, or of intergenerational or personal trauma.

This is about finding the many, MANY moments in a normal human life where we can question the automatic, default meaning our brains assign to every single piece of incoming data.

There are two skills you can build and apply to the minutiae of day to day life.

And those, in turn, will help build the muscles of resilience and self-nurturing which help you deal with those deeper, more painful issues.

Is it fact or story?

Next time you feel annoyed or helpless or just plain bad about something, pause.

Switch into compassionate observer mode and, without judgement, ask what are the facts and what is the story?

If you can – even for a moment – see the facts beneath the story as neutral facts, without any particular meaning, you’ll loosen a story’s grip on you.

And that’s a good starting point.

Shift the balance

Research shows that when we feel good about something, it’s often a more fleeting experience (perhaps because we have no resistance to it - we let it flow easily through us).

But when we feel bad about something, we often linger in the angst, ruminating on all the things we don’t like about it (and probably feeling bad for feeling bad in the first place - like we’re ‘doing it wrong’).

We can practice the art of shifting the balance so our brain and nervous system gets more used to a) noticing and basking in the good stuff while b) having more pathways out of the bad.

Let’s see how that plays out with our six different stories:

• BASKING - oooh, this is a great coffee - I love the wonderful taste in my mouth and the warmth of the mug in my hands is so delicious! I love that while I’m drinking my morning coffee I have a tiny mini-break every time I take a mouthful, even if I’m working with coffee at my desk. I pay attention to each sip, letting the flavour and the aroma sweep through me like bliss. Coffee means I have easy access to clean water, electricity, magic beans and a moment of time - that’s like a mini-miracle, right there!

• LET GO - this is bad coffee, I’m going to chuck it out and get a better one (now or later) <the end>

• BASKING - there are things I love about my job right now! I love the money it’s providing, I love some of the things I get to do and some of the people I encounter, and I love that I can often ignore what I don’t love because this is a great stepping stone to the next job: the one I know is like all the good parts of this one, only better!

• LET GO - I don’t like this job but it's a bridge to something better. I am not stuck here forever. <the end>

• BASKING - this blue shirt is my favourite! I love how it feels against my skin and I look so good in it! Every time I wear this shirt I know I’m going to get at least one admiring glance or comment, and best of all it’s so darn comfy I feel like I’m in my pyjamas!

• LET GO - this blue shirt is uncomfortable. I will give it away and someone else will like it. <the end>

Once you can spot the difference between a fact and the story about the fact, you can choose - very deliberately - what story to tell about each situation, and how much energy to give that story.

If a fact has a good-feeling story to it, milk it for all it’s worth.

If the story triggers painful emotions, find the relief you’ll get from examining the story and then finding a better feeling thought. For example, you could practice “this is not forever”, or “all will be well”, or you can ask “how is it true there is a nugget of gold hiding in all this horse shit?” (brains LOVE a juicy question!)

This is a learned skill, worth practising.

As you do, you’ll find it’s a far more fun way to go through life.