Letting Go of Stories About Other People

Peaceby Rachel Whalley

“The biggest problem for humanity, not only on a global level, but even for individuals, is misunderstanding.” ~Rinpoche

Someone cuts you off in traffic.

What a jerk!

A date stands you up.

She obviously doesn’t like you.

Your colleague gives you a dirty look across the room.

Your last email must have really pissed him off!

In so many places in our lives, we see a behavior and automatically make a meaning out of it. Everything from a glance to an email gets snappily run through our minds and attached to a reaction or feeling.

Part of this is biological. As animals, we’re built to rapidly process information so that we can react quickly, if need be. It’s how survival instincts work.

However, most things we’re reacting to aren’t life-or-death level situations.

Here’s how I work with my own brain to stop getting so upset by all these little situations. I call it “Alternate Stories.”

Every time something happens that starts to get me feeling negative, judgmental, sad or angry, I tell myself an alternate story about what might’ve been going on for the other person.

For example, say a person cuts me off in traffic.

My first response is to think, “Hey, look out, jerk!” And then I could proceed to get mad, feel my adrenaline rise, and start tailgating that car, just to show him he can’t treat me like that.

But before I take any action or speak, I think to myself, is there any other possible reason that guy could have made that lane change right in front of me?

  • Maybe he’s on the phone hearing news that someone in his family just had to go to the hospital and is totally not paying attention.
  • Maybe HE’s trying to get to the hospital because he’s having chest pains.
  • Maybe he’s had a horrible day and his wife left him and he’s totally disconnected from anything besides his own pain.
  • Maybe he’s just had a bug fly into his eye.
  • Maybe he really looked in his mirror and thought he saw no one there.
  • Maybe he’s really nervous on the freeway and just made a mistake.
  • Or maybe he really is a jerk.

Maybe, but I just can’t know. As you can see from my list of maybes, there’s no way for me to know what’s going on with anybody else as they do whatever it is they’re doing.

(Sure, I may have really good guesses sometimes, but the point of this is this: none of us can ever know for sure what’s going on with anyone else. Unless we ask them–and sometimes even then, we can’t be sure.)

Going through some alternate stories whenever I feel reactionary helps me to remember that I can’t know what’s up with that other person. And that sometimes my behavior could look just as annoying to someone else, even if I didn’t mean it that way at all.

The power of the Alternate Story technique is that it reconnects me to my compassion, my sense of “oh, yeah, sometimes I do that, too.”

If I don’t know for sure that he meant to run me off the road, it’s easier for me to allow space in my heart for him.

And at the same time, it helps me to un-attach from my belief that I KNOW anything. In this place of unattachment, rather than having to soothe my hurts or calm my anger, I realize that I am free.

Rachel Whalley is a psychotherapist and energy healer in Seattle, WA. She helps people who are struggling with body image and self-esteem issues connect with their whole and healed Selves. She also teaches folks about the personality system called the enneagram. Photo by Bindaas Madhavi.

Related posts:

  1. Of Bikes and Bushes; a Tale of Two Stories
  2. 10 Ways to Deal with Negative or Difficult People
  3. How People Let Other People Compromise Their Happiness (P1)
  4. On Letting Go of Past Hurt
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  • http://embracingtheabsurd.blogspot.com/ cori

    I live by this. It's also called giving people the benefit of the doubt.

  • http://twitter.com/JustinTwiterLan Brent

    Absolutely a Great Post! A Guy Could be having Chest Pains or a frazzled day ,not paying enough attention. Possibilities are endless. Are you “the Good Samarritan” or will your 1st initial reaction Kill this person by just walking away & ignore. @Liturgy sez that “Forgiveness is Divine”. Forgive Sister. ok? Yes.

  • newspin4

    Great article. I did think it was funny that your first point for the driver was maybe he was on the phone. But really right on stuff.

  • http://www.TraumaHealed.com/ Sonia Connolly

    My favorite alternative story for bad drivers is that maybe they're new in town, and lost. Or maybe they're just bad drivers. That's different from being a jerk.

    I appreciate your conclusion: “it helps me un-attach from my belief that I KNOW anything.” That's a good one to carry around.

    My recent article addresses alternative stories from a different angle: Haunted by Shame? Change Your Committee!

  • Hmm

    The person who suffers most when you get mad at someone is yourself…

  • http://www.ubervu.com/conversations/tinybuddha.com/blog/letting-go-of-stories-about-other-people/ uberVU – social comments

    Social comments and analytics for this post…

    This post was mentioned on Twitter by GoodMoodBlogger: Letting Go of Stories About Other People http://bit.ly/3skD2I Great post!…

  • http://moarplox.com/ apsyd

    I'd disagree with this one. I've never really disagreed with anything on this site up until this point. This article basically tells the reader to disregard the fact that most people cut you off in traffic because they ARE assholes. It tells the reader to give the benefit of the doubt to this person. In a larger sense, it endorses the idea of sitting idly by as you get stomped on by others. I agree that understanding a situation may be tough, but thinking of an alternative isn't going to alleviate the problem of people being complete and utter dicks. One shouldn't get mad at the situation, but one should definitely not try to find a justification for the person's actions.

  • http://moarplox.com/ apsyd

    I'd disagree with this one. I've never really disagreed with anything on this site up until this point. This article basically tells the reader to disregard the fact that most people cut you off in traffic because they ARE ——-. It tells the reader to give the benefit of the doubt to this person. In a larger sense, it endorses the idea of sitting idly by as you get stomped on by others. I agree that understanding a situation may be tough, but thinking of an alternative isn't going to alleviate the problem of people being complete and utter —–. One shouldn't get mad at the situation, but one should definitely not try to find a justification for the person's actions.

    Editor’s note: out of respect for readers, the profanity has been removed from this comment. You are always free to disagree; we’d just like to keep the language clean.

  • http://twitter.com/rachelwhalley rachelwhalley

    Awesome, Cori. My mom used to tell me to do that when I was growing up. Alternate Stories is my way of helping myself remember that there's a reason to doubt my first assumptions.

  • http://twitter.com/rachelwhalley rachelwhalley

    Thanks, Brent. The possibilities are totally too numerous to fully count. It's much easier for me to forgive the other when I can allow possibility that their behavior probably isn't intended to harm me in any way.

  • http://twitter.com/rachelwhalley rachelwhalley

    Hey, people drive with their phones on, you know? And even if I might have an opinion about that, how a driver behaves with his/her phone on isn't about *me*, right?

    It's a hot button issue, I know. And that's part of my point–most things that other people do that trigger us, in whatever way that is, aren't about us at all.

  • http://twitter.com/rachelwhalley rachelwhalley

    Great article, Sonia! We definitely come from similar mindsets!

    I base my perspective on a healing technique called “Internal Family Systems,” which sounds a lot like the committee you describe.

    Is that something that you work with, too?

  • http://twitter.com/rachelwhalley rachelwhalley

    Well, anger is a useful part of us, too. It protects us and keeps us out of danger in some situations.

    But yes, getting mad frequently and/or staying mad can be very hard on our health!

  • http://twitter.com/rachelwhalley rachelwhalley

    Hey Apsyd,

    I can understand where you're coming from. Everything in our path to internal wellness requires some balance. Forgiveness and acceptance are important, but not at the expense of losing our own boundaries.

    I'm a person with very strong boundaries and opinions, so my work in the world focuses more on how to let in more acceptance and love.

    But people who are more naturally open, trusting and accepting, but who get their boundaries stepped on and disregarded….yeah, they don't need to “allow” even more of that into their lives.

    Does that make sense that what the exercise I'm proposing comes within that context?

    So if you (the general “you”) are a person who is just getting to know your anger and allow it to protect you, then I agree it's a priority to honor and make space for that anger. As long as that's not the end of your work, you know?

  • http://www.TraumaHealed.com/ Sonia Connolly

    Thanks! I'm not formally trained in IFS, but it does sound similar to the way I work. That particular article was inspired by a chapter in “Finding Your Own North Star” by Martha Beck.

  • http://moarplox.com/ apsyd

    I do understand what you're getting at now. I wasn't looking at it within the context of this specific situation. What I was trying to get across was the idea that one shouldn't perform this exercise 100% of the time. In this case, yes, one should use it. But in other cases, a foot must come down in order to hold your own. So I understand what you're saying now that you've explained it.

  • http://twitter.com/rachelwhalley rachelwhalley

    Awesome. I enjoy reaching mutual understanding. :D

    Thanks for taking the time to come back, read my comment and reply!

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  • HenryBM

    “In so many places in our lives, we see a behavior and automatically make a meaning out of it”

    I do this WAY too much. And it's often a negative story that upsets me. What is strange is how automatic the reflex is – how difficult to stop, and how destructive to your happiness it can be.

    I find I have to imagine the alternative scenario as clearly as I can – really get into it. As a way of forgetting ones own emotional mess, partly. But also for just switching on your imagination again.

  • http://twitter.com/rachelwhalley rachelwhalley

    Hey Henry,

    Yes, it is amazing how fast we dream up negative stories. But what is also amazing is our brain's capacity to transform. The more often I practice alternative stories, the easier they come to me. Where it used to be 10-20 minutes to think about it, now it's a matter of seconds–my negative assumption is immediately followed by other possibilities.

    Brains are amazing and so is our imagination.

  • http://twitter.com/rachelwhalley rachelwhalley

    Hey Henry,

    Yes, it is amazing how fast we dream up negative stories. But what is also amazing is our brain's capacity to transform. The more often I practice alternative stories, the easier they come to me. Where it used to be 10-20 minutes to think about it, now it's a matter of seconds–my negative assumption is immediately followed by other possibilities.

    Brains are amazing and so is our imagination.

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