Amanda was a 17 yr old high school junior
that I met a couple of years ago in Palo Alto.
She came to my office after finding out one of her friends
had texted something nasty about her to their other friends.
She was very upset.
So we sat down and examined her thoughts
and she wrote down the thought: “everyone hates me”.
And she bought into this idea 100% as true
as a result she felt sad and worried, anxious, frustrated, and hopeless.
We had a look at some of the distortions that might apply to this thought.
One of them was "black & white", or "all or nothing thinking"
...since it was unlikely that everyone hated her.
She could quickly see that she had some friends who were still on her side.
She could also see that “hate” was probably a strong word
and she suspected that this particular girl may have been mad at her for something else.
Another distortion she could identify was mind-reading.
This is the idea that you can “tell” what others are thinking,
as if you can read their minds.
These errors in thinking are called distortions because they distort the truth.
And like any good illusion, there’s a grain of truth in there somewhere.
That’s why they’re so easy to believe.
The important thing is, it’s a con, and one that we do to ourselves.
For Amanda, it was her distorted thinking that created an illusion that upset her,
not the events themselves!
She’s wasn’t upset that her friend had sent that text,
she was upset with the thought that she had created as a result --
-- the thought that everyone hated her.
When she could remove the illusion, she was able to see the reality of the situation.
You’ve already seen how language is important.
The words with which we describe the things that happen in our lives,
and the world in general, have consequences.
In his book, The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz says your words are your power to create.
They create a story for yourself, which then becomes a reality.
It’s another way of saying it’s a self fulfilling prophecy.
When we talk about ourselves in a negative way, we can do so much damage.
In Ruiz’s words; “like a sword with two edges,
your word can create the most beautiful dream,
or your word can destroy everything around you”.
When we say; “I’m a bad person” we start to act like a bad person,
because this is the story we believe about ourselves and so it becomes a reality.
Sometimes out loud, sometimes just to ourselves, under our breath or in our own heads.
Sometimes we’re so used to it we don’t even pay any attention anymore.
But at some level, these thoughts, these things we say about ourselves and the world
get absorbed into a story that we buy into, 100%,
and they become the “reality” of who we are as
These things we tell ourselves, they seem real, and we buy into them so much,
that it never even dawns on us that these are just stories.
Stories that we can either choose to agree with or not.
So if you feel bad about yourself, the exciting news is, you’re about to figure out why.
And you can change that story if you want to.
It's easier said than done, right?
It is hard.
But there are ways to change the script.
And when you discover the stories you tell yourself about yourself are not true--
That is the best feeling in the world.
The truth can set you free.