Time to Edit Some of Your Stories?
Humans are unique among the world’s creatures for the extent of our ability to tell stories and make meaning. This aspect of our mental activity has led to amazing accomplishments of art, literature, science and technology. Our ability to feel empathy and compassion can lead us to make extraordinary efforts, even sacrificing our lives, for the values that we hold dear. Our stories about what really matters form the core of meaning in our lives.
I thought about the stories we tell ourselves as I watched the horror of the Russian attacks on Ukraine, and the global outpouring of support for the Ukrainians who were forced to flee their homes and completely uproot their lives. But did you know that when people in Ukraine contacted friends and relatives living in Russia, they were met with outrage, disagreement and denial regarding whether Russia had even invaded Ukraine at all? Russia had effectively controlled the story about the war that was communicated to its citizens, and cut off any sources of information that might tell a different story.
It’s one thing for this to happen in a country like Russia, controlled by an autocratic leader who changes laws to suit his whims, but our democracy is now enmeshed in a similar struggle, with our former President sowing seeds of distrust in a system that was thought to be strong enough to withstand the nightmare of dictatorship and loss of personal freedom.
It seems ironic that the story of the “stolen” election has been believed by enough of our elected leaders that a violent and deadly assault on the Capitol of our country has now been re-told as an expression of legitimate political discourse. What we believe to be real is real in its consequences!
The stories we tell ourselves powerfully influence our behavior in ways that we don’t want to acknowledge, because if we do, the story and its moral “rightness” might not hold up. Again considering the current war, Ukrainian refugees are being widely welcomed with open arms. The process of applying for asylum, which has become dreadfully bogged down in recent years, is being revamped for these refugees, while many thousands of other people languish and even die while awaiting their chance to be considered. What is the story we tell ourselves about this contradictory situation?
Well, we say, the Ukrainians were simply trying to live their lives, and suddenly an unjust war forced them to leave. We visualize refugees from many other countries, particularly those seeking entry at our southern border, as choosing to leave their homes in order to get on the gravy train in the US, where they will burden our economy and ask for handouts. We tell ourselves that they are different from us; that they will harm us and our country. We decide to view them as criminals and rapists in order to justify turning our backs on them. When asked about all the women and children seeking to enter the US, we decide they must be being used as pawns by the criminals, so we can explain to ourselves why we should not have compassion for these people, who are running for their lives. We decide instead that they are coming to steal our lives.
Refugees who look like us, who come from lives we can relate to, will become a part of a very different story that we tell. We feel compassion, we want to help; we donate money and express empathy for their innocent suffering. They live in cities! They have cars, and strollers, and pets! They are white.
How about an experiment? The next time you find yourself in a conversation about immigration policy, try to notice the language you use and the story you tell. Notice if you are painting all members of a group of diverse humans as identical in motivation, identical in being undeserving of any compassion. Notice a possible double standard that might slip in when you’re talking about Ukrainians versus, say, Haitians. Try to imagine you and your family having inadequate food and shelter, no opportunity for employment, fearing for the lives of your children if you try to send them to school. Tell yourself the story of how much courage it must take to literally walk away from everything you have known, into the unknown of a new country where you may not be welcome; that is, if you even make it there without suffering unspeakably worse catastrophes.
Everything we feel and believe depends on the stories we tell ourselves; can you take the chance of listening more closely to your stories and asking yourself, “Could there be another way of looking at this?” Humankind might be a lot more successful at healthy survival if more of us told different stories.
Susan Hull moved to Bandera after more than 40 years as a clinical psychologist. She is an Independent voter who would be happy to vote for a Republican who was thoughtful, rational and bipartisan.