You didn't do what you said you'd do — and you offer a reason. The Wi-Fi bombed. The traffic was mad. Your team lost; you complain about the ref’s blunder, and explain what the coach should have done at halftime. A law you dislike gets passed; you opine that the country's going to the dogs. 

It all feels like it matters, like what you say will make a difference. It doesn’t. None of it. Your life continues in circles. You spend your life trapped in the same cycle, wondering why. Here’s here. None of those things — your reasons, your complaints, explanations, opinions — have any bearing on what’s real. They simply don’t matter. Yet you invest so much time and energy in them. 

The promise of this show is to help you deal with what’s real and what matters. In this episode I show you exactly what that means, how your verbal actions like the ones mentioned above take you in the opposite direction, and what you can do to stop that spiral. It’s the most weight-bearing episode of them all.  

Show notes

The mind seeks to make meaning out of things that happen, or don’t happen. When we mistake that meaning-making for reality, we lose our ability to impact that reality. We live with a lot of noise and no forward movement. We can’t go in circles forever, so eventually we spiral downwards. We react with more explaining. With more story. This episode is about exiting the bad neighbourhood of story.

Topics covered include:

• Why story is the opposite of presence, and why people tune out the moment you start one
• The three universal tells that you've left reality behind and entered the realm of story
• What it costs you: the hours poured into narration, and the low hum of grievance that drags a day down
• Why reality doesn't care about your opinion — and where expressing a view actually does matter
• The unglamorous alternative: deal with the fact, change your language, and do this relevance check
• How to guide someone else out of story without becoming insufferable about it
• Why we love story and how we defend our right to tell our story
• How this augments, rather than replaces, CBT, Stoicism and mindfulness

This follows on from Episode 9, on drawing a line when you give your word: your story arises whenever you deviate from the line. In the next episode, we’ll flip it around: not what you say, but what you hear.

A written companion is on Substack under my name. If you want to take it further, there are ways to work with me in the links.

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