The Journey Inward — Understanding the Hidden Patterns That Shape Our Lives
Every one of us carries a story about who we are. We have explanations for why we behave as we do, why certain things happen in our lives, what we are capable of, and what we believe will never change. These stories become so familiar that we seldom think to question them. We simply accept them as the truth about ourselves.
But what if some of those stories are not entirely true? What if they are interpretations we have repeated for so long that we have mistaken them for facts?
Consider how often we describe ourselves with statements such as, “I’ve never been good with people,” “I’m just not a confident person,” “I’ve always had trouble making decisions,” or “I’m the one who has to hold everything together.” We may have good reasons for believing these things. There may be years of experiences supporting them. Yet somewhere along the way, an explanation of our experiences can become a definition of who we are.
And once we have accepted that definition, we may begin living within its boundaries without realizing it.
Imagine someone who was embarrassed while speaking in front of a group many years ago. The experience was unpleasant, and afterward the person concluded, “I’m not good at speaking in public.” Years pass, and opportunities to speak arise, but each is declined. Eventually, the person may say, “I’ve never been able to speak in front of people.” Yet the original experience may have revealed very little about what that person was actually capable of becoming. The story itself helped determine what happened afterward.
This is one of the more interesting aspects of our inner lives. The stories we believe do not merely describe our experiences. They can influence the experiences we allow ourselves to have.
Not all these stories are negative. Some give us a favorable picture of ourselves. We may believe we are always the reasonable one, the responsible one, the person who sees things clearly while others do not. These explanations can be just as limiting as those that diminish our abilities. When we become too attached to a favorable story about ourselves, we may find it difficult to recognize occasions when we have been mistaken, unfair, or insensitive.
In this way, even a story that makes us feel good can interfere with our willingness to discover the truth.
There is another kind of story that deserves our attention. It is the explanation we give ourselves about what our future must look like. We may say, “People don’t really change,” “It’s too late for me to do that,” or “Things have always been this way, and they always will be.” These statements can appear quite reasonable, especially when supported by years of experience. Yet they may quietly close doors that have never actually been tested.
As we grow older, perhaps this becomes particularly important. We have accumulated a lifetime of experiences, opinions, successes, and disappointments. We have had many opportunities to develop explanations for nearly everything about ourselves. There is wisdom in what we have learned, but there can also be a certain rigidity in what we have come to believe.
We may know our history quite well while knowing surprisingly little about who we might become if we stopped allowing that history to define us.
Of course, questioning our stories does not mean pretending that painful experiences never happened or denying genuine limitations. Some of our conclusions are supported by reality. Others contain a mixture of truth, misunderstanding, and assumptions that have never been examined. The challenge is learning to distinguish among them.
Perhaps one of the most valuable questions we can ask ourselves is, “Is this something I actually know to be true, or is it simply the explanation I have become accustomed to believing?”
There is something humbling about that question. It asks us to loosen our attachment to being certain about ourselves. It invites us to recognize that our understanding, even of our own lives, may be incomplete.
I often return to a personal prayer: “Father, I want to know the truth even if it changes the way I believe.”
That prayer applies not only to our religious or spiritual beliefs but also to the beliefs we hold about ourselves. If we genuinely desire truth, we must be willing to discover that some of our most familiar explanations may need to change.
Jesus spoke of knowing the truth and the freedom that follows. We often think of that teaching in terms of spiritual understanding, but perhaps it also invites us to consider the ways we have imprisoned ourselves within beliefs that are less certain than we imagine.
Sometimes the freedom we seek may begin with the simple realization that we are not required to remain the person our old stories describe.
A Small Practice in Self-Observation
During the coming days, pay attention to the statements you make about yourself, particularly those beginning with “I always,” “I never,” or “I’m just the kind of person who...”
Choose one of these statements and examine it. When did you begin believing it? What experiences seem to support it? Can you remember even one occasion when it was not true?
Then consider changing the wording. Instead of saying, “I’m not good at that,” perhaps say, “That is something I haven’t become very good at yet.” Instead of “I always react that way,” consider, “That has been my usual response.”
The difference may seem small, but it leaves room for something the old statement did not: possibility.
And if an opportunity arises, try doing one small thing that your familiar story would ordinarily discourage. Not to prove anything, but simply to discover whether the story tells the whole truth.
The purpose of looking inward is not to replace every uncomfortable story with a pleasant one. It is to become more interested in what is true than in what is familiar.
We cannot change everything that has happened in our lives. But we can question the meanings we have attached to those experiences, especially when those meanings keep determining what we believe is possible.
Perhaps we are more than the stories we tell ourselves. And perhaps part of our journey inward is discovering who we are when we no longer feel compelled to keep telling them.
Coming Next: The Expectations We Never Speak