suppose you’d like to get started
changing your life maybe improve your
relationships at work or at home maybe
clear some doubt or insecurity where
would you begin well as a psychiatrist
practicing for over 20 years I can offer
you a powerful and practical tool kit
along with one very specific suggestion
start with your autobiographical
narrative it’s the story you’ve been
telling yourself about who you are and
how everything always plays out it’s
your personal documentary film and if
you want to change your life
it needs re-edit you see the problem
with the film playing in our head is
that it’s already edited some
emotionally difficult scenes are way
over included just think of all the
things you can’t let go of and other
scenes are deleted such as times when
maybe things did go well this personal
documentary becomes our inner truth yet
it’s a distortion from childhood when
you view it from an adult perspective
you can see that it’s not fair or just
to ourselves and it’s responsible for
the lion’s share of our ongoing
suffering causing us to settle for a
life far beneath our highest potential
in my clinical experience there’s
actually one central false truth that
settles in our minds and it happens at a
time before we know the difference
between a healthy and and unhealthy
reaction to something that really scares
us so we hold on to the wrong conclusion
but we do so for two very understandable
reasons the first is our fundamental
need to feel in control when I was under
four my parents split up since I never
heard him fighting I naturally convinced
myself that it must be all my fault
because it’s tempting to self-soothe by
taking on blame and responsibility
rather than try to struggle with the
fact that life can be unpredictable and
out of our control
especially as a kid and the second
reason is that we tend to generalize
broadly from very specific circumstances
so the kid whose parents don’t seem to
notice small achievements may convince
himself that maybe no one’s ever gonna
care about anything or in my case the
false truth that I held to so dearly was
that just as much as I couldn’t be
effective in keeping my parents together
I probably couldn’t be effective ad much
of anything else and this left me
feeling very insecure so can you see the
worst part about the false truth the
most costly part of all it’s that it
becomes our self-fulfilling prophecy
the basis of what we expect from
ourselves in the future so we need to
look at this like the author Marilyn
Robinson calls it as a mean little myth
something we need to get rid of we need
to know our autobiographical narrative
and then if we want to prevent it from
determining our future we desperately
need to do a rillette it but how well as
they say what’s the best way to get out
of a hole it’s to quit digging so we
need to do these three things we need to
be compassionate with ourselves about
how this all came into being we need to
detach from the false truth and we need
to install a new narrative built from a
position of adult strength and vision by
shifting your emotional center of
gravity you can change your story and
transform your life now before I give
you some of my tools of the trade to use
let me tell you how this worked out for
me I was the insecure little kid my dad
wasn’t around much so my mom had this
idea to send me to a rigorous all-boys
school so I could get a first-hand sense
of what I needed for myself as
young man it was rough I was anxious I
had a stutter but they’re as
intimidating as it was for me I began to
experience validation from my teachers
and coaches they saw something in me and
eventually I started to see something
different in myself
and as my expectations for myself
shifted I was able to prove myself wrong
if I hadn’t cut away from my mean little
myth then I’m confident now that I
wouldn’t be here with you today and my
20 years of clinical practice I’ve seen
this kind of transformation over and
over again just the other day in my
office I was talking to a young woman
who shied away from all adversity
because she suffered from the false
truth that when she fell she couldn’t
pick herself up now she knows that she
can and her future looks entirely
different and better and you know what’s
really fantastic is it you don’t
necessarily need to come see somebody
like me to shift your own emotional
center of gravity you can change your
story and transform your life with a
straightforward approach combining three
therapeutic tools tools that work best
when used all together like a fork a
spoon and a knife so here goes
number one you start with your narrative
this is your fork tell yourself your
story out loud even try to identify the
central emotional reference point that
falls truth what have you been feeding
yourself now try to look at it again
from your adult perspective can you see
where to start your read this is
something called narrative therapy and
you go on and on with it
number two use your spoon what if you
looked at your narrative in a warmer
light of greater possibility what if you
spooned more of your strengths into the
story try to appreciate
more that’s positive about yourself you
could try right now such as maybe you
made somebody feel good today this is
something called positive psychology and
it’s been proven to help remove blocks
to empowerment and foster more
self-esteem and number three use your
knife employ a powerful reeling
technique called control mastery I know
many of you might not have heard about
this yet
but it has an edge the essential idea is
that already there are more creditable
things for you to notice that you
haven’t taken into account so use your
knife to cut through your false truth
cut away that that no longer serves you
so that you can identify and gather up
all these many exceptions to your
long-standing rule and then accept that
it’s safe now to move on you no longer
have to hold on to that false security
of that mean little myth so while I know
there are many stories and many possible
revisions for all of us I truly believe
that there’s one underlying story that
you deserve to identify and rework first
above all else notice the distorted
truths you’ve been feeding yourself pour
in a more compassionate adult view cut
away beliefs and ties that undermine you
use your fork knife and spoon together
to build your new narrative with vision
and let this become your new
self-fulfilling prophecy if along the
way you should fall prey to negative
self-talk remember to be compassionate
detach from that and continue on your
journey because with these tools and
these insights applied you can not only
re-edit your story but you can also
rewrite what will soon become the
history of your future
thank you
changing your life maybe improve your
relationships at work or at home maybe
clear some doubt or insecurity where
would you begin well as a psychiatrist
practicing for over 20 years I can offer
you a powerful and practical tool kit
along with one very specific suggestion
start with your autobiographical
narrative it’s the story you’ve been
telling yourself about who you are and
how everything always plays out it’s
your personal documentary film and if
you want to change your life
it needs re-edit you see the problem
with the film playing in our head is
that it’s already edited some
emotionally difficult scenes are way
over included just think of all the
things you can’t let go of and other
scenes are deleted such as times when
maybe things did go well this personal
documentary becomes our inner truth yet
it’s a distortion from childhood when
you view it from an adult perspective
you can see that it’s not fair or just
to ourselves and it’s responsible for
the lion’s share of our ongoing
suffering causing us to settle for a
life far beneath our highest potential
in my clinical experience there’s
actually one central false truth that
settles in our minds and it happens at a
time before we know the difference
between a healthy and and unhealthy
reaction to something that really scares
us so we hold on to the wrong conclusion
but we do so for two very understandable
reasons the first is our fundamental
need to feel in control when I was under
four my parents split up since I never
heard him fighting I naturally convinced
myself that it must be all my fault
because it’s tempting to self-soothe by
taking on blame and responsibility
rather than try to struggle with the
fact that life can be unpredictable and
out of our control
especially as a kid and the second
reason is that we tend to generalize
broadly from very specific circumstances
so the kid whose parents don’t seem to
notice small achievements may convince
himself that maybe no one’s ever gonna
care about anything or in my case the
false truth that I held to so dearly was
that just as much as I couldn’t be
effective in keeping my parents together
I probably couldn’t be effective ad much
of anything else and this left me
feeling very insecure so can you see the
worst part about the false truth the
most costly part of all it’s that it
becomes our self-fulfilling prophecy
the basis of what we expect from
ourselves in the future so we need to
look at this like the author Marilyn
Robinson calls it as a mean little myth
something we need to get rid of we need
to know our autobiographical narrative
and then if we want to prevent it from
determining our future we desperately
need to do a rillette it but how well as
they say what’s the best way to get out
of a hole it’s to quit digging so we
need to do these three things we need to
be compassionate with ourselves about
how this all came into being we need to
detach from the false truth and we need
to install a new narrative built from a
position of adult strength and vision by
shifting your emotional center of
gravity you can change your story and
transform your life now before I give
you some of my tools of the trade to use
let me tell you how this worked out for
me I was the insecure little kid my dad
wasn’t around much so my mom had this
idea to send me to a rigorous all-boys
school so I could get a first-hand sense
of what I needed for myself as
young man it was rough I was anxious I
had a stutter but they’re as
intimidating as it was for me I began to
experience validation from my teachers
and coaches they saw something in me and
eventually I started to see something
different in myself
and as my expectations for myself
shifted I was able to prove myself wrong
if I hadn’t cut away from my mean little
myth then I’m confident now that I
wouldn’t be here with you today and my
20 years of clinical practice I’ve seen
this kind of transformation over and
over again just the other day in my
office I was talking to a young woman
who shied away from all adversity
because she suffered from the false
truth that when she fell she couldn’t
pick herself up now she knows that she
can and her future looks entirely
different and better and you know what’s
really fantastic is it you don’t
necessarily need to come see somebody
like me to shift your own emotional
center of gravity you can change your
story and transform your life with a
straightforward approach combining three
therapeutic tools tools that work best
when used all together like a fork a
spoon and a knife so here goes
number one you start with your narrative
this is your fork tell yourself your
story out loud even try to identify the
central emotional reference point that
falls truth what have you been feeding
yourself now try to look at it again
from your adult perspective can you see
where to start your read this is
something called narrative therapy and
you go on and on with it
number two use your spoon what if you
looked at your narrative in a warmer
light of greater possibility what if you
spooned more of your strengths into the
story try to appreciate
more that’s positive about yourself you
could try right now such as maybe you
made somebody feel good today this is
something called positive psychology and
it’s been proven to help remove blocks
to empowerment and foster more
self-esteem and number three use your
knife employ a powerful reeling
technique called control mastery I know
many of you might not have heard about
this yet
but it has an edge the essential idea is
that already there are more creditable
things for you to notice that you
haven’t taken into account so use your
knife to cut through your false truth
cut away that that no longer serves you
so that you can identify and gather up
all these many exceptions to your
long-standing rule and then accept that
it’s safe now to move on you no longer
have to hold on to that false security
of that mean little myth so while I know
there are many stories and many possible
revisions for all of us I truly believe
that there’s one underlying story that
you deserve to identify and rework first
above all else notice the distorted
truths you’ve been feeding yourself pour
in a more compassionate adult view cut
away beliefs and ties that undermine you
use your fork knife and spoon together
to build your new narrative with vision
and let this become your new
self-fulfilling prophecy if along the
way you should fall prey to negative
self-talk remember to be compassionate
detach from that and continue on your
journey because with these tools and
these insights applied you can not only
re-edit your story but you can also
rewrite what will soon become the
history of your future
thank you
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