My wife and I are selling our family home. We’ve lived here for thirty years. Our kids came home from hospital to this house. They went from the local kindy to primary to high school without ever packing a bag between stages. The narrative in my head (the story I tell myself) is that this is a big, hard thing. Moving is hard. That’s the story.
We have friends who’ve lived in the same neighbourhood for about as long as we have. In that time they’ve moved house so many times I’ve lost count. I find myself wondering what narrative they’re telling themselves, because it clearly isn’t mine.
What’s that got to do with me?
Probably what you’re asking right now.
So much of our lives comes down to the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. Tell yourself moving is hard, and guess what, it’s hard. My friends have a different story, and that’s the whole point. One thing I’ve mentioned in this newsletter before is the idea of borrowing virtue. I think of it in terms of the four Stoic virtues: courage, justice, wisdom and temperance.
Say you’ve got a difficult conversation coming up at work. You think of someone you actually know, someone you consider wise, and you borrow their wisdom by imagining how they’d handle it. Same goes when you need self-control, or courage. You use the virtue of people around you to guide your own actions.
It’s like having a board of directors in your head.
Borrow a library of stories, too
I think you can do the same thing with personal narratives. If your life is a series of stories you tell yourself, why can’t you use someone else’s narrative to get yourself through something new or difficult?
Our friend who can’t stop moving has been extraordinarily generous, acting as a coach while we navigate what is, for us, a genuinely difficult thing to do. She’s helped us reframe our view using hers. She’s acted as a guide, using her own story to help us see the whole process as an exciting adventure rather than a loss.
Pass your stories on, too
This works both ways. What stories or narratives can you lend to someone else, to help them through theirs?
Think about everything you’ve picked up across a life actually lived. All the jobs, all the moves, all the versions of yourself you’ve already been. You’re a library, whether you’ve noticed or not, and other people are allowed to borrow from the shelves when they hit something unexpected or new. You don’t always have to wait to be asked. Sometimes you just notice someone standing where you once stood, and hand them the book that got you through it.
Try this
Think of one thing you’re finding genuinely hard right now: a move, a decision, an ending, a beginning. Now think of someone, anyone, who’s lived through a version of it and come out the other side with a better story than the one you’re currently telling yourself. Borrow it. Not to pretend you feel differently than you do, just to remind yourself there’s more than one way to tell this particular story.
With thanks
My nomadic coach won’t have a bar of being named publicly, but shout out to you and yours for your friendship and guidance.