The most powerful stories may be the ones we tell ourselves. But beware—they’re usually fiction. Brené Brown
I recently read Family of Spies by Christine Kuehn. It is a powerful real-life mystery of a seemingly normal American family. The hidden history came to light when a querying filmmaker contacted the author seeking information about her grandparents and their spy activities during World War II. The author was certain they were contacting the wrong person, but the filmmaker persisted and knew too much about her family for Kuehn to disregard his hypothesis completely. When she asked her father, Eberhard Kuehn, directly, he admitted the spy story was true, breaking into tears as he told the secret he had kept her whole life.
She recalled the many preposterous stories her father told his children, stories they recognized as fiction, even in their youth. But the real story—that his father, mother, and half-sister spied for the Japanese in preparation for the Pearl Harbor attack was left hidden. Her grandfather, Otto Kuehn, was passed over by the Nazi leader, Joseph Goebbels, for a prominent position with the SS. He was later offered the opportunity to move to Hawaii to help the Japanese gather information on US Naval operations. It was a lucrative opportunity. Otto accepted the role.
As I read, I thought about the stories we tell ourselves and pass on—as well as the stories we hide.
The true Kuehn story was too painful to retell, too shameful to share, too awful to burden the next generation. It was much easier to create tales that were exciting and adventurous with happier outcomes. By the time her father admitted the truth, the details were sinking into the quicksand of lost memories, bumping up against the seawall of his developing dementia. Instead, the author found the truth through archives of FBI records, historical research, and remnants of family documents. Eventually, she uncovered a story of intrigue, pain, and grief.
I had a dear aunt who married late and had no children. After she died, we learned a heretofore untold story. An unplanned pregnancy in her early 20s led her to Washington D.C. where she could hide the pregnancy outside the glare of social criticism. She offered the child up for adoption. We had no idea about that chapter in her story. No doubt shame kept it hidden for over fifty years.
What other stories lie in secret? Stories of suicide? Unfaithfulness? War experiences? Alcoholism? While it is harder to keep these secrets hidden in the age of DNA and internet access, secrets still abound.
Not only do we hide stories, but we also create stories to try to make sense of the world.
Not only do we hide stories, but we also create stories to try to make sense of the world. I learned the word confabulate while caring for another aunt through her journey with dementia. When I asked questions about her week, she would assure me she’d gone for a walk or driven to the grocery store or talked to a friend. But the details were vague and didn’t correspond with what I knew to be true. The story made sense to her and that was all that mattered. She filled in missing pieces with fictional details that created a plausible narrative.
We can all confabulate. We fill in details to support a story’s outcome that we want to believe, especially when something doesn’t seem to make sense. Sometimes those stories are about us. I recall a friend saying to me, “You are fun to be with.” “Oh, no,” I said. “I am not fun. That’s the rest of my family. I am the drag on the fun.” That was the family story I’d internalized. No fun. Too serious. Wet blanket. But here was someone who saw me without that baggage, without that preface to my story. I had believed a story someone else had authored. It wasn’t true.
We can make up stories about others as well. Perhaps someone is cool toward us, hasn’t connected for a while, is unusually brisk. It’s easy to fabricate a story about how she’s upset with me or I hurt him the last time we spoke. As the story grows, so do my feelings of hurt or anger or fear. Pretty soon I have a whole montage of who, what, where, when that supports my thesis. What if my thesis is wrong? What if they’re struggling with something of which I have no knowledge and it’s not about me at all?
Brené Brown, in her book Rising Strong, gives us a process for checking out the stories we tell ourselves. The next time you are rattled by an upcoming encounter or a fear that keeps you on guard or are sinking into shame, try these steps:
Engage with your feelings. What am I feeling? Where is it in my body? Is it in my gut? Does my heart hurt? Can I feel my jaw clench? Our bodies don’t lie, they know something is amiss.
Get curious about the story behind the feelings. What is the story I am telling myself? Where is it coming from? Why am I so angry or hurt or judgmental about this? What was it he said that tripped me? This takes vulnerability and a willingness to disengage from the story.
Write it down. Putting it on paper allows us to get the whole story down. It doesn’t have to be pretty. Try writing it from a third-person point of view.
Question the tale. What are the facts and what are my assumptions? What else do I need to know? What am I really feeling? What is my part? This is hard work but necessary if we really want to know the story we are telling and rewrite it based on reality and not fiction.
We all have stories. Some are best left in the dark dumpster of history. Others need to be opened to the light of day so as to not breathe life into a fiction that no longer serves us. Still others are open to exploration for the lessons learned. Carl Jung reminds us, “Until you allow the unconscious to become conscious, it will rise up to you as your life, and you will call it your fate.”
What stories are calling you? Who is the author? Are they ready for a rewrite?
Mary Lou Logsdon is a spiritual director and retreat leader who lives in the Twin Cities. She can be reached at logsdon.marylou@gmail.com. We may earn a commission via some of the links on this page – at no cost to you.
