Sometimes our past stories make it difficult to function with people in our lives. I’ll give an example. A common interaction of stories is the story of “Unrequited Love” interacting with the story of “Everyone Wants Something from Me.” We can usually see how both stories developed through no conscious fault of the parties involved, though it is not necessary to understand the origin of the stories. For our purposes, let’s assume the story of Everyone Wants came about from a past of childhood trauma which created a belief that people always want something from me and I cannot live up to their expectations. The story of Unrequited Love coming from a past of childhood heartbreak which created a belief that people will never live up to my expectations and will ultimately reject me.
These two stories interact in a self-fulfilling prophecy: The story of Everyone Wants attracts the story of Unrequited Love and vice versa; the participants live out their stories in the context of their relationship. UL starts believing that maybe UL gives too much and doesn't receive the same; that EW must not really love UL; that there will be a rejection. EW starts believing that UL wants too much; that EW cannot live up to UL’s unrealistic expectations. UL pushes to test EW’s love or EW pulls back to test that there is not too much expectation. UL tells the story of how UL loved EW too much, and the result was rejection and heartbreak. EW tells the story of how UL wanted too much, how EW felt judged and unable to meet the high expectations.
Who’s story is right? When each party continuously tries to convince the other party that their story is right, they will ultimately create such resentment in their relationship that it becomes impossible to get along with each other. Ultimately, both stories are right from the limited perspective of the storyholder. Moreover, both stories are completely wrong from the perspective of the neutral observer.
It is sad that most of our failed relationships come about because of an interaction of stories, based upon the past, usually formed in childhood. The energetic pull to stay involved in the story is sometimes overwhelming. Not all stories are EW v. UL. I would guess that most are probably some form of a victim/perpetrator story finding another, energetically compatible victim/ perpetrator story with whom to share the drama.
Fortunately, when we start to see a pattern to our interactions, we are more likely to wake up. Like we have discussed before, if you start feeling like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, living out the same drama over and over, it is usually a clue that an internal shift is in order. Simply setting the intention to stop feeding the drama is a huge start. Be easy with yourself as you awaken from the story, as it can be difficult to break free of the old patterns. Try to watch what happens with alertness as if you were a student in the school of your life. Eventually it comes down to seeing things from another’s perspective and letting go of the need to be right. What does it even mean to be “right” when there are always many versions of the same story? You will only ever be absolutely right from your own limited perspective anyway.
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