We all have mental tapes that play over and over in our minds. If they are positive narratives, there’s no major downside other than they’re unnecessarily using up our brain-energy. (Here’s a post I wrote titled An untrained mind–don’t think the same thing twice.) If our mental tapes have a negative or painful storyline they will eventually adversely affect our mind, emotions, and behavior.
In this post I want to focus on the downsides of verbalizing those redundant stories. It’s one thing to clutter our own minds with these anecdotes. It’s another thing to clutter our conversations with them.
Analyze your conversations and notice if you tend to tell the same thing over and again. If so, perhaps you should tidy up your speech; delete the old stories and identify some new ones. Here are some areas to explore.
Pain from the past
I have an acquaintance who continually tells the same story of her struggle to escape from an ultra-fundamentalist family of origin. The first time I heard the story, it was interesting (though it took too long to tell). The second time, not so much. I started overhearing her tell the story in other conversations. Even when she met someone for the first time she would find a way to work the story into the conversation. It seems to have defined her life, and with each telling, the story becomes more deeply engrained in her persona. For those who have heard the story before, the retelling is tedious.
Current challenges
One of the delights and benefits of close relationships is being able to share our joys and struggles with each other. I like the phrase “A sorrow shared with a friend is halved; a joy shared is doubled.” But sometimes we belabor our sharing.
For instance, it’s not necessary to share the minute details of your medical issues; I certainly want to know what’s going on, but I don’t need to know the dosage of each medication. I truly enjoy hearing about your grandchildren (as I enjoy telling you about mine), but not too much. The trip you took years ago sounds fabulous; can we talk about something else?
Truncate your stories
Reader’s Digest is an American general-interest family magazine, founded in 1922 and published ten times a year. Until 2009 it was the best-selling consumer magazine in America. It’s known for its concise writing style; all articles are short and to the point. We’ve even developed the phrase “give me the Readers’s Digest version” to indicate when we prefer a brief synopsis.
In summary, let’s rethink which personal stories should be in our oft-recited repertoire, and when we do share them, let’s make the “Reader’s Digest version” our default setting. Here’s a post I wrote on succinct communication.
[reminder]What are your thoughts about this essay?[/reminder]
Hey, Don, this issue is why I advocate journaling daily. If I see a problem/scenario/emotion surfacing over and over in my writing (which I periodically review), I know it’s something I need a) help getting past, b) to talk out with a trusted friend, c) find a resolution to, d)admit to the Father it’s bugging me, or e) get professional help if it seems to become my primary identifying mark to those who come into my life. This can be a trauma as you describe or simply our degrees, our status, the Lincoln we own (wow, that handshake of yours is just like the mechanic who works on my Lincoln!), or anything else besides our name. I find women connect to an event, men to a profession. You might pursue this a bit further as to gender, age, race, where we live, on it goes.
Allan, as always, you have insightful comments. I do not currently journal. Perhaps I will start.
Don
I can hear your frustration in hearing “old news”. Unfortunately, we are rarely brave enough to challenge the speaker. How about, ” You told me that you escaped from an ultra-fundamentalist family but it seems like you are still captive to that experience?” Perhaps the person has never recognised that their experience has defined them. What does freedom mean to them? The scripture “If the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.” comes to mind.
We have some good phrases in England, “I’ll cut a long story short” or “Let’s cut to the chase.”
I like that phrase, “I’ll cut a long story short.”
Good post. I have never read anything on this topic. It got me thinking about my own thoughts and what I might be thinking of repetitively. Currently I have a burden that I am thinking about a lot regarding someone we are close to in life. As I process the situation often the same thoughts run thru my mind. Perhaps I should turn those thoughts into prayers for which I do already but not enough. Thank you for giving me food for thought.
Thanks, Christine, for writing. It’s beneficial to analyze those tapes that keep playing.
Great essay. Enjoyed a hearty belly laugh this AM reading the line about the dosage of medications.
Janie, it’s good to hear from you. I have fond memories of you and Mike.
This is great advice Don. I often encounter this issue with a select group of folks I know. It seems like this is more often an issue with older folks. But I can also appreciate that folks at any age, when hurt severely enough will obsess on such things.
As with almost all such advice, I cannot avoid some self-reflection and think to myself “Am I being described in Don’s post?” I’m not sure if the answer is yes or know, but I have no excuse for it not being top of mind going forward.
Thanks for your posts and insights.
Thanks, Peter, for sharing your thoughts.