I was recently on the train at our local airport, standing shoulder to shoulder with my fellow weary travelers. Our flight had been delayed three hours, and it was now 2:30 in the morning. My own bed was still almost an hour away. Everyone on the train appeared as exhausted as I felt. I overheard a flight attendant next to me say to her colleague, “This is the third time this month that this has happened to me.”
My first inclination was to raise a little gratitude that I don’t travel very much and therefore have few of these events in my own day to day. After that, the last two words stuck in my head. I felt the weight of them. The energy they brought with them zeroed in on the speaker. It added a personal element to the statement, but not in a good way. In effect, they were taking on the weight of being delayed and making it their own. They were making themselves the object, or perhaps victim, of the event.
Consider how the sentence sounds without the last two words. “This is the third time this month that this has happened.” Go ahead, say each one aloud.
Did you catch the energy shift? The words “to me” immediately made the issue personal. It shifted the negative energy of the delay from the actual event to the speaker.
By adding those two small words when we tell a story, we are integrating ourselves into a narrative that we may not want to be in. That is not to say that the event has no impact on us. Rather, we have inserted ourselves into the story and are taking on significance that is not ours.
If we put a hard stop at the end of the sentence before we get to “to me”, we allow the event to stand by itself. We put some space between ourselves and the rest of the story. It introduces a much needed pause. In this pause we can step back and look at the story from a new perspective We have given ourselves an opportunity to take a look at whether and how the event impacted us.
Of course, we may have been directly impacted by the delay. Some of the less fortunate individuals may have missed connections and had to scramble to change their flight plans. The more fortunate were held back from their beds longer than they wanted.
On the positive side, we may see that the additional hours in the prior airport allowed us to finish the book that we had brought along – the book that would typically be sitting on the nightstand patiently waiting for a slow day that never comes. Perhaps we had time for a call with an old friend, or were able to write up the notes from the meetings we spent the day in so we won’t have to do that the next morning.
By putting in a hard stop, we don’t change the fact that it is 2:30 in the morning. We don’t change the fact that this is the third time that we have been on a flight that was significantly delayed. We don’t magically become less tired or irritable. But we do take control of the energy of the story. We change our role. We make the shift from narrow focus as a victim to broader view of the impact, both good and bad.
I am at times guilty of putting these words in my own story telling. To some extent, the words seem like innocent additions that help to make the story more connected and personal. I have a feeling that in this time of hyper speed everything, they are likely often subconscious additions. Yet they carry some incredible energetic weight.
I challenge you to listen to yourself and others closely. Pay attention to the words that alter the energy of the story and put weight where it does not belong. Consider how you can redirect the energy and step back for a better perspective on the full picture. Put in the hard stops where they are needed and take back your true story.