The Stories We Tell Ourselves: How Meaning, Shame, and Assumptions Shape Our Relationships (Episode #97)

There's something about you that I can't help but smile when you smile and laugh when you laugh.

Welcome to the human intimacy podcast. Dr. Kevin Skinner with Marianne Michaelis, licensed clinical social worker. Marianne, you ever been in a situation where you had an experience and somebody said, how did you see that that way? Why are you responding this way? I didn't see that that way or I didn't experience it that way. What's the difference here? What's going on between two people who are having a similar experience, but they're not experiencing the same thing or feeling the same thing? Today's topic, Marianne, then, is the stories we tell ourselves when we're interacting with others for ourselves.

I think there is so much here in this topic, Dr. Skinner, it's just a big, huge pot. There's so much to choose from. I am so self acknowledging how much I judge other people. Not because I'm. I don't feel like I'm a super judgy person, but I think we all see people and we make up stories, we fill in the gaps, and I'm excited that we're talking about that today. But even looking at it from a, you know, as we choose the topics and we say, what, what could be helpful? What, what are our clients struggling with? What would be helpful to share today? Understanding this topic of where do I need to maybe hold up the mirror a little bit and notice what's going on? I think it's really important to be able to gain an awareness of ourselves and what's going on for us. Have a really good example of this. Several years ago, I was working with a client and she had something that we, after a couple years of working together, we called it trial judge and jury. And she would have an issue, something that was bothering her, something that needed to be communicated, something that she would notice her spouse doing. And she would think about, oh, I could talk to him about this, but if I do, then he will react this way and he'll say this and it will be this. Okay? That's the outcome. She would have a whole, entire conversation, a whole dialogue, a whole interaction with her spouse mentally. And then she would deal with whatever the outcome was that she had decided. And her husband felt so short, changed. He was constantly like, wait a second, I don't even have a chance to participate this, and you've already chosen for me and decided the outcome. And I didn't even, I didn't even get to know about it. And so she would react, she would put up walls, whatever it was. That she was doing. She was reacting to her own mental outcome. And that's when I. I'm excited to be talking about that today, because I think we all do that to some extent.

Well, not only do we do it, but it influences how we see ourselves in relationships. And today I would like to explore both of those. Because the story I tell about myself, we often ask the question, as therapists, where did you come to see yourself that way? Right. If I asked our listeners a simple question, in relationships, I am, your answer to that question would tell me part of the story you've been telling yourself. You could say, in relationships, I am kind. In relationships, I am ineffective. I don't know how to communicate. In relationships, I'm a good communicator. In relationships, I'm hard to understand. In relationships, I am. You finish your own story, and what will be interesting is you might not have the same story with certain people. In business settings, I am this. In family relationships, I'm this. With my spouse, I'm that. See, those are the stories that we tell ourselves or the things that we come to accept or feel about ourselves that influence how I am with a person or in a group. I'm in social situations, I'm clumsy. A few years ago, Marianne, I was talking with an individual. Every time they would get into a dating situation, they talked me through their dialogue of what they would be thinking. While this person's there sitting in front of them, they're having this meal together. It wore me out just listening to the internal dialogue that this person had of the. About how this person's interpreting this date. So they're thinking, I bet they're going to think that I'm not a good communicator. And they're going to think that maybe my hair's, you know, or the way I'm sitting. And they were just all over this place of interpreting what this other person's thinking.

You know, there's a classic movie I remember watching in eighth grade, the title of it, but there's a boy sitting at a picnic table across from a girl, and she rubs her nose. And he sits there and he goes, oh, did she rub her nose? Cause I got something on my nose. So he rubs his nose, and she goes, oh, is he telling me that I need to rub my nose? And so soon they're both just, like, sawing away, rubbing their nose, assured that they've got something going on. And I think that's what we're talking about. It's a humorous little clip, but this is the Thing like, what are we interpreting that other people are saying and we're reacting to? And I think that's what I was hearing as you were talking about this client, that we make up a story. Oh, I got something on my nose. Oh, gross. I gotta move it.

Yeah, perfect example. And our last podcast, we talked about emotional ownership. And if I'm talking about my story, I'm creating this whole story, but I might not even be owning what my emotions are because I might actually be in a situation here, Marianne, where I, I'm like, oh, wait a second, you think I got something on my nose? Or at this client that I was talking about literally, by the time, literally the anxiety in the field. So anxiety field. I could go on and on with stories about the stories that we create and why do we do it? It's because our brain is trying to make sense of our self, our environment, and how we interact with other people. Our brains naturally going to be a forecaster. But are the stories we tell ourselves? Man, we can get ourselves worked up into such a state of frenzy that we feel fear, we feel anxiety, we don't trust, we don't let people in. Because the story that we've come to accept is people are not safe, which in some situations, I absolutely say, in some people's life experiences, 100% makes sense. But even that, and that conclusion, is that always true? Is that always true that nobody's safe? The stories that we are telling ourselves, we have to. Again, something I say over and over again, what's your story? Do you know your own story? The story that you tell yourself about how I am in relationships, how I am as a student or an employee, how I am as a spouse. I mean, if this, you really want to do a self reflection experience, tell me what kind of spouse you are. Right? That's also your story that you. I. I am what, in marriage or in this relationship that's so vulnerable?

I, I think too, there's so much happening for us. Our brains, as you said, are just predictive. They are trying to figure out the outcomes. And I think so much of this is also built on framework from our past. And so, you know, I love that example. You said, in relationships, I am fill in the blank. And, and if I took that and I gave that to my clients, boy, I can't imagine what, what they would plug in. However, I have clients that struggle with chronic shame and things from their childhood. They would fill in the blank with something related to shame. And, you know, I have a couple clients that I've been working with, and we've been working on some of their shame messages. And when we stop and we start to say, hold on a second, they might say, I'm needy or I'm too much for other people. I often hear and see my clients trying to censor themselves. Or like, I talk too much. Like, oh, that's interesting. Where did you learn that? And when we start deconstructing it, it comes to these experiences in their childhood where somebody said something and then when we really look at it and say, did they sit you down and say, so? And so you are this. And. And was it loving? Was it kind? Was it helpful? Was it constructive? Or was it something you overheard? And let's talk about what was going on for them and how that might have been overwhelming. You may have been overwhelming for them because they may have been going through something really hard. They may have just lost their job. They may have been, you know, tired, hungry, angry, stressed, whatever. There may have been other circumstances going on. And you, in that moment, you might have been too much, but that doesn't mean that that's a blanket. You are always too much. But you've carried that throughout your life, and it has limited you. You have restrained yourself from interacting with people because of this story that you've been carrying. Like, challenging those, I think is so important. And I probably talked about this before, but this is a space where I love just with my clients say, is it possible that person had diarrhea? Is it possible that person had something else going on, like, really looking at, like, these normal body things that we all have. Is it possible that that wasn't about you at all? What I mean, if it's not.

And so now you're helping them confront or challenge that perception. So two core parts here. We have to understand the stories we tell about ourselves and then the stories that we tell about ourselves in relationship with others and how we perceive that they see us, which influences how we perceive them?

Well, I think there's a third part here too, and what I call it fact checking. And this is, I can fact check with myself. But I think it's really also important to say, hey, when you said this, Dr. Skinner, the story that I told myself was that you thought that I was really dumb, and you thought that was a really dumb thing that I said, and so you were correcting. That's what I. That's what I internalized. That's the story I told myself. Is that what was going on for you? And that might not be a great example, but it's what came to my mind. Is that what was going on for you, Dr. Skinner? I'm verbalizing, making very explicit. Here's my story in my head. Can you help me understand if I got it right or if it's something.

Else, which is part of the problem solving there? Marianne, you're trying to write. You're trying to. Am I. Am I seeing this right? So that's part of a healthy response would be to fact check. I wonder if our listeners understand the stories. I wonder if we understand our own stories and what we're telling ourselves as we interact with ourselves and with other people. So some of the stories I've heard throughout my career, that most, I think are quite common. I'm not enough somehow. I'm a failure. I let everybody down. I'm worthless. The deeper shame there, As I often say, there's always a story. How did I come to that conclusion? How did I draw that assumption or that conclusion? How did I accept that virus into me as if it's a truth? Those kinds of stories, Marianne, are the ones that carry with people until we learn how to let them go. If we don't understand our stories, then everything around us has influenced how we see ourselves, how we interact with people. And consistently, when I work with individuals who are not able to see their story for whatever reason, as they start to see their story and how they've built that story, so to speak, as they've created it, and that with that awareness, that doesn't create change by itself, but it sure starts that ball rolling. You have to understand how you've developed this story. And then, Marianne, the beautiful part is, as you deconstruct it, that the lights start clicking on and you see how it's influenced you in this way, and it's influenced you in this way that leads to more freedom. And to me, that's the exciting part of deconstructing the stories we tell ourselves.

I'm reminded of a quote, something I've been reading. I'd love to share it with you. I know in our last podcast, I mentioned this book. I'm reading the Book of Forgiveness by Desmond Tutu, the Book of Forgiveness. And he says, in our own ways, we are all broken. Out of that brokenness, we hurt others. Forgiveness is the journey we take toward healing the broken parts. It is how we become whole again. And I know we're not talking specifically about forgiveness in this podcast, but I think you could fill in that blank with understanding our stories, challenging, dismantling, and maybe giving ourselves compassion or Finding ways to see ourselves through a different lens, through a different light. I love how he says we. We all start out whole, and then things happen where our view of ourselves or the world shift and change. Where suddenly I came from a place of trust, and now because of experiences, I think I can't trust anybody. People are going to hurt me. And that's a lens that I might be looking through. And this is a place where I think other people, outside influences, support groups, a therapist, people that I trust, I might need them to help me make sense of my story, to make sense of the stories, to challenge me on the stories, to help me see things in a different light. Say, yep, you've been hurt, but that doesn't mean that. That everyone hurts you. I might need some gentle help with that to help me come back into that wholeness that I think we all are striving for, that we all want.

I like this a lot. So I have an interesting story that relates to this topic, and it's a story of many years ago, I had a neighbor, and at Christmas time, we would, in our city, gather food together. I had another neighbor who came to me and said, hey, I have some extra boxes of food that was left over from the Kiwanis Club, and if you have anybody that, you know, that would benefit from it. And I got word of a family that lived close to us who had many children, and they were, you know. And I got word that they were struggling with employment and maybe they could use some of this food. So I took. Put a couple boxes in my car, and I went over and knocked on the front door and. And I could hear noise inside, but nobody came out. And all of a sudden the husband came out, and all of a sudden I was on the defensive, like, what are you doing here? And all I was caught off guard. And my natural response is, okay, I'm being attacked, but inside of me, I'm like, well, I've got food. And I. And so I said, I have some food from the Kiwanis Club, and it's in my car. Would you like it? We don't need your help. It was an instant response, and it was yelling. And my natural response was, well, if you don't want this food, then I'm going back to my car. It's okay. I won't bother you again. But something inside of me said, his children need food. And I said, I have some food for your children in the car. Would you like it? There's no cost. It's just for you and your family. And he softened. And over the next few months and maybe a year plus, I got to know this guy as a neighbor, and it was a really meaningful experience, and we became friends. And I think about the story that he was experiencing as some stranger walks up to their door and knocks on it. Don't need you.

Don't need your same response right there. Right?

Don't need you. Right. I'm unemployed. I'm struggling later to find out there was substance use. And he was struggling with that. Don't need you. Push away, push away. And he needed me at that time more than anything as I got to know him. And so the story that he experienced, the shame of it, the fear of it, the I. I'm. My life is going out of control. All of that's in play here. And as I knocked on the door and I gave him the food, there was this. Ultimately, there was this. This softening that eventually came. And I learned a very valuable lesson myself. The stories I tell myself. When somebody's mean or somebody's unkind or somebody's upset, the lesson I had to learn is, how do I respond in a situation like that when somebody's attacking me? I don't need you. Get out of here. My story could easily have been, okay, sure, let your children starve, but that's my reptile brain defending, protecting, fight or flight response. In contrast with a human being who I see suffering, I learned a very valuable lesson, and I've thought about it many times over. But the stories that we tell ourselves, Marianne, they influence us so much, and we sometimes just don't even see it. That's the part where I wonder how often we're telling ourselves stories. When we don't see our stories, we don't see them as we. In a previous podcast, our Blind spots.

I think, Dr. Skinner, what I'm hearing or really connecting with is this is the Christmas season, and one of the traditions that we've had for years is we have a big, huge box of Christmas books. And that's something that, over the years, my kids, they're adults now, but over the years, they. They love to hear stories. And if we just connect on that, we think about children, we think about stories, bedtime stories. Stories are an integral part for a lot of us. Like, that's where we connect. Like, Dr. Skinner, you and I could talk like nerdy science all day long and might not be very connecting, but when you start to tell the story about your neighbor, you go, oh, oh, I can connect with that. And so understanding how important our Stories are. And we heal through sharing our stories, through telling our stories. And, you know, my client that I started out with talking about, she has a whole story in her head, you know, trial judge and jury, with the story never coming out. I do think that in order for us to heal and to connect with ourselves and to understand ourselves, we need to speak our stories. We need to find places to tell them. This is where journaling can be so helpful. At least in my life. Journaling, being able to say, this happened to me and this is how I felt, and here's where it is in my body, even. Even in my moments when I've been ranting like. And it's just all the emotions are just dumping out as I do that. That's telling my story. And oftentimes that's a space once I get done. So I'm working through some of the anger, frustration. I can stop and look at it and say, oh, wow. I think we have to work through the emotions as we tell this story to really get to what's underneath it, to find our meaning, to find our clarity and maybe our pathway through. So tying back in with last week's podcast about understanding our emotions, connecting with our emotions, I think that's an integral part of our stories. It's telling the stories in safe places, being able to process them with people who can hear and respond. And I love that you talked about this guy that came to the door. You took a minute, like, you could have responded so quickly. Yeah, no big deal. But slowing down to say, that guy has a story. There's something going on for him right now.

And in a moment, that's not easy to do. Right, because you feel defensive. I think there's another place that we see stories that are so impactful in our work, and it's actually in groups. When I've observed individuals in groups and they start opening up and sharing their stories, there's something that is really unique that happens. It's. I feel heard, I feel felt, I feel somebody. I'm not alone. I feel like I'm not so isolated. Because you have a story similar to my story, you have felt what I feel.

I think you're saying connection, like connection, connection, connection right there.

And that is part of the story is I'm connected now with other people because we share a commonality. And what aligns us together is when we work together on healing or projects or things. I remember my wife read something to me a while back, and they did this huge study on what helped break down racism. And it Wasn't education on racism. It was actually putting individuals from different races together to solve a problem that was actually the most impactful of reducing racism is actually working to solve a problem together. Because when we work together we realize we're way more aligned and have more things in common than not. And so to me, the story I could tell about XYZ person, where did that come from? Where did my judgment or where did my prejudice or racism actually come from? When I, if I don't see a person, if I don't see them, if I don't see who they are, then the story I'm telling myself is not valuing of a human being. I'll give you an example here. I heard this story and I don't know if it's completely accurate, but I heard from a documentary this is, somebody told me this, that Saddam Hussein, and here in the United States, Saddam Hussein is not very well liked obviously and was hunted down and killed. But I heard his story that at 8 years old he was told, given a handgun and go, said go shoot that person. I thought about an eight year old, I thought about an eight year old me. I thought about that kind of an environment and all of a sudden I'm like, well, he got there somehow. He did what he did for some reason. And, and if I can't see humanness even in the person who I, who is like emotionally, I like this person's harmed and hurt a lot of people. There's always a story, what is it? And can I sit with that story and say, wow, that makes more sense to me that Marianne, is how we start to see people and that's how we start to understand our story. Because if I can do that for another person, can I do it with myself, my story, my suffering? Because really if you look at the concept of self compassion, it's literally being with your own suffering. That's what self compassion is. Can I be aware of my own story? Can I feel for that 8 year old boy or girl, Can I see the challenges? Can I see that story in alignment and say that makes sense, you've been.

Suffering and Dr. Skinner, I'm so glad you went there. And I will say that for so many of my clients that is where the emotions show up. And for a lot of my clients it's really hard for them to get there. When I say, okay, now let's see, can we put on your lenses of self compassion and look at this and I'll say, what do you see? And a lot of times my clients will Be stuck, I don't even know. And I'll say, well, what about this? And what about this? And here's what I heard when you were telling me this. This makes sense to me. It's hard for us once again to see ourselves, I think. And so in this space where we're talking about understanding other stories, but also understanding ourselves, being with ourselves, one tool that I would love to share that, that I've learned can be really helpful. Sometimes we're too close. Sometimes it just feels like that is too hard for me to step into. And so for our listeners or viewers, if you are like, oh, how do I do this in a way that I can manage the emotions, writing your story in a third person. So once upon a time, there was a little girl or a little boy who was eight years old who. Somebody said, here's a gun. Go kill that person. Obviously, that's probably not most of our experiences, but I can. If I write from that third person place, it distances me just enough that I can be able to usually handle the story. And when we work in 12 step groups, step five is about sharing our story with, you know, here, here's what I've been working on, steps one through four. And step five is about now sharing it with another human being. And it's an important part of healing, is witnessing. And so sharing my story and having it witnessed someplace, that's an incredible part of healing because it allows others to see us in that vulnerability. And that's where Brene Brown says, connection and healing happen when we allow other people in. We share our stories. And the biggest fear that I often see with my clients is say, oh, I don't want to be a burden, or I'm so afraid of what they might think. And what we usually think is, oh, my goodness, that person is amazing. Oh, my goodness, I can't believe what they went through. That person has so much courage to even talk about that. And I might be kind of horrified of what they just shared, but I can't believe they just shared that. And wow, that is where we connect, is through these stories.

I love that when we, Marianne, understand the stories that we tell ourselves with compassion, the world gets better. It gets lighter. And when we confront ourselves, sometimes the story we tell ourselves, we have to confront. We have to, like, really, you're, you're speaking to yourself that way. You're allowing that dialogue to go through your mind. If you don't confront some of your stories and you continually, perpetually allow them to run, that allows you into a space of doing the same thing, feeling the same feelings over and over again. Sometimes we have to confront our story, maybe even saying it, confronting ourselves with a deep dive into what's going on. And that emotional honesty, that integrity, is how we really create a deeper change. So yeah, I would say sometimes we have to confront ourselves. In fact, I'd say the healthiest us confronts ourselves and say, am I showing up, as Tara Brock said, am I making it easy for others to love me? That's a humbling question.

That's a question I think we could all probably ask ourselves multiple times a day in this moment. How am I doing in that?

All right, so final thoughts today, Marianne?

My final thoughts are just an invitation. Holding up your mirror and really looking at your stories where maybe you're judging others, where you're judging yourself and also giving yourself that gift of kindness and finding places to say, hey, can I share my story with you? I remember as a little girl driving home from my grandparents house, which we did probably on a weekly basis, I remember being in the back of the car, just saying, mom, dad, will you tell us a story? I think we don't tell stories enough. Just a story of who you are. As we step into this season where we may be spending more time with our families, I'd love to invite our listeners to see if they can just approach somebody who you don't know or don't know well with some curiosity and say, tell me your story. Tell me a story about you, to listen deeply, to just open and come with curiosity and notice what you learn about yourself, notice what surprises you. I just think this is such an excellent exercise just to really connect at a deeper level.

So yeah, to that I would say when we seek to understand our own story, do it with a curiosity without fear, without judgment. Just be with your own story. When you start to dissect your own story and sometimes confront yourself with the way you experience things, you grow, you grow, you naturally begin to change because you're learning about self. So I guess that's my invitation is do the work so you can discover who you really are. I think we're always learning about ourselves if we ask those types of questions. And that's the exciting part of life. If you want a thrilling life, go into that space, ask yourself questions, how do I do this? Why am I doing this? What stories do I tell myself? That's interesting. That type of curiosity leads to personal growth as we approach a new year. Marianne that's what I would love for everybody to do. I'm going to be a grower. I'm going to learn. I'm going to be curious about myself, and I'm going to develop into the human being that I long to be. That would be my invitation.

That's excellent. Thank you so much, Dr. Skinner. It's been a great conversation today.

All right, thank you. And to our listeners, we appreciate your time. If you haven't pushed the like button, if you haven't left us comments, please do. It just helps with the algorithms. The other thing is, if you have not yet signed up for the Human Intimacy Conference at the end of December, the coupon 50% off, will go down. And so we will invite you and encourage you to join us. Some of the leading experts in betrayal, trauma, sexual addiction will be with us, and we will be there sharing insights. Marianne, I'm going to be talking about how empathy and compassion are not the same and how it's critical that we learn to develop compassion in our healing and recovery.

And Dr. Skinner, I will come in on that because you and I've had some conversations, and what I've been learning from our conversations is we've got it all wrong, understood it all wrong. And so I'm really looking forward to that presentation and learning more from you on that.

And I've been working hard trying to make sense of that. So I can't wait to share that with those who are in attendance because it is so critically important. If you're going to heal in your relationship, you need to understand the difference. So I'm absolutely excited to be able to share that with those who attend. So, second annual Human Intimacy Conference. The date, March 13th and 14th of 2026. All right. Thank you for being with us. May you be blessed in all that you do, and may you find human intimacy in all your relationships. You guys take care.

Thanks. Something surround you it's like you're shining.

March 13th and 14th of 2026.