A woman speaks:

We are all storytellers. When something goes down we have to make up a story to explain what happened. When it comes to abusive practice, our stories can often hold a lot of blame towards the other person. Have you ever found yourself getting the story wrong?

Have you ever found that the story goes around and around in your head? When the story goes around and around in your head, does it get bigger and take up more space? If it does, then you're pretty normal. It can feel like we become intoxicated drunk with our story.

The other challenge with our stories is that we only see the things that feed our annoyance. This can get us even more uptight. We narrow our gaze. We often miss all the other things that might be going on.

This may seem like a pretty challenging idea... stories we make up are just thoughts we use to make sense of the situation we find ourselves in. They may... or may not...be true. Giving attention to certain types of stories can make a bad situation worse.

The following will take practice so it can become a habit. Next time you find yourself in a situation where you find your thoughts going around and around in your head... I want you to do the following.

Notice how much time and attention you're giving the story you're telling yourself. Get distance from your story by saying to yourself... 'I'm noticing I'm spending a lot of time going around the story in my head'. Ask yourself the question...is this story taking me closer to, or further away, from family wellbeing? What would be a different story to explain what's going on?

Remember you can take control of your stories.