her to break up with him and move on. She had never lived entirely on her own, and the thought of being alone, without Tom, so far from her close-knit family, scared her. Should she stay with Tom, the man she loved and considered her soul mate, and give up her lifelong dream of having children?
How can embracing the story lens on life help Jill? Well, it won’t prevent her from experiencing sadness, anger, guilt, confusion, and fear — or all the natural, understandable human emotions that arise during difficult times. Nor should it. From a psychological perspective, feeling our feelings is an important part of emotional maturation, as well as a prerequisite for intimacy.
Yet thoroughly considering each of the story elements in her life’s current chapter can help her figure out the best way to move forward. All the story elements — San Francisco (the setting), their childhood dreams and experiences (exposition), the plot (the love story), and the conflict (the disagreement about having children) — are interacting with one another to create a crisis that is pushing for a resolution. In the world of stories, that’s a good thing. The conflict between the protagonist (Jill) and the antagonist (Tom) has led to tension that must be resolved to move Jill’s story forward. To move forward, Jill is compelled to look within and make courageous choices informed by a deeper understanding of her needs and values.
Imagining her life in the third person can help give Jill the necessary critical distance to meet and resolve this dilemma, which is really a test of her courage, faith, and inner truth. Is this conflict an opportunity to push past her fear of being alone? Or is it about accepting that her life’s priorities have changed — that her love for Tom and her life with him is now more significant than her childhood vision of having children? Either way, Jill has taken charge of her story, so that she will experience her choice as life-affirming, transformational, and ultimately in her best interest.
In this way, looking through the story lens can help reframe difficult life events without creating unnecessary drama. Obviously, if you lost your job, caught your husband cheating, or you lost your job on the day you caught your husband cheating, the point isn’t to say, “At least I have a compelling story to tell. My soon-to-be-ex-husband sure makes a vivid character!” But if we can place our stories in a recognizable context, understanding that all the story elements are conspiring toward our ultimate benefit, we have a better chance of making wise decisions and finding the meaningful silver-lining narrative in whatever plot twists life throws at us.
Imagine walking into a neighborhood bookstore and discovering a novel with a familiar picture on the cover. Flipping through the pages, you are struck by the eerie sense that you’ve read this before. As you recognize characters and scenes, wincing at some and smiling at others, you realize this is the story of your life. If this happened, would you feel love and compassion for the main character, or would you scrutinize the character’s every word and action?
According to the latest research, you are more likely to view your life favorably at a distance than up close. Psychological studies suggest that reflecting on your life, both in the past and present, as a third-person observer can help you see yourself and the things you’ve overcome through fresher and more compassionate eyes.
That’s why once you’ve put on your story glasses, you need to change your prescription…to the third-person narrative. Third-person narration is one of three types of literary points of view: First-person narrative uses the pronoun “I” and is used when the narrator tells his or her own story. Second-person narrative uses the pronoun “you” and is used when the narrator speaks directly to the reader, like I am speaking to you right now. Third-person narrative uses the pronouns “he,” “she,” and “they,” and it is used when the narrator describes someone else’s story, often from a neutral or all-knowing perspective. For this reason, it is sometimes referred to as the omniscient narrator. Researchers conclude that the psychologically distant vantage point of the third-person perspective enables people to reconstruct an understanding of their experiences and gain new insights without feeling emotionally overwhelmed. (See the sidebar “What Research Says about the Third-Person Narrative,” below.)
What Research Says about the Third-Person Narrative
Here are some recent studies that confirm how helpful a third-person perspective can be when viewing our own emotions and life.
• Stanford University psychologists studying emotion regulation asked a group of women who were hooked up to a machine measuring heart rate, pulse, and perspiration to recall a scene that made them angry. At first, the women’s ruminations sent their nervous systems into overdrive. Then the women were asked to visualize the incident as a neutral observer, or to assume the perspective of another person, and their bodies became calmer and their anger diminished.4
• University of California and University of Michigan researchers used a psychologically distancing vantage point when asking participants to reflect on negative memories. Not only did participants report less emotional pain, less rumination, improved problem solving, and greater life satisfaction, they also gained new insights into those memories without feeling as emotionally overwhelmed.5
• In an Ohio State University study, students who recalled humiliating moments in high school in the third-person narrative were more likely to describe themselves as having overcome obstacles than those who recalled similarly embarrassing moments from a first-person perspective. Participants in this group often portrayed themselves as victims. The study concluded that feeling like you’ve changed gives the confidence and momentum to act in ways that support a perceived new and improved self.6
• In a Columbia University study, students were asked to describe recently upsetting thoughts or feelings, and these bad memories were recalled with less hostility by those using the third-person perspective.7
• A University of Michigan study was done through the use of a six-day worry log. Results showed people writing in the third person reported higher life satisfaction. Researchers concluded that “self-distancing…provides a valuable framework to help people reframe stressful events in adaptive ways.”8
This makes sense when we consider how much our identity is deeply intertwined with our first-person narrative — the big “I,” otherwise known as the ego. A good, healthy “I” is necessary for establishing relationships, launching enterprises, and navigating life’s ups and downs. If we didn’t have a healthy sense of “I,” we might find it difficult to distinguish our thoughts and feelings from those of the people around us, so that we mostly mimicked or reflected our parents, peers, and society while losing our sense of individuality and autonomy. For these reasons, our “I” perspective is very important to us, and it can be hard to see past it.
I, I, I: The Negating Narrators
And yet, sometimes we invest so much in our “I” that this perspective gets in the way of adopting a helpful bird’s eye view of our story. The third-person perspective can be easily obstructed by our censoring ego and our inner critic, or what I like to describe as our two “negating narrators.”
The first type of negating narrator, and the least harmful, is like a worried helicopter parent who keeps you from straying too far outside your comfort zone. The motivation of the “censoring ego” is to keep you safe, free from self-discoveries that can potentially overwhelm you by contradicting your preconceived self-image. One of the challenges of this narrator is that it often underestimates the strength and bandwidth of your character.
