My heart aches for all the hurt, and hate, and loss, and grief that surrounds the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. And almost every time I talk with anyone about it, I am reminded of the danger of a single story.
If ever there was a story with layers and layers of complexity and nuance, trauma upon trauma, it is the tragedy of the elusiveness of peace in what we call the “Middle East” region.
I was raised Jewish, with extended family in Israel, now married to an Arab woman with many Palestinian family connections. And maybe this means I can’t sit comfortably within just one worldview. But I’d like to think that it’s more than that – that I remember “the danger of a single story.”
This is the title of a well-known TedTalk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who eloquently reminds us that single stories are not wrong, they are just incomplete. And that recognizing this incompleteness opens us up to a world of possibilities. And possibility is what transforms us, and the world.
It’s not that a single story is wrong or untrue. I’m not suggesting that any story about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that feels powerfully true to you, isn’t true. Just that the more room we make for other stories, including those that feel incompatible with each other, the more possibility there is. The possibility for peace, for progress, for dialogue, for reconciliation, for shared heartbreak. (click here for an inspiring example of this)
The danger of a single story also applies to our story of ourselves. And it is no less destructive and dispiriting.
Our single story about ourselves is often what keeps us trapped. Our single story about ourselves is often what keeps us living in fear. Our single story about ourselves is what makes us feel like we could never do that thing, or feel that emotion, or live that way, or ask for what we want.
There is a delicious freedom and spaciousness that awaits when we feel welcome to keep our old story, while also welcoming in new stories about ourselves.
One of the stories that I’ve caged myself in with is that it’s my job to take care of everyone else. I’ve prided myself on my capacity for love, and for shouldering the responsibility of caring for others. Over time, that’s become my identity. So anything I might feel that runs counter to that identity creates all sorts of tension and judgment in my system.
Recently there’s been room for another story. Roughly translated, it’s something like: I’ve been afraid that I won’t get the love I want if I don’t take care of others first.
Getting curious about this story has created so many new possibilities that I’d never seen before. I can see that there is another way to love that doesn’t have any flavor of obligation. I can see that trying to be a “savior” to others can be very disempowering. I can see that boundaries can be a way to express love. (more on this below)
What helped me welcome my story and make space for another story (or, in moments, no story at all), is really just loving myself for having created a story that got me through the most challenging and overwhelming (yup, traumatic) moments of my childhood. In my case, I made up a story that I needed to be good to earn the love that was so elusive from my father. Being good did occasionally get me the attention I wanted, so I innocently fell into the story that this is who I should be. And being good, over time, became taking care of others, and ignoring more and more of my wants.
We all have stories and strategies that helped us get through the traumas of our childhood. We can be grateful for how those stories got us through, and helped us make sense of situations that were otherwise too much for our system to handle.
And – here’s the part that gave me such relief – when I look at that story, at how I protected myself with that story, and really feel the truth of “of course you did”, “what little person wouldn’t feel overwhelmed in that situation?”, “of course you created that story”. The “of course-ing” myself feels sooooo good. It stops the fight that I should be different. It drops the resistance I have to the fear I felt (and still feel when I’m triggered). And it opens me up to just loving myself.
Less resistance creates more space. And in that spaciousness it feels like there is room for something new. Kinda like physically outgrowing an old sweater, or a pair of shoes – what has been comforting and familiar is no longer a good fit. And just like that now-too-small sweater or pair of shoes, there’s a tightness or constriction that gives us a hint that we can feel more freedom as we welcome and thank the old story for how it protected us from what we most feared.
As I allow more than one story about who I am, I’m finding lots more freedom and enjoyment in my life. I’m even feeling giddy sometimes, like I finally got permission to do or say things (sometimes just in the privacy of my own mind or my own space) that I’d thought “someone like me” doesn’t do or say.
We’re all in this messy human experience together. And I’d love to hear about your experience with the single story of you. What’s it like for you to thank the story you’ve had about yourself, and wonder what else is also true about you?
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