Narrative Therapy

Wrong Perceptions

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If you spend any time on Facebook you’ve probably noticed a few ‘friends’ who are painfully transparent in their efforts to spin positive narratives about themselves. Their not-so-subtle posts don’t just come out and say it (that would be tacky) but you don’t have to read too far between the lines to quickly become aware of the beliefs they are trying to cultivate in you. Their deepest hope is that you will think you came to these beliefs on your own.

You could say that we’re all PR executives, though our talents for spinning stories vary. In our desire to have the proper narratives told about us, narratives that adequately reflect who we feel we are, we can easily grow distraught or even infuriated in the face of wrong perceptions, in the face of beliefs about us that twist the facts or present these facts in a less flattering light. We can grow frustrated when we recognize the agendas and ulterior motives of others, when we see people spinning stories in the hopes of creating wrong perceptions, pushing a narrative about themselves that just isn’t true.

It really comes down to truth versus reality, that the two are not one and the same thing, a perplexing situation that’s ripe for injustice. The problem is that we can end up wasting a whole lot of our precious time worrying about this discrepancy between truth and reality, trying to correct wrong perceptions to make truth and reality align, when we’d be better served using this time to further our own growth and self-actualization.