1
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So I'm going to talk
about photosynthesis today.

2
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No, I'm actually not going to talk
about photosynthesis,

3
00:00:07,563 --> 00:00:09,278
I'm the only non-DuPont person here,

4
00:00:09,302 --> 00:00:11,649
and I thought I should try
to be a little sciency.

5
00:00:11,673 --> 00:00:14,445
It's all I've got -- Krebs cycle,
molecules, I don't know.

6
00:00:14,469 --> 00:00:15,619
(Laughter)

7
00:00:16,450 --> 00:00:18,712
I'm going to start
by telling you about an email

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that I saw in my inbox recently.

9
00:00:20,919 --> 00:00:23,744
Now, I have a pretty unusual inbox

10
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because I'm a therapist

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and I write an advice column
called "Dear Therapist,"

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so you can imagine what's in there.

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I mean, I've read thousands
of very personal letters

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from strangers all over the world.

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And these letters range
from heartbreak and loss,

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to spats with parents or siblings.

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I keep them in a folder on my laptop,

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and I've named it
"The Problems of Living."

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So, I get this email,
I get lots of emails just like this,

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and I want to bring you
into my world for a second

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and read you one of these letters.

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And here's how it goes.

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"Dear Therapist,

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I've been married for 10 years

25
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and things were good
until a couple of years ago.

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That's when my husband
stopped wanting to have sex as much,

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and now we barely have sex at all."

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I'm sure you guys were not expecting this.

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(Laughter)

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"Well, last night I discovered
that for the past few months,

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he's been secretly having
long, late-night phone calls

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with a woman at his office.

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I googled her, and she's gorgeous.

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I can't believe this is happening.

35
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My father had an affair
with a coworker when I was young

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and it broke our family apart.

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Needless to say, I'm devastated.

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If I stay in this marriage,

39
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I'll never be able
to trust my husband again.

40
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But I don't want to put our kids
through a divorce,

41
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stepmom situation, etc.

42
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What should I do?"

43
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Well, what do you think she should do?

44
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If you got this letter,

45
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you might be thinking
about how painful infidelity is.

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Or maybe about how especially
painful it is here

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because of her experience
growing up with her father.

48
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And like me, you'd probably
have some empathy for this woman,

49
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and you might even have some,

50
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how should I put this nicely,

51
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let's just call them "not-so-positive"
feelings for her husband.

52
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Now, those are the kinds of things
that go through my mind too,

53
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when I'm reading
these letters in my inbox.

54
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But I have to be really careful
when I respond to these letters

55
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because I know that every letter I get
is actually just a story

56
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written by a specific author.

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And that another version
of this story also exists.

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It always does.

59
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And I know this

60
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because if I've learned
anything as a therapist,

61
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it's that we are all unreliable
narrators of our own lives.

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I am.

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You are.

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And so is everyone you know.

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Which I probably shouldn't have told you

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because now you're not
going to believe my TED Talk.

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Look, I don't mean
that we purposely mislead.

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Most of what people tell me
is absolutely true,

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just from their current points of view.

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Depending on what
they emphasize or minimize,

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what they leave in, what they leave out,

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what they see and want me to see,

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they tell their stories
in a particular way.

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The psychologist Jerome Bruner
described this beautifully -- he said,

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"To tell a story is, inescapably,
to take a moral stance."

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All of us walk around
with stories about our lives.

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Why choices were made,
why things went wrong,

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why we treated someone a certain way --

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because obviously, they deserved it --

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why someone treated us a certain way --

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even though, obviously, we didn't.

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Stories are the way
we make sense of our lives.

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But what happens when the stories we tell

84
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are misleading or incomplete
or just wrong?

85
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Well, instead of providing clarity,

86
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these stories keep us stuck.

87
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We assume that our circumstances
shape our stories.

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But what I found time and again in my work

89
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is that the exact opposite happens.

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The way we narrate our lives
shapes what they become.

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That's the danger of our stories,

92
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because they can really mess us up,

93
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but it's also their power.

94
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Because what it means
is that if we can change our stories,

95
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then we can change our lives.

96
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And today, I want to show you how.

97
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Now, I told you I'm a therapist,

98
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and I really am, I'm not being
an unreliable narrator.

99
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But if I'm, let's say, on an airplane,

100
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and someone asks what I do,

101
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I usually say I'm an editor.

102
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And I say that partly
because if I say I'm a therapist,

103
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I always get some awkward response, like,

104
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"Oh, a therapist.

105
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Are you going to psychoanalyze me?"

106
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And I'm thinking, "A : no,

107
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and B: why would I do that here?

108
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If I said I was a gynecologist,

109
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would you ask if I were
about to give you a pelvic exam?"

110
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(Laughter)

111
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But the main reason I say I'm an editor

112
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is because it's true.

113
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Now, it's the job of all therapists
to help people edit,

114
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but what's interesting
about my specific role as Dear Therapist

115
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is that when I edit,
I'm not just editing for one person.

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I'm trying to teach a whole group
of readers how to edit,

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using one letter each week as the example.

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So I'm thinking about things like,

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"What material is extraneous?"

120
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"Is the protagonist moving forward
or going in circles,

121
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are the supporting characters important
or are they a distraction?"

122
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"Do the plot points reveal a theme?"

123
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And what I've noticed

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is that most people's stories
tend to circle around two key themes.

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The first is freedom,

126
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and the second is change.

127
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And when I edit,

128
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those are the themes that I start with.

129
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So, let's take a look
at freedom for a second.

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Our stories about freedom go like this:

131
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we believe, in general,

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that we have an enormous
amount of freedom.

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Except when it comes
to the problem at hand,

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in which case, suddenly,
we feel like we have none.

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Many of our stories
are about feeling trapped, right?

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We feel imprisoned
by our families, our jobs,

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our relationships, our pasts.

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Sometimes, we even imprison ourselves
with a narrative of self-flagellation --

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I know you guys all know these stories.

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The "everyone's life
is better than mine" story,

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courtesy of social media.

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The "I'm an impostor" story,
the "I'm unlovable" story,

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the "nothing will ever
work out for me" story.

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The "when I say, 'Hey, Siri, '
and she doesn't answer,

145
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that means she hates me" story.

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I see you, see, I'm not the only one.

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The woman who wrote me that letter,

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she also feels trapped.

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If she stays with her husband,
she'll never trust him again,

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but if she leaves,
her children will suffer.

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Now, there's a cartoon
that I think is a perfect example

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of what's really going on
in these stories.

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The cartoon shows a prisoner
shaking the bars,

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desperately trying to get out.

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But on the right and the left, it's open.

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No bars.

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The prisoner isn't in jail.

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That's most of us.

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We feel completely trapped,

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stuck in our emotional jail cells.

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But we don't walk
around the bars to freedom

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because we know there's a catch.

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Freedom comes with responsibility.

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And if we take responsibility
for our role in the story,

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we might just have to change.

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And that's the other common theme
that I see in our stories: change.

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Those stories sound like this:

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a person says, "I want to change."

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But what they really mean is,

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"I want another character
in the story to change."

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Therapists describe this dilemma as:

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"If the queen had balls,
she'd be the king."

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I mean --

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(Laughter)

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It makes no sense, right?

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Why wouldn't we want the protagonist,

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who's the hero of the story, to change?

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Well, it might be because change,

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even really positive change,

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involves a surprising amount of loss.

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Loss of the familiar.

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Even if the familiar is unpleasant
or utterly miserable,

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at least we know the characters
and setting and plot,

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right down to the recurring
dialogue in this story.

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"You never do the laundry!"

186
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"I did it last time!"

187
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"Oh, yeah? When?"

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There's something oddly comforting

189
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about knowing exactly
how the story is going to go

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every single time.

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To write a new chapter
is to venture into the unknown.

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It's to stare at a blank page.

193
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And as any writer will tell you,

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there's nothing more terrifying
than a blank page.

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But here's the thing.

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Once we edit our story,

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the next chapter
becomes much easier to write.

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We talk so much in our culture
about getting to know ourselves.

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But part of getting to know yourself
is to unknow yourself.

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To let go of the one version of the story
you've been telling yourself

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00:08:05,577 --> 00:08:07,403
so that you can live your life,

202
00:08:07,427 --> 00:08:09,823
and not the story
that you've been telling yourself

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about your life.

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And that's how we walk around those bars.

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So I want to go back to the letter
from the woman, about the affair.

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00:08:18,239 --> 00:08:20,350
She asked me what she should do.

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00:08:20,374 --> 00:08:22,823
Now, I have this word
taped up in my office:

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00:08:22,847 --> 00:08:24,831
ultracrepidarianism.

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00:08:24,855 --> 00:08:29,450
The habit of giving advice or opinions
outside of one's knowledge or competence.

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It's a great word, right?

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00:08:30,776 --> 00:08:32,737
You can use it in all different contexts,

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00:08:32,761 --> 00:08:35,172
I'm sure you will be using it
after this TED Talk.

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00:08:35,196 --> 00:08:38,107
I use it because it reminds me
that as a therapist,

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00:08:38,131 --> 00:08:40,513
I can help people to sort out
what they want to do,

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00:08:40,537 --> 00:08:43,005
but I can't make
their life choices for them.

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00:08:43,331 --> 00:08:45,950
Only you can write your story,

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00:08:45,974 --> 00:08:48,077
and all you need are some tools.

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00:08:48,101 --> 00:08:49,392
So what I want to do

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00:08:49,416 --> 00:08:52,209
is I want to edit this woman's letter
together, right here,

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00:08:52,233 --> 00:08:55,265
as a way to show
how we can all revise our stories.

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00:08:55,575 --> 00:08:57,749
And I want to start by asking you

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00:08:57,773 --> 00:09:01,209
to think of a story
that you're telling yourself right now

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00:09:01,233 --> 00:09:03,354
that might not be serving you well.

224
00:09:03,378 --> 00:09:06,442
It might be about a circumstance
you're experiencing,

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00:09:06,466 --> 00:09:08,894
it might be about a person in your life,

226
00:09:08,918 --> 00:09:10,886
it might even be about yourself.

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00:09:11,370 --> 00:09:14,302
And I want you to look
at the supporting characters.

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00:09:14,326 --> 00:09:16,151
Who are the people who are helping you

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00:09:16,175 --> 00:09:19,254
to uphold the wrong version of this story?

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00:09:19,779 --> 00:09:22,192
For instance, if the woman
who wrote me that letter

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00:09:22,216 --> 00:09:23,739
told her friends what happened,

232
00:09:23,763 --> 00:09:26,768
they would probably offer her
what's called "idiot compassion."

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00:09:26,792 --> 00:09:29,292
Now, in idiot compassion,
we go along with the story,

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00:09:29,316 --> 00:09:31,672
we say, "You're right, that's so unfair,"

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00:09:31,696 --> 00:09:34,807
when a friend tells us that he didn't
get the promotion he wanted,

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00:09:34,831 --> 00:09:37,602
even though we know this has happened
several times before

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00:09:37,626 --> 00:09:39,674
because he doesn't really
put in the effort,

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00:09:39,698 --> 00:09:41,765
and he probably
also steals office supplies.

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00:09:41,789 --> 00:09:42,789
(Laughter)

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00:09:42,813 --> 00:09:45,359
We say, "Yeah, you're right, he's a jerk,"

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00:09:45,383 --> 00:09:48,380
when a friend tells us
that her boyfriend broke up with her,

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00:09:48,404 --> 00:09:50,610
even though we know
that there are certain ways

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00:09:50,634 --> 00:09:52,418
she tends to behave in relationships,

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00:09:52,442 --> 00:09:55,268
like the incessant texting
or the going through his drawers,

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00:09:55,292 --> 00:09:56,982
that tend to lead to this outcome.

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00:09:57,006 --> 00:09:58,656
We see the problem, it's like,

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00:09:58,680 --> 00:10:01,085
if a fight breaks out
in every bar you're going to,

248
00:10:01,109 --> 00:10:02,260
it might be you.

249
00:10:02,284 --> 00:10:04,545
(Laughter)

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00:10:04,569 --> 00:10:08,268
In order to be good editors,
we need to offer wise compassion,

251
00:10:08,292 --> 00:10:10,793
not just to our friends, but to ourselves.

252
00:10:10,817 --> 00:10:13,770
This is what's called --
I think the technical term might be --

253
00:10:13,794 --> 00:10:16,261
"delivering compassionate truth bombs."

254
00:10:16,601 --> 00:10:18,530
And these truth bombs are compassionate,

255
00:10:18,554 --> 00:10:21,433
because they help us to see
what we've left out of the story.

256
00:10:21,457 --> 00:10:22,617
The truth is,

257
00:10:22,641 --> 00:10:25,363
we don't know if this woman's husband
is having an affair,

258
00:10:25,387 --> 00:10:28,135
or why their sex life
changed two years ago,

259
00:10:28,159 --> 00:10:31,286
or what those late-night
phone calls are really about.

260
00:10:31,310 --> 00:10:33,421
And it might be
that because of her history,

261
00:10:33,445 --> 00:10:36,056
she's writing a singular
story of betrayal,

262
00:10:36,080 --> 00:10:37,982
but there's probably something else

263
00:10:38,006 --> 00:10:40,950
that she's not willing
to let me, in her letter,

264
00:10:40,974 --> 00:10:42,974
or maybe even herself, to see.

265
00:10:43,720 --> 00:10:46,029
It's like that guy
who's taking a Rorschach test.

266
00:10:46,053 --> 00:10:47,903
You all know what Rorschach tests are?

267
00:10:47,927 --> 00:10:50,911
A psychologist shows you some ink blots,
they look like that,

268
00:10:50,935 --> 00:10:53,421
and asks, "What do you see?"

269
00:10:53,864 --> 00:10:56,340
So the guy looks
at his ink blot and he says,

270
00:10:56,364 --> 00:10:59,881
"Well, I definitely don't see blood."

271
00:11:01,252 --> 00:11:02,911
And the examiner says,

272
00:11:02,935 --> 00:11:06,389
"Alright, tell me what else
you definitely don't see."

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00:11:07,199 --> 00:11:09,509
In writing, this is called point of view.

274
00:11:09,533 --> 00:11:12,286
What is the narrator not willing to see?

275
00:11:12,310 --> 00:11:15,286
So, I want to read you one more letter.

276
00:11:16,374 --> 00:11:18,619
And it goes like this.

277
00:11:20,437 --> 00:11:22,080
"Dear Therapist,

278
00:11:23,278 --> 00:11:25,174
I need help with my wife.

279
00:11:25,198 --> 00:11:27,102
Lately, everything I do irritates her,

280
00:11:27,126 --> 00:11:30,198
even small things, like the noise
I make when I chew.

281
00:11:30,791 --> 00:11:31,974
At breakfast,

282
00:11:31,998 --> 00:11:35,308
I noticed that she even tries
to secretly put extra milk in my granola

283
00:11:35,332 --> 00:11:36,618
so it won't be as crunchy."

284
00:11:36,642 --> 00:11:38,022
(Laughter)

285
00:11:38,046 --> 00:11:42,157
"I feel like she became critical of me
after my father died two years ago.

286
00:11:42,181 --> 00:11:43,459
I was very close with him,

287
00:11:43,483 --> 00:11:45,371
and her father left when she was young,

288
00:11:45,395 --> 00:11:47,958
so she couldn't relate
to what I was going through.

289
00:11:47,982 --> 00:11:50,815
There's a friend at work
whose father died a few months ago,

290
00:11:50,839 --> 00:11:52,529
and who understands my grief.

291
00:11:52,553 --> 00:11:55,641
I wish I could talk to my wife
like I talk to my friend,

292
00:11:55,665 --> 00:11:58,395
but I feel like she barely
tolerates me now.

293
00:11:58,419 --> 00:12:00,285
How can I get my wife back?"

294
00:12:00,895 --> 00:12:02,045
OK.

295
00:12:02,538 --> 00:12:04,903
So, what you probably picked up on

296
00:12:04,927 --> 00:12:07,855
is that this is the same story
I read you earlier,

297
00:12:07,879 --> 00:12:10,450
just told from another
narrator's point of view.

298
00:12:10,474 --> 00:12:12,871
Her story was about
a husband who's cheating,

299
00:12:12,895 --> 00:12:16,243
his story is about a wife
who can't understand his grief.

300
00:12:16,736 --> 00:12:20,054
But what's remarkable,
is that for all of their differences,

301
00:12:20,078 --> 00:12:23,982
what both of these stories are about
is a longing for connection.

302
00:12:24,402 --> 00:12:26,783
And if we can get out
of the first-person narration

303
00:12:26,807 --> 00:12:29,529
and write the story
from another character's perspective,

304
00:12:29,553 --> 00:12:32,426
suddenly that other character
becomes much more sympathetic,

305
00:12:32,450 --> 00:12:34,251
and the plot opens up.

306
00:12:34,919 --> 00:12:37,720
That's the hardest step
in the editing process,

307
00:12:37,744 --> 00:12:40,011
but it's also where change begins.

308
00:12:40,363 --> 00:12:43,903
What would happen
if you looked at your story

309
00:12:43,927 --> 00:12:46,815
and wrote it from another
person's point of view?

310
00:12:47,244 --> 00:12:50,704
What would you see now
from this wider perspective?

311
00:12:51,568 --> 00:12:53,807
That's why, when I see people
who are depressed,

312
00:12:53,831 --> 00:12:54,982
I sometimes say,

313
00:12:55,006 --> 00:12:58,125
"You are not the best person
to talk to you about you right now,"

314
00:12:58,149 --> 00:13:01,223
because depression distorts our stories
in a very particular way.

315
00:13:01,247 --> 00:13:02,803
It narrows our perspectives.

316
00:13:02,827 --> 00:13:06,160
The same is true when we feel
lonely or hurt or rejected.

317
00:13:06,184 --> 00:13:07,803
We create all kinds of stories,

318
00:13:07,827 --> 00:13:09,606
distorted through a very narrow lens

319
00:13:09,630 --> 00:13:11,947
that we don't even know
we're looking through.

320
00:13:12,257 --> 00:13:16,011
And then, we've effectively become
our own fake-news broadcasters.

321
00:13:17,059 --> 00:13:18,925
I have a confession to make.

322
00:13:19,575 --> 00:13:22,593
I wrote the husband's version
of the letter I read you.

323
00:13:22,617 --> 00:13:24,442
You have no idea how much time I spent

324
00:13:24,466 --> 00:13:26,903
debating between granola
and pita chips, by the way.

325
00:13:26,927 --> 00:13:30,065
I wrote it based on all
of the alternative narratives

326
00:13:30,089 --> 00:13:31,533
that I've seen over the years,

327
00:13:31,557 --> 00:13:35,276
not just in my therapy practice,
but also in my column.

328
00:13:35,300 --> 00:13:36,537
When it's happened

329
00:13:36,561 --> 00:13:38,807
that two people involved
in the same situation

330
00:13:38,831 --> 00:13:41,307
have written to me,
unbeknownst to the other,

331
00:13:41,331 --> 00:13:43,323
and I have two versions of the same story

332
00:13:43,347 --> 00:13:44,680
sitting in my inbox.

333
00:13:45,123 --> 00:13:46,811
That really has happened.

334
00:13:47,478 --> 00:13:50,405
I don't know what the other version
of this woman's letter is,

335
00:13:50,429 --> 00:13:51,898
but I do know this:

336
00:13:51,922 --> 00:13:53,255
she has to write it.

337
00:13:53,659 --> 00:13:55,704
Because with a courageous edit,

338
00:13:55,728 --> 00:13:59,530
she'll write a much more nuanced version
of her letter that she wrote to me.

339
00:13:59,554 --> 00:14:02,180
Even if her husband
is having an affair of any kind --

340
00:14:02,204 --> 00:14:03,934
and maybe he is --

341
00:14:03,958 --> 00:14:07,021
she doesn't need to know
what the plot is yet.

342
00:14:07,673 --> 00:14:10,561
Because just by virtue of doing an edit,

343
00:14:10,585 --> 00:14:13,897
she'll have so many more possibilities
for what the plot can become.

344
00:14:14,854 --> 00:14:18,409
Now, sometimes it happens
that I see people who are really stuck,

345
00:14:18,433 --> 00:14:21,361
and they're really invested
in their stuckness.

346
00:14:21,703 --> 00:14:24,279
We call them help-rejecting complainers.

347
00:14:24,303 --> 00:14:25,977
I'm sure you know people like this.

348
00:14:26,001 --> 00:14:29,057
They're the people who,
when you try to offer them a suggestion,

349
00:14:29,081 --> 00:14:33,930
they reject it with, "Yeah, no,
that will never work, because ..."

350
00:14:34,378 --> 00:14:37,696
"Yeah, no, that's impossible,
because I can't do that."

351
00:14:37,720 --> 00:14:41,926
"Yeah, I really want more friends,
but people are just so annoying."

352
00:14:41,950 --> 00:14:43,998
(Laughter)

353
00:14:44,022 --> 00:14:45,799
What they're really rejecting

354
00:14:45,823 --> 00:14:49,223
is an edit to their story
of misery and stuckness.

355
00:14:49,877 --> 00:14:53,091
And so, with these people,
I usually take a different approach.

356
00:14:53,115 --> 00:14:55,774
And what I do is I say something else.

357
00:14:55,798 --> 00:14:57,805
I say to them,

358
00:14:57,829 --> 00:14:59,725
"We're all going to die."

359
00:15:00,411 --> 00:15:03,180
I bet you're really glad
I'm not your therapist right now.

360
00:15:03,633 --> 00:15:04,982
Because they look back at me

361
00:15:05,006 --> 00:15:07,077
the way you're looking back
at me right now,

362
00:15:07,101 --> 00:15:08,760
with this look of utter confusion.

363
00:15:08,784 --> 00:15:10,879
But then I explain that there's a story

364
00:15:10,903 --> 00:15:13,680
that gets written
about all of us, eventually.

365
00:15:13,704 --> 00:15:15,304
It's called an obituary.

366
00:15:16,180 --> 00:15:20,593
And I say that instead of being
authors of our own unhappiness,

367
00:15:20,617 --> 00:15:23,902
we get to shape these stories
while we're still alive.

368
00:15:24,593 --> 00:15:27,220
We get to be the hero
and not the victim in our stories,

369
00:15:27,244 --> 00:15:30,149
we get to choose what goes on the page
that lives in our minds

370
00:15:30,173 --> 00:15:31,840
and shapes our realities.

371
00:15:32,673 --> 00:15:36,536
I tell them that life is about deciding
which stories to listen to

372
00:15:36,560 --> 00:15:38,242
and which ones need an edit.

373
00:15:38,266 --> 00:15:41,282
And that it's worth the effort
to go through a revision

374
00:15:41,306 --> 00:15:44,472
because there's nothing more important
to the quality of our lives

375
00:15:44,496 --> 00:15:46,680
than the stories
we tell ourselves about them.

376
00:15:46,704 --> 00:15:50,045
I say that when it comes
to the stories of our lives,

377
00:15:50,069 --> 00:15:53,950
we should be aiming for our own
personal Pulitzer Prize.

378
00:15:53,974 --> 00:15:56,843
Now, most of us aren't
help-rejecting complainers,

379
00:15:56,867 --> 00:15:59,220
or at least we don't believe we are.

380
00:15:59,244 --> 00:16:01,871
But it's a role
that is so easy to slip into

381
00:16:01,895 --> 00:16:05,106
when we feel anxious
or angry or vulnerable.

382
00:16:05,130 --> 00:16:07,693
So the next time
you're struggling with something,

383
00:16:07,717 --> 00:16:09,146
remember,

384
00:16:09,170 --> 00:16:10,693
we're all going to die.

385
00:16:10,717 --> 00:16:12,146
(Laughter)

386
00:16:12,170 --> 00:16:14,678
And then pull out your editing tools

387
00:16:14,702 --> 00:16:16,321
and ask yourself:

388
00:16:16,345 --> 00:16:19,297
what do I want my story to be?

389
00:16:20,506 --> 00:16:23,912
And then, go write your masterpiece.

390
00:16:24,293 --> 00:16:25,452
Thank you.

391
00:16:25,476 --> 00:16:28,103
(Applause)