Name the narratives out loud

Whilst on retreat, I read Pema Chödrön’s Living Beautifully. In it, she outlines a practice that I’ve called interrupting the narrative.

Each time you notice yourself providing commentary or narrating your experience, interrupt the flow. Stop mid-sentence and notice what’s going on around you, in the senses. See how parts of yourself re-appear and your view widens.

This practice is direct. It quickly drops you back into a more expansive and open sense of being. It’s also accumulative: when you next narrow or narrate yourself down into something smaller, you’ll feel the visceral contraction that this requires, and perhaps think twice.

Whilst practising this on retreat, I added another step at the end: naming the narrative out loud.

“Explaining to Barry why I think running is the best workout”

“Arguing with Sarah about her views on Israel”

“Explaining how amazing this new practice is to my subscribers”

There is something powerful about speaking the invisible out loud as you drop back into the tangible world around you.

When you’re slowly pulling weeds out of the ground and find yourself mumbling “speculating about how Sally’s height has changed her social reception”, the absurdity becomes apparent.

This can be quite challenging. Some narratives strongly resist the light of day, and putting them into words feels like lifting weights. I’ve stumbled to a halt many times whilst trying to articulate a narrative.

But the feedback loop is powerful. Noticing a narrative is one thing; hearing yourself describe it out loud is a whole other.

Try it and see what emotional and cognitive energy you can free up.