We make stuff up. We tell stories. Our brains are hard wired to do so. We fill in the spaces and the holes of incomplete stories to make them make sense, to fit in with what we believe is true, to coincide with our perception of what’s happening, our memories of history and our notions of reality. Often this serves us well, and sometimes it doesn’t.
When we are feeling stuck in our relationships, or on our path in life, this trait is not serving us well, because in those moments we have lost sight of the fact that our imagination is involved in the process of discerning reality. We fail to realize that our imagination is at play. We forget that we are making stuff up. We start mistaking what we’ve made up for fact. We gobble up our new and (potentially, but not necessarily) improved adaptation of events, hook, line and sinker, without any attempt to verify our interpretation. And that can get us into trouble with people who may be seeing things a little differently.
Worse yet, when we fail to notice how much stuff we are actually making up, we also fail to recognize that it’s in our power to make up way better stuff – Stuff that’s more fun, more exciting, more expansive and more enjoyable. We are the makers up of stuff, so let’s make it good.