The Silent Story Wrecking Your Relationships

I love that song.

Thanks, you guys.

Mad as hell.

I was going to start the message this way.

I was reading a news article the other day, and the person had written in it said, they're not treating us fairly.

Now, put aside who said that.

Hold on to that feeling.

When I came in this morning and we turned on the projector, you might have noticed that the projector is a little askew.

Can you just Amber, can you just throw up something to show again?

Because if you didn't notice it, now I have put not zero amount of hours into making sure that as we moved from that space to this space, everything would work properly.

We have a projector up there.

When I came in, when we first came in after they put out the scaffolding, the projector was shooting over there.

I thought that's strange.

Actually, I said a bunch of bad words, and then I said that's strange.

And then I got them to move the whole scaffolding in place, got up on this skanky ladder, went up there, and turned it back so it was aimed properly.

I was very careful.

I lined it all up.

And then this morning, we turned on that son of a gun projector.

This is not fair, folks.

And in if your brain is not a detailed brain, you're going, what's the big deal, Vince?

It is a big deal.

We've done everything right in this.

Today I want to talk about the feelings, but I don't want to talk about the feelings.

The unfairness is just something that gets us underneath the feelings.

The feeling is how we find the thing underneath the thing.

If you're driving down the street and somebody, you know, the you realize the lane, your lane's going away, so you you merge into traffic, right?

Ahead of time.

And then some person driving a black X-Tera goes ripping by you right to the very front and cuts in.

And what do you think?

He's doing it right now.

Says another Enneagram eight.

Sucks to be you, chump.

Everyone else?

Is that fair?

No, we feel something about it.

Either I should have done that if I can use yours.

Why didn't I?

Why did I pull in early?

Or you're thinking, wait, you're not doing this right.

You go into a project situation at work where you have a bunch of different people at school, and they uh they go through the whole process and you realize you've done all the work and everybody else just did nothing.

And then at the end, you all got praise for that, or you got the same mark, and you're like, that's not right.

And it's not so much the thing because we could have said, um, I could have had the feeling of the fear of people leaving us, the fear of being alone.

I could have used the feeling of um I'm a bad parent or I'm a bad person.

I could have used shame feelings.

There's something wrong with me intrinsically.

It doesn't matter the feeling.

The feeling is the thing that tells you the thing underneath the thing.

And if you don't see the thing underneath the thing, oh, that one will bite you in the butt.

There's a story.

My book this week, we're in a series called Shelf Life.

My book this week is the Bible.

I know it's kind of on the nose.

I'm a pastor and using the Bible, but bear with me.

It's really good.

Uh Bryce, when he talked the other day, where's Bryce?

He's up there, uh, he talked the story of Cain and Abel.

I'm going to use the story of Cain and Abel again.

Cain and Abel, two brothers.

They have a uh the narrative goes that they believe that if you take something of value and you give it to their conception of God, that that conception of God will make your life better.

This is how this is how they believe the world works.

And so Cain, who's a farmer, a grain farmer, takes the best grain.

Is that a thing?

I don't know a whole lot about farming.

Let's just say, like the best part of his grain, and he gives it as a gift to his conception of God.

Abel, who is an animal farmer, does the same thing.

He he lives like these guys live and die on their farming.

If their grain doesn't grow, they don't eat that year.

So Abel takes sheep, he's a sheep farmer, and he kills the sheep and he butchers it, and he gives part of that as a gift to his conception of God.

Again, they both believe that if you do this, that conception of God will make your life better.

It's an older conception of God, but we still often play with this one.

Anyone ever heard of somebody who said, like, if you heal my child, I'll quit smoking?

What you're doing is you're trying to say, if I give a gift, then maybe some conception or some super being in the sky will help me.

So they both do this.

And this this the way the narrative goes, this the character god comes down and looks at their gifts.

I picture them kind of like this.

Yeah, Abel, I like that one.

Yeah, I can't, I don't like that one.

Seems like it's not a big deal.

But think about what's at stake in their minds.

If this character god doesn't like my gift, my life will be bad.

If this character likes my gift, then this character will do good things for me.

My life will get better.

So this is make or break.

Cain sits there, and the character god says, I don't like your gift.

Your grain sucks.

And what does he think?

It doesn't say in the story, but this is how I'm thinking.

If I was there, I would have said, wait a second.

That's not fair.

I did what I was supposed to do.

I gave you a gift.

You never said that it had to be to be an animal gift.

It's not fair.

And that feeling starts to work its way.

One of the ways it's described almost as it's like a wild animal waiting at the door for Cain.

It's not fair.

It's not fair.

It's not fair.

It's not fair.

Cain doesn't realize that something is going on underneath it.

He just says that's unfair.

But think about what happens here.

And this is the part that we need to understand inside of ourselves.

Cain has a story of how the world works.

And I'm using that word story very particularly.

He has a story of how the world works.

If I give a gift to my conception of God, my life will get better.

Don't put up your hand, but anyone have a story that says, if I work hard, I'll get ahead.

If I'm pleasing, people will love me.

If I do the things that other people want, no one will leave me.

If I let myself be too connected to people, they will take over and I won't get what I need.

If I was younger, all these things would be easier.

And again, don't put up your hand.

Anyone resonate with the stories that go on in your head?

For the times that we understand our stories, we can see the connection.

But the problem is when we don't see it.

We have a story that's functioning underneath, and all we feel is the feelings of it.

This is why Buddhism says, be very aware of your attachments.

In the Christian tradition, we say, be very mindful of the stories that you hold.

Cain's not mindful.

He doesn't understand, I don't think.

But he's he's so consumed by this story that he doesn't understand, he doesn't even see.

He just says, it's unfair, it's unfair, it's unfair.

It's unfair if the world works the way his story works.

But in his mind, he would say to me, Oh, Vince, it's not a story.

This is true.

It is unfair.

The cautionary tale here is this he's not conscious of what's going on inside of him, or at least everything that I can see is he's not conscious.

And you can tell by the end of the story, because he invites his brother, the the guy who did the same thing as him, and whose life got made better.

He invited him out into the field.

Abel walks up.

Hey, Cain, what's going on?

And Cain takes a rock and clubs him over the head and kills him.

We we look at this and we think, oh, that's a crazy story.

But think about what's going on inside of Cain.

This is unfair.

This should never be this way.

You're getting ahead when I should be getting ahead.

How dare you?

This is not right.

This is an injustice.

And I will right the injustice by killing my brother.

You would be no.

I am horrified at what the stories in my head sometimes justify me doing.

When we look at our lives, if we don't see that story clearly, we run the risk of Cain.

He still doesn't see it.

The character God comes down the story and says, Cain, what you just killed your brother.

Cain's still going, what?

The character god says, That's it, you're out of the family.

I'm kicking out of the country.

But I'll let you live.

And Kane says this.

This is the story speaking, I think.

He says, the punishment is worse than the crime.

You killed your brother.

Fratricide.

I have to use the word fratricide today.

Sorry, that was just a beautiful moment.

It's not often I get to use really fun words.

Fratricide.

You killed your brother.

And your answer is getting kicked out of the family is too much punishment for that.

Do you see how our stories can justify all kinds of things?

How many of us have a story that said the world should not be the way it is?

Don't put up your hand again.

The story says it shouldn't be this hard.

It's not fair that I'm suffering Can you hear the story in your mind?

If your mind is now saying to you, saying, But Vince, that's not a story.

There's this saying that says, the devil, and I don't mean the character devil, but these pieces in this that sabotage us when they tell you that they don't exist is when they're the most powerful.

How many stories do we hold that we're not conscious of?

Why is it that that projector moving bothers me that much?

Because I have a story that says if things aren't perfect, the world is gonna fall apart.

If things are not perfect, I am somehow failing.

Do you see how the stories matter?

And do you see how not understanding that they're a story gives it a certain kind of power?

Cain literally says, it's not a story.

It was unfair.

I am justified in killing my brother to write an injustice.

Beware the stories that we hold unconsciously.

I want to talk about two more categories quickly.

We have this story that says the world is not the way it should be.

That's many of them.

People don't treat me right.

Um, I should have gotten that job.

We have all these stories.

How dare they talk to me that way?

I wish I was.

There's another story category that's really interesting.

It's from a story of a guy named Jonah.

Anyone heard of Jonah and the whale?

People think it's the story is about the whale.

The whale is just a way to get from A to B.

It was like, if we had it, they studied read Jonah and the C train.

It's like we need to get Jonah from A to B.

That's what the whale does in the story.

So people focus only on the whale.

Jonah's in the whale, in the whale.

No, no, the story is about this.

Jonah has a picture, a story in his mind about what a group of people are.

Right now, this is so prevalent in us, in our culture.

Jonah is called to go to talk to the Ninevehites.

His story is those people are evil.

Bad people, all of them.

And not like don't let your kids play with them bad, like evil.

So evil that Jonah wants them killed.

He wants to murder all of the men, women, children, and animals.

All of them.

There are stories that we hold around people around us that have incredible power.

That person is bad.

We see it right now.

The othering of people, those groups, whatever the group is, we call it something racism, transphobia, transphobia.

It's this idea that says that group of people are somehow bad.

It is a story about them.

But when the story takes power or takes control and we don't understand it's just a story, what it does is it justifies all kinds of things.

But let's take it out of like we get to go kill those people.

Although the number of people who've said to me in the last year, oh, if I could kill that person, I would.

And I was like, take a minute and just hear what you just said.

Okay, but look at what they did.

Look at who they are.

It's back to the cane.

When the story takes over, we can do incredible things.

We're like, what?

I was justified in killing my brother.

How many of us have stories around the people in our lives that were they're not evil?

But let's just say that person is cold.

That person will leave me.

That person is selfish.

That person is narcissistic.

That person is lazy.

That person will never step up and be there for me.

Can you hear those stories in your head right now?

And again, if you're saying, but Vince, it's not a story.

It's how it hides.

Our stories are always based on something.

They're just not based on everything.

Beware of the story that says that person or those people are like this.

It will justify all kinds of behavior that in the cold light of day you look at and go, wow, I literally cut my family out.

The number of people lately who've gone no contact.

Have you heard that term, no contact?

It's where children basically stop talking to their parents for good.

No contact.

Unbelievably painful.

What story is going on in that child's mind that justifies that when they say, no, of course, I'll never talk to my parents again.

The final story category that we tend to hold is one from the nation of Israel, Israelites, ancient people.

In the stories that we have, they are slaves in Egypt.

Whether this all happened, put that all aside.

We have no evidence of this, but the stories are written this way.

They're slaves in Egypt, backbreaking, working seven days a week, carrying bricks.

Brutal, brutal.

They escape.

Moses is their leader.

They escape.

They go to this desert and they're trying to get to a different place to live.

And in the desert, they are running out of water and food.

And the people say this.

Can you scroll up the slide for me?

Let's see if we can actually read it on this thing.

Just so you know, my story is really loud right now, so I'm having a problem with that, but I'll just let that one go.

Why didn't God let us die in the comfort of Egypt, where we had lamb stew and all the bread we wanted?

They notice they didn't say, and we carried bricks 24-7.

Moses, you brought us out of the uh comfort.

Uh, is that what it says?

Comfort?

To starve us to death.

Wilderness.

Wilderness.

Wilderness.

Thank you.

There we go.

How many of our stories are tied to the past?

Someone asked me the other day.

They said, What era would you like to live in?

Would you like to live in the 1950s?

I bet you it was better like in the early 1900s.

I would say when I was 18 years old, my body didn't hurt as much as it does at 54.

So I looked back at that point and like, my life was better back then, but was it?

How often do we look back at our past?

And the story says, it was better back then.

The world is not the way it should be.

Let's go back to the past.

Has anyone heard the Trad wife idea?

It's a bunch of conservative women who are married who want to live what they call biblical womanhood.

And I air quote this very heavily because it has nothing to do with the Bible.

It's cultural.

But they act submissive.

They don't want to make decisions.

They don't want to vote.

They don't want to do any of these things.

Again, the past was better.

That's how it used to be in the past.

It would be better that way.

Some of your faces are really funny right now.

You're like, whoa, I'm still stuck on the what?

The story says, it was better back then.

Which is a story that says, today is not the way I wished it was.

There's things that are hard.

There's things that aren't going as well as I'd hoped they would.

And so we use a story of the past as a way to help say, This is not good.

But the reality is the stories of the past are usually not better than the stories of the present, at least on the whole.

But our brain gets stuck there.

It used to be better.

My life was better before.

And what does that do?

It says we don't need to deal with today.

We can long for a time that was better.

Can you see how the stories are changing your life?

Or having you impacted?

Let's try this.

If you go to the ER right now and you're not currently having a heart attack or spurting blood out of your artery, if you go for something other than those things, how long should you have to wait at the ER in Calgary till you see a doctor?

Just yell at the number.

Three hours.

What else we got?

Ten minutes.

Who said 10 minutes?

Dad, I like it.

I love the optimism.

Anyone else?

Five and a half.

A friend of mine's stepdad was in Africa, had some medical complications, went to the ER.

Do you know how long he waited to see a doctor?

Close, just under a week.

Do you know how he saw the doctor?

They sent money over, and then the money is used to bribe the doctor to come see the person.

So let's just say we're all Ted, God bless Ted.

I helped build a house in Mexico with Ted, so love Ted.

Let's just say we have Ted's story in our head that we should take 10 minutes to go see a doctor in the ER in Calgary.

So we walk into the ER in Calgary, and what's going to happen?

We're not going to see a doctor in 10 minutes.

You're going to sit your butt down and you're going to wait for a good many hours.

And whenever you cross the number that your story says you should have, you will start to feel negative feelings.

This is unfair.

I can't believe this is happening.

No one cares.

Now, if you came from Africa, where you waited just under a week and then you bribed the doctor to come and see you, and you came to Calgary and you waited six hours to see the doctor, what are you feeling?

Winning.

Like that was six hours, and I didn't even have to pay them.

Can you see how your story impacts your life?

When you're not conscious of it, all you have is the feelings.

This is unfair.

I can't believe this is happening.

I like this.

I don't like this.

You don't realize that underneath is a story.

Now here's the thing: stories do not change easily.

I have one more story.

Um watch a good documentary.

Uh about a group of people have the story that the earth is flat.

Uh the tech that people call them flat earthers.

Again, I'm not making fun of them.

They just have a story.

And the story is the earth is flat, like a disk, and that anything that you tell them that disagrees with that is false news, is misinformation, is not understanding it.

Story.

When you look at a story from the outside, it looks a bit crazy.

Don't worry.

When other people look at your stories, they think you're crazy too.

It's just the way it works.

But here's the deal: the guys, like, I believe in flat earth.

He doesn't understand, he's got a story in his head.

He's like, I'm going to prove it to y'all.

If the earth is flat, all the water in the world is perfectly flat.

Because how does water work in a circle?

It doesn't make any sense to me.

He's like, here's what I'm going to do.

Uh well, we're going to see if this is going to show up.

Can you throw up the experiment?

On the left there on the wall, you see a laser.

He sets up a laser just on the top of water.

He found this really long canal.

And then a long ways away, he makes a board with a hole in it and he aims the laser so it goes through the hole.

Those are the same height.

Now, here's the thing: if the earth is flat, the target that he puts way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way down on the water, the same height.

It's going to go all the way through through the hole in the middle and nail that target straight in the middle.

So he's got a radio, but he's like, turn on the laser.

Guy clicks on the laser.

He's standing over here on the target.

I don't, I don't see the laser.

He's like, uh, did you turn on the laser?

Guys like, yep.

Can we get the guy in the middle to check to see if the laser's aimed right?

Because something's not right here.

So guy in the middle is like, yep, going right through the hole.

Just puts his hand in the middle.

Yep, it's going right through the hole.

He takes the board, the target board, and he lifts it up.

And all of a sudden he sees the laser at the top.

Can you show me the next one?

This is what happens.

His story says the earth is flat.

That's his story.

When he sees this, you know what he says?

I must have done something wrong, because that can't happen.

Now, I'm not trying to take shots at flat earthers.

What I'm trying to show you is this.

We all have a story in our head.

Often many stories.

And even when we see examples of they are not true, we still hold on.

You might have the story that everybody is going to leave me.

You have a friend who's been there forever.

And when you think about them against your story, you're like, yeah, but they're going to leave eventually.

We hold on to our stories with like a death grip.

If you grew up in a family that you didn't get the love that your nervous system needed, oftentimes you'll have a story that says, I am not good enough.

The reason I didn't get the love I wanted because there's something wrong with me.

The story we call shame.

Through your whole life, something goes wrong.

Why?

Because I'm not good enough.

Someone says to you, You're incredible.

They're like, Yep, you don't know me.

You it's it's you get feedback from your boss.

I can't believe how good you're doing.

We're so incredibly blessed to have you as part of our team.

Ah, yep, but they didn't catch me yet.

They're gonna catch me.

I'm an imposter.

Don't know what I'm doing.

The stories we hold, especially the unconscious ones.

We hold often with a tenacity.

A tenacity that says, I will never let this go, regardless of what it does to me.

That scares the crap out of me, honestly.

If I'm right.

And like Cain, the stories we hold unconsciously have the risk of destroying not only our lives, but the lives around us.

If that's the power of an unconscious story, then understanding your stories matters.

So if this is new to you, if you've never done this work, if this is not something you've wrestled with, here's the first piece for you to do.

Start realizing that that story in your head is a story.

If your brain is saying, Vince, it's not a story, it's true.

There is your work.

The other night I woke up at five in the morning.

I have a story from attachment, an attachment wound from my childhood.

It says, I'm going to be neglected.

That's what the story says.

I have worked on that, I've been on counseling on that.

I know the story.

Five o'clock that morning, for whatever reason, that story went from story to true.

I spent two hours rolling around in bed going.

And it tells me I have to do horrific things about seven o'clock.

I remember I'm doing a message in two weeks on frickin' stories and being unconscious of stories.

And I had this moment at seven o'clock.

I remember looking at my phone, and also I was like, wait.

Vince, you're being cane.

It's a story.

Oh, jeez.

It was incredible how quickly my inner life settled down.

If you're new to this, start to realize the stuff in my head are stories.

If you've been doing this for a long time, here's the next step.

This is ninja level for you.

I want you to write down your story.

Take some time.

Put out your journal.

Write down.

This is the story, and this is what happens in my head.

I tell myself I'm unlovable.

I tell myself that I suck.

I tell myself.

And then start looking at how that story has impacted your behavior in the last week.

You'll be shocked.

There's a little bit of cane in all of us.

I started talking today about this idea of I and they and we.

When that's not in balance, when that's not functional, when that's not healthy, taking water goes away.

If we're a community that inspires us to a healthy spiritual, a healthy way of being, so that we can take water, this is part of the problem.

If you are racked by story and you don't understand it's a story, that's your first step.

So that the eye is healthy.

Your interaction with the people around you is healthy.

The reason I told the crane story is because his story has him kill his brother.

You know what you can't get to wee with is your dead brother.

And yet, ours isn't this extreme.

But there's a little bit of cane in all of us if we're not conscious.

And for those of you who've done this work, here's the next level.

Write down your story and then write down where has this impacted my actions this last week.

May we be profoundly aware of the stories that we hold and how it impacts almost every part of our life and the people around us.

So that we create the health we need to take water to our world.

That's my message for today.

That's also my message for me at five o'clock in the morning when I'm stuck in my story.

And it's not a story, it's a hundred percent true, and this is a real happening.

May we be aware of this so that we can find the health that we and the people around us need.

Amen.

Have a great week.

If you want to share your story with me, send me an email, Vince at Friend Church.

I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks, everybody.