And the worst thing is, the longer we’ve held onto these narratives, the
less aware we are that we have them. They become the background noise of
our thoughts, the interior decoration of our minds. Despite being arbitrary and
completely made up, they seem not only natural but inevitable.^35
The values we pick up throughout our lives crystallize and form a
sediment on top of our personality.^36 The only way to change our values is to
have experiences contrary to our values. And any attempt to break free from
those values through new or contrary experiences will inevitably be met with
pain and discomfort.^37 This is why there is no such thing as change without
pain, no growth without discomfort. It’s why it is impossible to become
someone new without first grieving the loss of who you used to be.
Because when we lose our values, we grieve the death of those defining
narratives as though we’ve lost a part of ourselves—because we have lost a
part of ourselves. We grieve the same way we would grieve the loss of a loved
one, the loss of a job, a house, a community, a spiritual belief, or a friendship.
These are all defining, fundamental parts of you. And when they are torn
away from you, the hope they offered your life is also torn away, leaving you
exposed, once again, to the Uncomfortable Truth.
There are two ways to heal yourself—that is, to replace old, faulty values with
better, healthier values. The first is to reexamine the experiences of your past
and rewrite the narratives around them. Wait, did he punch me because I’m an
awful person; or is he the awful person?
Reexamining the narratives of our lives allows us to have a do-over, to
decide: you know, maybe I wasn’t such a great boat captain after all, and
that’s fine. Often, with time, we realize that what we used to believe was
important about the world actually isn’t. Other times, we extend the story to
get a clearer view of our self-worth—oh, she left me because some asshole
left her and she felt ashamed and unworthy around intimacy—and suddenly,
that breakup is easier to swallow.
The other way to change your values is to begin writing the narratives of
your future self, to envision what life would be like if you had certain values
or possessed a certain identity. By visualizing the future we want for
ourselves, we allow our Feeling Brain to try on those values for size, to see
what they feel like before we make the final purchase. Eventually, once we’ve
done this enough, the Feeling Brain becomes accustomed to the new values
and starts to believe them.
This sort of “future projection” is usually taught in the worst of ways.
“Imagine you’re fucking rich and own a fleet of yachts! Then it will come
true!”^38