Our Default Narrative Style
In this article:
How our worldview is formed
Key narratives
Graphing and understanding how we experience the world
If there’s one thing meditation teaches you, it’s the way we see the world is completely a construct. And yet, it’s so hard for us appreciate how much of it is a construct because of the merger of our thoughts about the world and the world itself. (See Saran Wrap.)
Essential to NT is the idea that the type of construct we create is not steady. Meaning, the way we see the world changes with our moods. (In NT we don’t call them moods but Energy States since it’s a force that seems to animate the whole experience, both body and mind.) So during a loving energy state (E^loving) our thinking starts to change too in a way that can be easily experimentally verified. The same stimulus will produce different reactions. But moreover, our style of thinking changes, partly evidenced by the words that float into our consciousness. Curse words in agitated and rageful energy states, poetry in loving states, and abstract precise words in analytical states. When our style of thinking changes, our actual thoughts change too, and when merged with our senses (again, the Saran Wrap) produce a vastly different worldview. The worldview is just a word that captures the totality of how we experience and think about the world in a given moment. “Everything sucks.” “Life is wonderful.” “It’s so interesting.” Each of these phrases gives us a brief glimpse of a person’s worldview. You could say that the worldview is how we generally feel, though I avoid that terminology because I think it leads to ambiguity and imprecision.
Thinking occurs on different levels (both conscious/surface and unconscious/under-the-surface) and has different subject matters, called targets. In E^angry, I have certain thoughts about my partner (the target) that are conscious (e.g., “I can’t stand her sometimes”) and some that are unconscious (e.g., how we see them, how we think about their value). White anything can be a target for our thinking, certain targets play a larger role than others in contributing to our worldview. We call these narratives and their targets Key Narratives.
Key Narratives include narratives about myself and the things I consider important (consciously or unconsciously). The determination of what’s important is subjective, but since our lives and priorities are similar, we can make some general assumptions that are true for most people:
My construct (thoughts/narratives) concerning me including my value
My narratives about my significant other
My narratives about others around me
My narratives about the immediate future (and distant future)
My narratives about rivals and rival tribes (especially in today’s age) and my tribe
My narratives about my work and work situation (e.g., colleagues, etc.)
Remember, the content of these thoughts falls into both conscious and unconscious categories and is shaped by the energy state we’re in. That means that these narratives move together as a unit. Over time, we start to see patterns in how these narratives co-arise in harmony with our energy state. We also see how these narratives collaborate to form the worldview that also repeats. Repetitions in the way we think, act, react, and experience the world are also sometimes called Modes. They’re similar to when a person says “Beast Mode” but much more expansive.
We can graph these patterns of modes and the underlying key narrative and energy states.
First, start by making a list of all the different situations and contexts you’re in throughout a typical day and weekend, for example, wake up, eating, work, dating or relating, socializing, alone time, leisure, etc.. It doesn’t need to be perfect. Under each, think about the different modes you go into in each context. For example, when I wake up, I’m usually in a neutral mood. Sometimes I’m resistant. Sometimes I’m energetic and excited. When dating, sometimes I’m hesitant, sometimes I’m confident, sometimes I’m flowing, sometimes I’m annoyed. The modes you go into are determined by the energy state that you’re in.
Circle modes that are more common than others. It’s okay to circle more than one per context.
Now we’re going to make a fancy spreadsheet with moods (or energy states) as rows and context (work, socializing) as columns. Every item across each row (i.e., in the same energy state) and every item in each category (same context, different energy state) should have a relationship to the other items in that same row or category. Shade or put a check mark by cells that occur more commonly than others.
The cells with the most checkmarks in each context roughly represent your default modes throughout the day. You can put them into a flowchart if you want.
Now look across each row and start to find the similar themes across common energy states (e.g., all the times you’re frustrated, all the times you feel loving, all the times you’re thinking nervously). Under the spreadsheet, create a diagram for each energy state. Here the activity and context will be less relevant. In each diagram we’ll name the energy state or mode in the center circle and describe the type of thinking in that mode. Then we’ll draw smaller circles around that main circle that represent key narratives. In each of those smaller circles, write the target of the key narrative (e.g., me, you, the future, etc.) and begin to list the content of those key narratives. For example, I think of myself as efficient, competent, and worthy when I’m feeling productive and positive at work. I think of others as the same. While in agitated states, I often think the same of myself, but think of others as incompetent and rival-like. You can further subdivide each key narrative into surface and under-the-surface thoughts if you can. If you want to go further, you can also list out the body-feeling characteristics of each mode.
Combining the default modes flowchart with the diagrams below, you now have a map of how you think and experience the world throughout the day.