> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.annevmuhlethaler.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# When the story you tell yourself becomes the view
- URL: https://www.annevmuhlethaler.com/when-the-story-you-tell-yourself-becomes-the-view/
- Published: 2026-08-31T18:08:17.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-31T18:16:04.000Z
- Description: Sometimes a story about who we are becomes so familiar we can no longer see beyond it. On changing where we look from, self-access, writing and what becomes visible when we take a step back.
- Author: Anne V Muhlethaler
- Tags: Story of You

### Stories are the content. We are the context.

Audio of the essay 'The story is already there'

0:00

/502.393416

1×
  
  
Most of us carry two stories at once. The one we tell ourselves about who we are, and the one we actually live, fluently, in the everyday moments where no one is watching.

I had a coaching client, Matthew, who told me he was bad at talking about himself. He had been struggling in interviews, unable to articulate his skills. He believed the story: *I don't know how to do this.* And yet, when I asked him what he loved doing, what he was good at in his everyday life, he became someone else entirely. He talked about his home, his garden, the way he brings light and atmosphere to everything he touches. He has an extraordinary sense of aesthetics, an exacting attentiveness to how things look and feel. Every sentence he offered could have been lifted directly into a professional context. We worked on this several times, but for weeks, he simply could not see it.

In ACT, or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, there is a term for this: cognitive fusion. It describes what can happen when we become so merged with a thought or story that we struggle to see it as a story. We are inside it, looking out, and the view in front of our eyes is entirely shaped by the thought. In his case, the thought, 'I am bad at this.' To better understand this, think of the expression 'He can't see the wood for the trees.' It's exactly that.

Matthew wasn't pretending. He believed the story. Yet he came to me for help. **There's a contradiction here, and also hope.** The story *I am bad at this* had collapsed the distance between what he believed and what was actually true.

No amount of positive thinking or arguing would have made him feel any different.

What could help was changing where he was looking from, trying on a new perspective. **The kind that comes from learning to be the context rather than the content. Again, wood, trees: taking a step back, noticing what it reveals.**

This is what mindfulness practice helps us develop over time: the capacity to observe your thoughts and stories rather than simply inhabit them. (Mindfulness processes are central to ACT)

**In secular Buddhist classrooms, this is sometimes called the witness. In yoga, many teachers of mine used the word observer** instead (one of whom likens meditation to bird watching, which really stuck for me). In Internal Family Systems (or IFS, another form of therapy based on 'parts'), there is the idea of Self-access: the capacity to notice a part of ourselves without becoming completely blended with it**.**

**In real life that means: we are not the voice in our head. We are not the inner critic (or the inner cheerleader for that matter).** 

**We are not the stories we hear. We are the awareness that holds it all.**

And in this field of awareness, thoughts, stories, beliefs, will move like clouds (or storms). And with mindfulness, we learn to notice what moves through us without saying: I am the cloud, I am the storm. **Instead, we observe: Ah, that's right, there are clouds coming through.**

Notice the difference.

When people approach me to work on communication, they are very often fused, just like Matthew was. They'll say 'I'm bad at this, I talk too much. Or 'I ramble, I don't make sense, I am not eloquent.'

In my experience, most people are much better than they think they are, but they show up blended, believing the story they bring to me, and in so doing, they are placing an extra obstacle in their own path.

The fact that they show up to a masterclass, a workshop or a coaching session is already in itself a sign that they believe they can get better. My role is to help them see themselves clearly, help them notice the thought, and concentrate on the real work of finding the stories that reveal who they are.

**We are the awareness. We are the field.**

**Stories are the content. We are the context.**

A TOOL

And here is where writing (or journaling) becomes a remarkable tool for shifting our viewpoint, something that thinking alone cannot do.

**When a story lives inside your head, there is no separation (you are, after all, in your own head).**

**But the moment you put the thoughts on the page, something structural happens.**

**You are here. The story is *there*, not inside but in front of your eyes. This is an actual shift in perspective.**

The page creates the distance that the mind struggles to generate on its own. You can read the story back, almost as if receiving a mirror, which is exactly what happened with Matthew, when I reflected his own words back to him. Journaling is that mirror, self-administered.

**In my own work, I talk about self-access as our capacity to get underneath the immediate story, thought or reaction and access more of ourselves, to find meaning underneath the surface. Journaling to surface the meaning underneath the story is one of the ways we cultivate self-access.**

I try not to preach mindfulness to my clients, yet I believe we all should practice it, because of how our minds work. And how easily we become fused with our thoughts. I'm obviously no exception.

What we are cultivating, through all of these practices, is discernment. Not just awareness as such, but the capacity to evaluate. To ask:

What is this thought?

Does this story nourish me, or deplete me?

Is it mine, or did I inherit it?

Is it even true?

Does it open something, or close it down?

Discernment is the active form of self-knowledge. It implies choice. **You are not at the mercy of your story. You are in relationship with it.**

Matthew already had everything he needed.

So do you.

---

*Hey friend,*

*This is the work we explore in* [*​the Story of You workshop​*](https://www.annevmuhlethaler.com/workshop/)*. We will surface a moment from your life, and you won't know at first why it's that one. Then we dig in and find out what it holds, which is almost never what you expected. That's not a trick you use once. It's a method you can take back to any story you own, and most people are surprised how much they already have.*

*It's live and participatory, which means you can't stay hidden behind a black square on Zoom. Fourteen seats, this Saturday.* [*​Click here for details and to book your seat. ​*](https://www.annevmuhlethaler.com/workshop/) *Thank you for reading me, as always. Until next time, Anne*

*PS. This workshop offers flexible pricing, meaning that you can choose what feels right between CHF65 and CHF95\. I've chosen to set it up this way so that it's more accessible while still reflecting the cost of developing and hosting it. Click through to the checkout to see it in four major currencies.*