Shade Zahrai

defines how we feel about our lives if you feel like a victim because of the way the brain is wired confirmation bias selective attention you will tune into information that confirms your beliefs you will find examples of why you are the victim that person cut me off life is so unfair i get every single red light this is not i can never maintain my exercise routine at the gym something's wrong you continually find ways to reinforce it you might seek out relationships

That leads you to further victimize yourself because there's something called self-verification, which was determined or discovered by William Swan, which is this phenomenon where we are driven to seek out and reinforce the beliefs that we have about ourselves.

We want to verify our self-image.

So whatever belief you have about yourself, you will find ways to confirm it.

Whatever you believe.

Exactly, exactly.

And this happens more often when the negative because it keeps you stuck, right?

Whereas if you believe that you're worthy, that you can learn, that you can trust yourself and things will work out because of that, you will find ways to keep reaffirming that.

And then what happens?

Your life fundamentally changes.

So that's narrative identity.

And in one of the chapters, we go through this process of determining what is your current identity in terms of the narrative you're sharing.

How do we use techniques from what's called narrative therapy to then change that story?

Because Dr. Dan McAdams, who has studied this for 40 years, has found that you can change your story by editing the meaning that you have applied to that story.

Are you internalizing it?

I'm not enough.

This is not fair.

It always happens to me.

Or are you learning from it?

In fact, there's this fascinating body of work that not a lot of people know about.