I recently read a book which highlighted the fact that the majority of our lives we are in a process of making others wrong and trying to make ourselves right. It takes a lot of insight to start studying oneself and see how often this is true. One tends to believe it is just in arguments or trying to promote one’s own point of view that we try to make others wrong, but in reality we define ourselves mainly by creating these distinctions.  We define ourselves in terms of qualities or characteristics that we feel make us who we are. For instance, having big feet which are not easy to find shoes for. I tell myself this story.  Then, when on a shopping trip, despite trying on numerous shoes, I make it necessary to make myself right and  create the situation where I am able to find a pair of shoes that fit.  In doing so, I make the salesperson wrong who is eagerly helping to assist by dragging out all the wide size elevens in the story and I make the person wrong who has offered to pay for a brand new pair as a gift.  If I were to consider that my feet are not really all that unusual, I would have to change the story I have told myself all my life. This might be challenging to myself image. Perhaps my new story might be, finding shoes for people with big feet is very easy. (I know I am never without shoes despite my assertion that I cannot find shoes to fit).  This is just a small example of a self-created story which has required a sustained effort to continue over many years.

How many of these stories do we create in one day not only about ourselves but about the others we come in contact with? I have a story about every single person I know. Are those stories accurate? Likely not as they are constructed by me through my lens and my own desire to be the leading star in my movie.

Making ourselves right often involves casting ourselves as victims. How many victims do you know? We see them everywhere.  Victims come in every shape, model and pattern that we can imagine. In fact it is not a long stretch to paint ourselves as a victim in life, rather than the creator of our own experiences. The other driver, the other spouse, the other teacher, the other…. It is all about them and what they have done.  The other…   We easily slip into a blaming mode rather than look at our penchant for making others wrong.  However, making others wrong comes at the expense of our own integrity. When we have integrity we are true to ourselves and do not try to make others wrong for any reason. If we look within ourselves every single time we are acting as the hero in our story, we can release much of the drama in our lives. When we release the drama we can come to know ourselves as we truly are.

Gwendolyn Villebrun