My colleague, Betsy recently told me when she compares herself to other colleagues, she feels as if she’s not doing enough. She’s currently a full-time caregiver for a parent with dementia. Despite that, she is still promoting her work, getting new clients, and most importantly, she’s still effectively helping people. And yet, when she describes her situation, she experiences herself as falling short in growing her business.
Her conclusion is simple: “I’m not doing enough.” How can that possibly be true?
The answer, I think, lies in understanding the different jobs of the protagonist and the narrator.
The protagonist lives the story from the inside.
The narrator tells the story from the outside.
These are different perspectives, and each is necessary. The problem begins when the narrator omits the feelings, thoughts, uncertainties, limits, questions, decisions, and meanings of the protagonist.
The protagonist of a story is in the midst of the action in the current moment.
• Halfway through a coaching session, one part of Betsy’s attention remains tuned to whether her parent needs her in that moment.
• The home health aide calls to cancel at the last minute. Betsy’s first client of the day will be calling shortly. A mad scramble must occur in order to make sure everyone’s needs are met.
• Betsy notices that her parent’s function is yet again decreasing. This will require new supports, both mechanical and human. A new strategy will be necessary. She will have to make the time to do the research and determine what new resources are required. Betsy is already stressed at this current level. And still, she will come through. She always does.
• Betsy needs to prepare the new script for her latest training video. The meeting with the director is tomorrow afternoon and she’s already been going nonstop all day! She forces herself to at least get one scene written before going to bed.
From the outside, these are simply events.
From the inside, they require constant emotional, mental, creative, and physical effort.
The protagonist knows this because she is carrying it all.
The narrator often doesn’t note all of the effort required by a situation. It just notes the outcome.
“My colleagues have more clients.”
“Their business is growing faster than mine.”
“My colleague is launching another program.”
Even if the narrator isn’t lying, it’s looking in the wrong direction.
It sees the outcomes while overlooking the experience that produced them.
The loneliness of not being met by one’s own narrator is like no other.
Instead, what if Betsy’s narrator had told her story in this way?
“I saw how many times you had to divide your attention today.”
“I saw the decisions no one else knew you were making.”
“I saw how frightened you felt when your parent’s condition changed.”
“I saw you continue anyway.”
Betsy’s circumstances are still the same but something profound has happened. The protagonist is no longer carrying the experience alone. This is why being our own honest witness matters so much.
The deepest loneliness is not always being unseen by other people.
Sometimes it is being unseen by the one telling the story of our own life.
When our narrator rushes past our lived experience to reach conclusions, comparisons, or judgments, the protagonist is abandoned. She keeps doing the work but feels strangely invisible, even to herself.
When the narrator returns and pays faithful attention to what the protagonist has actually lived, something softens.
Self-judgment loosens because someone has finally told the truth about what it costs to live this life.
Faithful attention restores relationship between the one living the story and the one telling it.
Only then can the narrator begin making meaning.
Meaning built on faithful witness transforms us.
Meaning built on incomplete observation rarely does.
Relationship is the mechanism.
The narrator’s first act is not to explain.
It is to accompany.
What would change if your narrator told the truth about what your life is actually costing you right now, before it decided what it means?