The Space Between Stories: Letting go of Control Might be the Best Way to Help

A few days ago I was sitting at the computer trying to come up with a new post. It felt too hard. What if whatever I write isn't good enough?

So I allowed my avoidant parts to take over, and looked around for something easier to do. I started reading through a transcript from a Charles Eisenstein video.

This post was inspired by that video, which Charles titled, "The Transformation is Underway." (It's part of his Sanity Project, which I highly recommend.)

On the stories we live in

Humans are story makers. Our stories (or mythologies) tell us how things work. They give us meaning about things like who we are, what our roles are, how to make a positive impact, what is "normal."

You could say we live "inside" a story, playing a role created for us by our family and culture before we were old enough to examine it and say whether we wanted the role or not.

"Moral failure"

The dominant story of our world is described by Jeremy Lent as having "its roots in ... patriarchy, hierarchy, and empire, and five centuries of European colonialism and oppression that evolved into global capitalism which is a system of extraction, exploitation, and elite wealth accumulation" ¹.

To put it more simply, I could paraphrase Charles Eisenstein and say that the dominant story of the modern world is about "control for the sake of economic progress."

Lent describes the consequences of this story--climate disruption and ecological and social breakdown--as "a collective moral failure."

After reading the post I've just quoted from (which was called Careening Towards a Precipice), I unsubscribed from Jeremy Lent's Substack. Not because I don't agree with his work but because part of me resonates with it a bit too much.

It's temptingly simple to view our situation at this point in time as being the result of "a collective moral failure," because that means that if we all just buck up and become better citizens, living by better morals, we can solve the problem.

Trying to "be good" (and failing)

Jeremy Lent is talking about humanity as a collective, but for us as individuals the idea that humans are "moral failures" can be easy to buy into so deeply that it becomes counter-productive. I'll use myself as an example to illustrate what I mean.

As someone who struggles with a strong inner critic, it's easy for me to take on the bad guy role in this story. If I were a better citizen/parent/consumer, then things would improve. It's somehow my fault, and my responsibility to put right.

And if one expression of the inner critic is to blame oneself, the other is to blame someone else. It's their fault--the corporations, the business interests, the vaxers, the un-vaxers, the people who don't recycle their rubbish--whoever they are who are doing the bad thing.

Either way, whether its "my/our fault" or "their fault," it's somebody's fault and that person/group/nation should be punished and should atone for their sins.

This story can be paralyzing.

In my case, it led to my trying so hard to be a better citizen, and to uphold better morals. I had standards so high, in hindsight, that nobody could have reached them, let alone maintained them.

I was trying to be "a good girl," trying to control every outcome of every choice I made, to make it a "good" outcome.

I also did the other thing -- I lectured my kids and anybody who would listen about how bad everything is, whose fault it is, and how it should be put right. (Yes, still guilty.)

Then (painfully slowly) I began to understand that the more I tried to control everything to make it right, the more I was actually participating in the very story in which I had condemned myself and/or the whole of humanity as a failure.

How's that for a double bind?

The story of modernity: "Control for the sake of progress"

Above, I said that Charles Eisenstein describes our dominant modern story as a story of "control, for the sake of progress." (My interpretation, not necessarily his exact words.)

He says (again I'm paraphrasing):

"For a while, conquering and controlling seemed to be working. Our story of modernity and the story of progress seemed to be bringing benefits. Each generation was better off than the previous one, happier, healthier. It seemed like we were working on our deficiencies too -- the civil rights movement was underway, women's rights, gay liberation, the environmental movement. It seemed that we were going to bring the fruits of our ways to the whole world. That was called 'development' and 'progress.'

Well, now, looking at the levels of poverty, despair, suicide, depression, anxiety, mental illness, chronic disease, domestic abuse, ecocide -- its becoming obvious that the 'story of control and progress' is not working."

When we want to change the story

In my opinion, the most effective thing we can do to make a difference is not whatever work we do in the world around us. It's to turn inwards and work to become conscious of the stories we're participating in and our roles in them.

We can make small changes to our lives by tweaking our existing stories. But a BIG change, to a completely different kind of story where control and force are no longer the only means by which we can make a difference, can't take place from inside the old story.

Before we can make a change that big, we have to step out of the old story and specifically out of our role in it, so that then we can avoid keeping the old story alive by our participation in it.

The sure way we can contribute, regardless of our circumstances

Our role was initially assigned to us before we were old enough to examine it. We may then have continued to reassign it to ourselves, over and over, as adults.

No wonder nothing really changes.

Our work now is to stop, examine the story and our role in it carefully, and consider if this is really what we came here for.

I'm not saying this is easy. It's not. But it is the most effective way we can participate in the process of bringing a new story into being.

It's the one sure way we can contribute that's within our reach regardless of our circumstances.

The space between stories, relaxing the intellect, accessing the heart's wisdom

The phrase, "the space between stories" comes from Charles Eisenstein's work. In the video, Charles says (again I'm paraphrasing and drawing on his other work as well):

"The space between stories does not mean that you just sit there and do nothing. It's a place that you enter and actively participate in the dissolution of the old story-- you let go of your old ways of being and believing, your old understanding of things that might actually be part of the problem."

The dissolution of the old story is necessary to clear space for the new story. This involves sitting in the painful, uncontrollable not-knowing-what-to-do place that we enter when we are finally able to get out of our heads and stop trying to analyze, control, and direct.

So this is the work: the active participation in the dissolution of the old story. It's the work of dropping out of our heads and into our hearts, and holding space for what we find there without trying to fix it, force it, or rush it.

The stories are in our heads. The space between the stories is where we can access the wisdom of the heart.

When we drop down into our bodies and into our hearts, often enough and for long enough, guidance becomes available that's simply not accessible when we're in our heads. 

When you feel like it's all getting worse, not better

One last caveat. This work won't be easy or fun, and it might make things feel like they're getting worse. Your inner critic and your intellectual parts will want you to drop this crap and return to the fray. If you're anything like me, the voices of these parts of you will be relentless and it may feel like you have lost your way.

I very much doubt that you have. 

Apparent insanity on the part of an individual is actually a very healthy response to an insane world. 

Hang in there. You are not as alone as it feels, you are not crazy, and your inner work really matters. It matters to the hurting parts of you, and to the world around you. 

Related reading

• The "space between stories" is a phrase and concept that Charles Eisenstein first described in this essay in 2013. Then, in 2017, he wrote a shorter, more personal essay about how he himself was navigating the space between stories.
  
• To me, the space between stories has parallels to the moment between cycles that holds the wisdom gleaned from the previous cycle and the potentiality of the new one that is about to begin. Read more in this section of "The Dark Moon - Realigning Ourselves with the Rhythm of Life."
• If you related to the section above on Trying to be good (and failing), you might like these posts on the topic of the inner critic: Overwhelm and Anxiety - is this what's triggering them?" and "What You Were Meant to Learn About Mistakes, and what to do if you didn't." 
• In the section above on The story of modernity: "Control for the sake of progress", I wrote how we thought that the story of control and progress seemed to be working because  "each generation was better off than the previous one." I explored that idea a few years ago in "The Seductions of Science and Technology."