What If the Story You’re Telling Yourself Isn’t True?

A number of years ago, I was teaching a lesson on perspective to two classes of 12- and 13-year-old students gathered together in a school library. There were about 65 students in the room, as well as teachers observing this demonstration lesson.

I had drawn a chart with four columns: Event. Meaning. Action. Outcome. We were exploring something deceptively simple: the difference between what actually happens and what we make it mean.

I asked the students for an example.

One girl offered, “My mom got upset because of my science test mark.”

“What did you get?” I asked.

“85%.”

There was an audible gasp around the room. To many of those students, 85% was a terrific mark. But the mark wasn’t really the issue.

I asked the girl what she had made her mother’s reaction mean.

“I’m not good enough.”

The room grew quiet.

I’ve worked with children and adults for decades, and some variation of I’m not good enough sits beneath far more of our reactions than we might imagine. But I didn’t tell this student that her interpretation was wrong. Instead, I asked the other students to think of two or three other plausible reasons her mother might have responded as she did.

Eventually, one landed for her:

“Mom just wants the best for me.”

I could feel it land with the other students too.

Nothing about the event had changed. She still got 85%. Her mother still wanted to talk about the mistakes on the test. What had changed was the meaning the student attached to the event.

Suddenly, there was another possibility.

The students had no difficulty coming up with other examples from their own lives:

My best friend didn’t invite me to her party.

My parents always send me to bed before my brother.

The teacher won’t answer my hand.

In each case, something happened—and almost instantaneously, the child made it mean something.

She doesn’t like me.

They like my brother better.

The teacher is ignoring me.

The feelings and reactions that followed made perfect sense if the interpretation was true.

But was it?

We Don’t Outgrow Meaning-Making

As adults, our examples become more sophisticated, but I’m not convinced the underlying process changes very much.

A teacher asks several challenging questions about a new initiative, and a leader thinks, She’s resistant.

A colleague doesn’t acknowledge our contribution, and we conclude, He doesn’t value me.

Someone becomes unusually quiet in a meeting, and we wonder, She’s angry about what I said.

An email goes unanswered, and before long we’re thinking, He’s ignoring me.

Sometimes it isn’t something another person said or did at all. It’s what they didn’t do. They didn’t invite us. Didn’t acknowledge us. Didn’t respond as they normally would.

Something feels off.

And human beings are remarkably quick to fill in the blank.

We move from observation to interpretation, often without realizing we’ve crossed the line.

Psychologist Richard Lazarus’s work on cognitive appraisal helps explain this process. Our emotional responses are shaped not simply by what happens, but by the meaning we make of what happens (Lazarus, 1991).

That is one of the moments when I encourage the practice of Compassionate Curiosity—the willingness to pause, hold our interpretation lightly, and become genuinely curious about what else might be true.

Rather than moving directly from Something feels off to I know what this means to Now I’m going to react, we can interrupt the process:

Notice. Get curious. Check meaning. Then respond.

That small interruption can change an entire interaction.

When an Interpretation Becomes a Filter

A recent conversation with another educational leader brought this back into focus for me. She had been participating in assessor training that required people to become highly conscious of bias—to distinguish evidence from perception and notice things such as confirmation bias.

It raised a fascinating question:

Once we’ve decided someone is “resistant,” do we begin interpreting everything they subsequently say and do as further evidence of resistance?

Confirmation bias suggests that we can (Nickerson, 1998). But in relationships, something even more interesting can happen: our interpretation can affect how we behave toward the other person.

I decide you’re difficult. I begin listening to your questions through that filter. I become a little more guarded, impatient, or controlling around you. Perhaps I stop inviting your perspective because I already know what I expect to hear.

You notice.

You feel mistrusted or dismissed. You become more cautious with me. Perhaps you question me more, disengage, or become defensive.

And I think:

See? I knew you were difficult.

Around we go.

The behaviour I’m observing may now be quite real. What I may fail to recognize is that I have become part of the system producing it.

What Did They Communicate—and What Did I Hear?

The cycle becomes even more complicated when our interpretations are connected to history.

Someone doesn’t have to be labelled “difficult.” The story might be She’s always critical. He’s negative. She’s too emotional. He’s inexperienced. She’s administration. He’s that kind of parent.

Sometimes the filter is simply the role someone occupies.

Once that filter is activated, we aren’t necessarily encountering the present interaction freshly. We are interpreting the present through what has happened before.

And communication is far more than words. We take in tone, facial expression, body language, timing, pace, emotional energy, and perceived intent. We also notice absences: what wasn’t said, what wasn’t acknowledged, the warmth that wasn’t there, the response that didn’t come.

All of these things can give us useful information.

But then we give that information meaning.

I may know what I intended. You know what you experienced. Neither one necessarily gives us the entire story.

That is why two questions have become increasingly important to me:

What did they communicate—and what did I hear?

What am I noticing—and what meaning am I giving it?

There is often quite a lot of relationship sitting in the space between those questions.

Neither Extreme Works

Years ago, a leader told me that we are responsible for another person’s perception of us. I’ve wrestled with that idea ever since.

I don’t think I can be responsible for another person’s perception of me. Their perception may be shaped by triggers, biases, and relational history that I cannot control.

But the opposite extreme isn’t particularly useful either:

That’s their perception. That’s their problem.

If I take that position, I never have to examine my contribution. I don’t have to wonder whether my tone repeatedly communicates something I don’t intend, whether my words land differently than I realize, or whether our history gives the other person good reason to anticipate a particular response from me.

That matters in schools, where relationships aren’t peripheral to improvement. Bryk and Schneider’s research identified relational trust among members of a school community as a core resource for school improvement (Bryk & Schneider, 2003).

Neither extreme works.

I think there is a more responsible—and more compassionate—place between them:

We aren’t responsible for another person’s perception of us, but we are responsible for becoming curious about how we may be contributing to it.

The listener has a responsibility too. I can become curious about what I may be adding to what I heard.

Am I responding to this interaction—or to my history with this person?

What do I actually know?

What have I decided?

Could there be another explanation?

This isn’t about deciding who is to blame. It’s about creating enough awareness that both people have somewhere else to go.

Context Creates Possibility

One of the most enduring lessons I’ve learned about communication is the importance of context.

Imagine a principal saying to a teacher:

“I’d like to talk about what I noticed during your lesson.”

If that teacher already believes the principal enters classrooms looking for faults, the conversation may be well underway in the teacher’s mind before the principal says another word.

Now imagine the principal beginning differently:

“I want you to know why I’m bringing this up. This isn’t about catching something you did wrong. I noticed something interesting happening with the students, and I’d really like to understand what you were seeing.”

The topic hasn’t changed.

The context has.

Context cannot magically erase another person’s history or perception of us. But it can create enough space for another interpretation to become possible.

Language can do the same. Even a seemingly small shift from “Would you like to…?” to “Would you be willing to…?” changes what we’re asking. The first asks about desire. The second invites choice and preserves agency.

Becoming an effective communicator, then, isn’t simply about saying what we mean. It also requires us to become increasingly aware of what the other person might be hearing.

Compassionate Curiosity Doesn’t Mean Assuming the Best

This distinction matters.

Compassionate Curiosity isn’t positive thinking. It isn’t inventing a pleasant explanation for behaviour that concerns us.

Perhaps the teacher really is resistant. Perhaps the colleague deliberately excluded you. Perhaps someone’s behaviour really was disrespectful.

Compassionate Curiosity does not ask us to abandon discernment, accountability, or boundaries.

It asks us not to mistake our first interpretation for established fact.

When something feels off, Compassionate Curiosity might sound like:

“I noticed you got quiet just then. I’m wondering what was happening for you.”

Or:

“I may be reading this incorrectly, but something feels different. Can I check that with you?”

Or even:

“When I said that, I noticed your expression changed. What did you hear me saying?”

Sometimes the conversation we need to have is first with ourselves:

I’m noticing that I’m making up a story about what this means.

What else could be true?

Compassionate Curiosity requires us to hold our interpretations lightly enough that another possibility can enter.

Possibility Changes What Happens Next

If I had to distill one of the most important lessons I’ve learned about human growth into a single word, it might be possibility.

Possibility is hopeful, but it isn’t naïve. It doesn’t require us to deny what happened or pretend everything is fine. It simply reminds us that the first meaning we assign to an event may not be the only one.

That’s what happened with that Grade 6 student all those years ago.

Mom is upset about my 85%.

became:

I’m not good enough.

But once we asked What else is possible?, another interpretation became available:

Mom just wants the best for me.

We didn’t prove that interpretation was true either. We opened the door to possibility.

And once there was more than one possible meaning, there was more than one possible response.

That’s where choice enters.

Perhaps that is ultimately what Compassionate Curiosity gives us.

Curiosity says, I may not understand everything yet.

Compassion says, I care enough about you, myself, and our relationship to want to understand.

Together, they create possibility.

So the next time someone’s words—or their silence, expression, tone, absence or behaviour—leave you with the feeling that something isn’t quite right, perhaps pause with that feeling for a moment before deciding what it means.

Ask yourself:

What do I know—and what have I decided?

What did they communicate—and what did I hear?

What am I noticing—and what meaning am I giving it?

And then open the door:

What else is possible?

We cannot stop ourselves from interpreting our experiences. We are human. We make meaning.

The trouble begins when we mistake the meaning we’ve made for the only possible truth.

Compassionate Curiosity gives us another way—and sometimes, that small opening is enough to change what happens next.

Reflection Questions

Where could you create more space for Compassionate Curiosity in your work with students or colleagues? What questions might help you—or someone else—pause, examine an interpretation, and consider what else might be true?

What might change in a relationship if you became curious about the meaning you are giving to what someone else says or does?

References

Bryk, A. S., & Schneider, B. (2003). Trust in schools: A core resource for school reform. Educational Leadership, 60(6), 40–44.

Lazarus, R. S. (1991). Cognition and motivation in emotion. American Psychologist, 46(4), 352–367. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.46.4.352

Nickerson, R. S. (1998). Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Review of General Psychology, 2(2), 175–220. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.2.2.175

Meet the Expert(s)

Margaret Boersma

Educational Leadership Strategist, Educational Leadership Redefined

Margaret Boersma is an educational leadership strategist, speaker, trainer, and curriculum writer with more than 30 years of experience in education. She is the creator of Educational Leadership Redefined™, a leadership development program that helps education leaders and school leadership teams build the human capacity to address what is driving recurring problems, restore time and energy, and create more sustainable change. Her work supports schools in strengthening human-centred leadership, emotional literacy, whole-brain learning, and the relational conditions that enable students and educators to learn, lead, and thrive together.

Read More