The Assumptions Quietly Controlling Your Decisions
Have you attached yourself to stories about health that quietly make it feel impossible?
The first podcast of the new season debuts next Tuesday. We’re calling this season “Health Illusions” as we explore the distorted perceptions and false interpretations of health and work to bring them back to their original intent. Or, more accurately, to redesign health in a way that actually works for you.
If you’re not subscribed to the podcast yet, do so here on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, so you’ll be notified as soon as the episodes drop.
Next week, we’ll go live on Wednesday for a special session called “after the show.” This live experience will dive into something deeply personal: why we didn’t record The Sex Talk 2.0 (and yes, my husband will be joining me after the show).
Truthfully, it has a lot to do with unanswered questions and assumed stories we make our own, which is what I want to dive into today.
Assumed Stories
Humans are hardwired for stories. From our brains to our biology, our lives run on narratives.
Stories are essential and powerful because they are the primary way we construct meaning, process emotions, and transmit knowledge across generations.
They stick in our minds because they’re full of emotion and narrative that we feel, even without experiencing them firsthand. In fact, research shows stories engage the brain 22 times more effectively than facts alone because they create emotional connections. These emotional connections create a memory.
I wrote about this in my recent blog post, Is Your Brain Spamming You?, where I explore how our brains fill with information, narratives, and influences, many of which aren’t even ours. The post dives into how constantly consuming content, advice, and “expert” opinions can clutter your mind and reinforce these “assumed” stories, often without you even realizing it.
That memory becomes part of your programming. It becomes evidence for how you live your life, changing your decision, creating behavioral responses, and altering your view of the world, for good or bad.
And it can all happen without ever having lived it.
That’s the power of a story. If you let it, it can shape your entire reality. But this is also why we have to pay attention to the stories. They create assumptions, regardless of our personal experience with it.
Many times, this treats us well. They help us avoid things that might hurt us while charging forward with what can help us.
For instance, you know a stove is hot, even if you’ve never touched it, because you’ve heard the story about what happened when someone did.
That’s elementary, but you can see how stories shape you.
At the same time, there are plenty of stories that are elevated, even dramatized, creating assumptions that something is bad when it isn’t. Hence, the “after the show” podcast, as we dive into common assumptions like “why women have zero libido” or the myth that “women don’t want to have sex.”
Well… you know the story.
Again, it might be true, but it doesn’t always have to be. Assuming it is true can alter your experience, making it feel true to you and, in the end, making it your experience.
What I’m trying to say is, I think we’ve attached a lot of stories to our processes and made assumptions that have made life more difficult and painful than it needs to be.
Take weight loss, for instance.
The common narrative says it’s hard, requires restriction and deprivation, and that life is a constant struggle for health. It has this aura of good luck and good riddance. It’s created a never-ending war in a place where a fight was never intended to exist.
The story of menopause is similar.
While I’ve not personally experienced it, the story I’ve heard is that menopause is filled with mood imbalances, hot flashes, weight gain, and a permanent decline in desire. It sounds horrible, and if I’m not careful, I could pick up this story, letting the assumptions morph into my reality.
Again, this might be someones story, but it doesn’t have to be yours. But that requires you to stop making assumptions or at least attaching yourself to these external stories, creating your own assumptions from them.
Your assumptions create your reality.
What if you assumed differently?
What if you assumed the good, not the bad? What if you assumed health could be easy? And through that assumption, you create a better story that you can then pass down, changing the assumed stories from what is eluding you to what is inside of you.
Stories aren’t going anywhere. They’re critical to our existence. Stories create safety, closing loops, even when the ending hasn’t been reached, helping us create certainty amid uncertainty.
I think that’s part of why faith is so central to our life and vitality. It not only teaches us through the experiences of others and offers a God-centered story, but it also creates a sense of closure for life itself. It helps us close the loop of death, where death loses its sting, and, in turn, we are able to live in hope.
The question becomes:
What stories are you using to shape your life?
Are these stories helping you or leaving you to assume the worst?
Do they paint a healthy, empowering picture of life and what you could achieve
Or are they full of pain, suffering, and limitation?
The current assumptions of health leave people assuming health is:
Hard
Disassociative
Chasing it endlessly
Problem-focused
Perpetually stressful
But it doesn’t have to be. It could be:
Energizing
Powerful
Purposeful
Simple
Beautiful
It’s not always easy to confront the fact that the story you’ve believed may not be true, even if the illusion of health seems real. But it could lead to a better story, a freedom story, and the world needs more of that.
You could create a story of health that assumes health is not only possible, but it’s also easy, and you can thrive even in the imperfections of life.
Stories change lives, and even more, they change generations. The story you assume becomes the story you pass on.
I’d love to hear from you:
What assumptions have you created about health based on the stories you’ve heard?
Can’t wait to talk about this one in the comments!
xx,
P.S. Want to shift your story this year? Be intentional with your plans. The Nourished Planner helps you rewrite your story. Get in on the new February price drop here!
I've always assumed that I will struggle with food and weight gain. I think- aren't naturally thin people lucky that food isn't a problem for them and maintaining weight is easy?! Me, on the other, I will have a lifelong battle, a daily struggle, against the temptation of eating unhealthy food and gaining weight. Maybe there is a different story I should be telling myself. Maybe I need to drop the assumption I have for myself and others around food and weight. Maybe there is a more positive thought pattern to practice...
This reframe is so needed. The idea that assumptions become reality is underrated, especially with health stuff where negativity bias runs deep. I caught myself doing this with sleep recently, just repeating "I'm a bad sleeper" like it was fact when really it was just a story I'd picked up somewhere. Once I questiond that assumption and approached it diferently, things actually shifted.