How to Conduct An Inner Dialectic

Explore and deconstruct your personal narratives to live a more empowered story — and protect yourself from deception.

People tend to do things that cause harm or keep them stuck in cycles of frustration because (1) the harmful behavior also serves them on some level, and denial of the harm seems easier at any given moment than taking on the temporary discomfort of fixing the problem, or (2) they sincerely don’t know any other way to go about what they are actually trying to do.

Or (3), they truly don’t know that what they’re doing is harmful because they haven’t seen how.

Getting in touch with your own stories and telling them can help you work out which of those things you’re doing to yourself or the people around you, and which of those other people are doing, and find better ways to address the underlying issues.

Here’s how you can begin an inner dialectic process:

Grab a journal, or another favorite writing device.

Think of someone you really, really care about.

And write the story of what happened like you’re telling it to them.

Describe the things you saw. Describe what you heard: words people said, or other sounds.

Describe how you felt on the inside: happy, angry, sad, tense, confused. This might be the most important part.