Keyboard shortcuts

Press ← or → to navigate between chapters

Press S or / to search in the book

Press ? to show this help

Press Esc to hide this help

Notice, Feel, Story

Stories Disguised as Facts

When something happens, we instantly create a story about it.

Someone leaves without saying goodbye → “They don’t like me anymore.” Someone doesn’t respond to a text → “They’re ignoring me.” Someone touches you in a way you didn’t expect → “They’re a predator.”

The story feels like truth. It feels like what happened. But it’s not.

What happened is what happened. Your story is your interpretation.

And your interpretation might be completely wrong.

Here’s the hard part: most people can’t separate story from what actually occurred. They’re not used to it. They may not even have the language for it—the distinction has never been pointed out to them. When you ask “what happened?” they tell you a story without realizing that’s what they’re doing.

This is normal. It’s not a character flaw. It’s just that most people have never been given the tools to see the difference.

Here’s the tool.

The Three-Step Framework

This tool comes from Authentic Relating. It separates observation, feeling, and interpretation—so you can check your story before acting on it.

Step 1: Notice (Observation)

State what you actually observed. Just the facts. No interpretation.

  • ✓ “I notice you left without saying anything when we were cuddling earlier.”
  • ✗ “I notice you abandoned me.” (That’s a story, not an observation.)

Step 2: Feel (Emotion)

State the emotion you experienced. Not a thought disguised as a feeling.

  • ✓ “I felt sad and disconnected.”
  • ✗ “I felt like you didn’t care about me.” (That’s a story, not a feeling.)

Step 3: Story (Interpretation) + Check

State your interpretation explicitly as a story—then ask if it’s true.

  • ✓ “My story is that you don’t want to interact with me anymore. Is there any truth to that?”
  • ✗ “You obviously don’t want to be around me.” (Stated as fact, not checked.)

Watch for Pseudo-Feelings

Step 2 is where most people slip up.

Pseudo-feelings are things people say are feelings but aren’t. “I feel like you don’t care about me” isn’t a feeling—it’s a claim about someone else’s internal state. You can’t feel what’s happening inside another person. You can only feel what’s happening inside you.

Real feelings: sad, scared, angry, hurt, confused, relieved, excited, anxious, disconnected.

Pseudo-feelings: “I feel like you…” / “I feel that you…” / “I feel ignored” / “I feel abandoned” / “I feel disrespected.”

Those last three sound like feelings, but they’re interpretations. “Ignored” means someone chose not to pay attention to you—that’s a story about their behavior, not your internal state. The feeling underneath might be “hurt” or “lonely.”

If you use pseudo-feelings, the tool breaks. Your story leaks into the feeling step. You’re smuggling accusations into “I feel.”

Why This Works

It Disentangles Feelings from Stories

When someone says “I feel like you don’t care about me,” the feeling and the story are entangled — fused into a single statement that can’t be addressed without breaking something.

If the other person says “But I do care about you,” it sounds like they’re invalidating the feeling. Now there’s a fight about whether the feeling is valid. The entanglement makes it impossible to address one without damaging the other.

Disentangling means separating the feeling from the story so each one can be addressed on its own terms:

“I feel sad and disconnected. My story is that you don’t care about me.”

Now the other person can:

  1. Validate your feeling: “I’m sorry you felt sad and disconnected.”
  2. Correct the story: “I do care about you—I just had to leave quickly for a call.”

No invalidation. No fight. Clear communication.

It Reveals Your Interpretations as Stories

Most people don’t realize how much of what they “know” is actually interpretation.

When you practice saying “my story is…” you start to recognize:

  • This is just what I think happened
  • I don’t actually know if it’s true
  • I need to check before acting on it

This is especially critical for witnesses—and this is why witnessing isn’t enough. You saw something. You created a story. That story is not evidence.

It Creates a Non-Charged Way to Verify

Instead of:

“Why did you abandon me?!” (accusation)

You say:

“I noticed you left. I felt hurt. My story is you didn’t want to be around me. Is there any truth to that?” (inquiry)

The first creates defensiveness. The second creates dialogue.

It Makes High-Stakes Conversations Inarguable

Here’s something powerful: when you use this framework, everything you say is inarguable — because every part is a true statement about you, not a claim about external reality.

  • What you noticed — No one can tell you that you didn’t notice what you noticed.
  • What you felt — No one can tell you that you didn’t feel what you felt.
  • Your story — No one can tell you that you didn’t create the story you created.

There’s nothing to fight about. You’re sharing your subjective experience and then asking for clarification — inquiry, not assertion.

When conversations get heated, people start making claims about what the other person did, meant, or intended. Those claims are arguable. “You abandoned me!” invites “No I didn’t!”

But “I noticed you left. I felt hurt. My story is you didn’t want to be around me. Is there any truth to that?” — what is there to argue with?

In high-stakes conversations, moving to inarguable language can be the difference between war and real communication — the kind where everyone feels heard and walks away closer instead of further apart.

Both people can use this framework. You can go back and forth—each person sharing what they noticed, what they felt, and what their story is—and actually understand each other instead of just attacking.

Examples

Example 1: Cuddling

“I noticed you left without saying anything when we were cuddling earlier. I felt disconnected and a little sad. My story is that you didn’t want to interact with me anymore. Is there any truth to that?”

Possible response: “Oh no, I’m so sorry—I had to use the bathroom urgently and didn’t want to wake you. I was planning to come back!”

Story was wrong. Feelings were valid. No harm done.

Example 2: Touch

“I noticed your hand moved to my thigh during the exercise. I felt startled and a bit uncomfortable. My story is that you were trying to escalate sexually. Was that what was happening?”

Possible response: “I’m so sorry—I wasn’t aware my hand had moved there. I was just shifting position. Thank you for telling me.”

Story was wrong. Feelings were valid. Repaired immediately.

Example 3: Witnessing

“I noticed you and Jordan had a heated conversation and Jordan left upset. I felt concerned. My story is that something bad happened between you two. Can you tell me what was going on?”

Possible response: “Jordan got some hard news from home and needed to leave. We were just talking about logistics. They were upset about the news, not about me.”

Story was wrong. You didn’t start a witch hunt. Good job.

Example 4: When the Story Is Right

“I noticed you kept touching my back after I moved away twice. I felt uncomfortable and a little unsafe. My story is that you weren’t respecting my nonverbal cues. Is there any truth to that?”

Possible response: “…Yeah, honestly, I think you’re right. I got caught up in the moment and wasn’t paying attention. I’m sorry. I should have noticed you were pulling away.”

Story was correct. Now you know. And because you checked instead of accused, you got an honest acknowledgment instead of defensive denial.

Sometimes your interpretation is right. The point isn’t that you’re always wrong—it’s that you don’t know until you verify. When you’re right, checking confirms it. When you’re wrong, checking prevents harm. Either way, you win.

When to Use This

  • Before making accusations
  • Before telling others what “happened”
  • Before responding with HIGH severity
  • Before judging someone’s character
  • When you notice yourself feeling charged about something
  • When you witnessed something and created a story about it

The First Plausible Explanation Trap

Here’s something important about how stories form:

Your brain latches onto the first explanation that can plausibly explain what happened. And then it stops looking.

You see something. A story pops into your head that could explain it. Your brain says “solved!” and moves on. You don’t consider the hundred other stories that could equally explain what you saw.

Someone in a position of authority makes a mistake with you:

  • First story: “They’re using their power to take advantage of me.”
  • Alternative: They’re new and nervous and made an honest mistake.
  • Alternative: They misread your signals.
  • Alternative: They got clumsy.
  • Alternative: They were distracted by something else.

But you probably only considered the first one. It was plausible. It explained what happened. Your brain stopped there.

This is why the Notice-Feel-Story framework is so crucial. When you explicitly name your interpretation as “my story,” you create space to ask: Is this the only story that could explain what I saw? What are the other possibilities?

If someone with less status had done the exact same thing, would you have assumed the same intent? Or would a different story have popped up first—one that was more charitable?

Your first story is just one of many. Check if it’s true before you treat it as the only possibility.

The Meta-Skill

The more you practice this, the more you realize:

Almost everything you “know” about other people’s intentions is a story.

You don’t know why they did what they did. You don’t know what they were thinking. You don’t know if they meant harm.

You have observations. You have feelings. And you have stories.

Check the stories before you act on them.

Conversational Shortcuts

The full Notice-Feel-Story framework is powerful — but in a heated moment, you’re not going to say “what I noticed was X, what I felt was Y, and the story I’m making is Z.” It’s too formal for conversation speed.

Two shortcuts that let you speak in NFS without doing the full framework:

“Occurs to me as…”

Instead of stating a story as fact, frame it as how someone occurs to you.

  • Instead of: “They’re dangerous.” → “They occur to me as dangerous.”
  • Instead of: “He’s being manipulative.” → “He occurs to me as manipulative.”
  • Instead of: “She’s going to explode.” → “She occurs to me as likely to explode.”

It’s a concise way of saying “my story about them is…” without the full framework. You’re still communicating the idea — you’re just labeling it as your perception instead of declaring it as truth. This is especially useful when staff are trying to assess a situation together under pressure. “They occur to me as dangerous” invites dialogue. “They’re dangerous” invites urgency and fear — which creates a pull toward immediate action that might cause serious harm if the story turns out to be wrong.

“I imagine…”

Instead of claiming to know what someone else is experiencing, frame it as your imagination.

  • Instead of: “You’re upset.” → “I imagine you’re upset.”
  • Instead of: “You’re feeling attacked.” → “I imagine you’re feeling attacked right now.”
  • Instead of: “You want to leave.” → “I imagine you might want to leave.”

This lets you check in with someone without telling them what they feel. It keeps the door open for them to correct you — “actually, I’m not upset, I’m confused” — instead of having to defend against your projection.

The Habit That Changes Everything

If you get in the habit of catching yourself when you state a story as fact — “they’re an asshole” — and backtracking to “they occur to me as an asshole” — something shifts. Your reticular activating system starts flagging the difference between observation and interpretation in real time. You start sorting reality from fiction as a reflex, not an exercise.

You don’t have to stop having stories. You just have to stop treating them as truth before you’ve checked.

Disentangling Other People’s Language

Everything above teaches you how to speak in NFS yourself. But the most powerful application is when the other person doesn’t know the framework — and you disentangle their language for them.

Someone says: “I feel like you don’t care about me.”

The natural response — “I do care!” — contests their story and invalidates their feeling in the same breath. Neither of you can get what you want because the feeling and story are entangled into one statement. They’re not doing this on purpose — they’re trying to communicate, but the entangled language doesn’t leave room for a response that satisfies either of you.

Instead, disentangle it:

“It sounds like you’re feeling sad and disconnected, and your story is that I don’t care about you.”

They’ll likely say “yeah” — because you just said what they said, just separated. Now you can address each part:

  1. “I hear that you’re feeling sad and disconnected. That makes sense given what happened.”
  2. “And I want you to know — I do care. Here’s what was actually going on…”

The feeling gets validated. The story gets checked. No fight. And the other person didn’t need to know NFS at all — you did the disentangling for them.

This works because most people don’t know their feelings and stories are entangled. They’re not being difficult — they just don’t have the distinction. When you separate it for them, you’re not correcting them. You’re translating what they said into something that can actually be worked with.