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Stage 2 of 8 — Awareness

Awareness.
Understanding your Story.

The lights come on. You start to see how you built this — the connections between your thoughts, feelings, and the identity you’ve been living inside of.

Stage 2 of 8 — Awareness

Understanding
your Story.

You’ve got the framework from Stage 1. Now we take the next step — working through the beliefs and experiences that created your Story. Through a process of writing, fact-checking and reflection, you’ll be able to see your old beliefs and experiences for what they actually are.

Right about now the lights start coming on. You begin to see the connections between your thoughts, feelings, and the way you cleverly cobbled your Concept of Self together. And as you start getting clarity on the process, you also start getting clarity on the solution.

The most important exercise in Stage 2 is the one that surprises people most: writing the same experience as both a suffering story and a success story — using the exact same facts. When you see that the facts don’t change but the story does, something fundamental shifts.

"The facts are the same. The story changed completely. Which means the story was never the truth — it was always an interpretation."

THE SCIENCE

Autobiographical memory research (Schacter, 2001; Conway, 2005) shows that memories are reconstructions, not recordings. Every time you recall an experience, your brain rebuilds it using your current beliefs, emotions, and narrative. This is why two people can experience the same event and carry entirely different stories from it — and why your own story can be rewritten without changing a single fact.

What you work through in Stage 2

Writing your Story — from the observer position
You write a short story of suffering using your I Am Statements and Evaluations from Stage 1 — as an observer, not reliving it. Getting the story out of your head and onto paper is a powerful defusion move. The story becomes something you’re looking at rather than something you’re inside.
Fact-checking your Story
Go through your story and underline only the facts — not causes, not conclusions, not interpretations. A fact is what objectively happened. Everything else is meaning you added. This distinction changes everything.
Writing your New Story
Take the same facts, the same I Am Statements — and write a completely different story. Not a fantasy. A real story that has also been true for you. This exercise makes it undeniable: the story was never the truth.
Story reflection and belief mapping
Sitting with the two stories side by side and exploring what you notice. What beliefs have been sustaining the suffering story? What would it mean if they weren’t permanent?

The exercises in Stage 2

Ex 4
Writing Your Story
Your suffering story — written as an observer, using your I Am Statements. The beginning of defusion.
Ex 5
Fact Checking Your Story
Separating observable facts from the interpretations, conclusions and meaning layered on top
Ex 6
Writing Your New Story
Same facts. Same I Ams. Completely different story — because the story was always a choice
Ex 7
Story Reflection
What you noticed. What shifted. What the two stories reveal about the beliefs beneath them.
Ex 8
Belief System Reflection
Mapping the relational frameworks your mind has been using — and beginning to question them
Start Stage 2 in the Self Blueprint →Next: Stage 3 — Clarity →

Work through Stage 2 with Andy.

The Self Blueprint takes you through all eight stages — with Andy guiding every step.

Enrol now → Next: Stage 3 — Clarity →