Cory Muscara shared three layers to a moment: experience, awareness of the experience, and the story about the experience.

While being in the moment, there is so much stimulation and information available that it isn’t possible to be aware of everything. The experience one has of a moment, however, will contain more than what one can see at first sight. Consequently, what one is aware of will be less than what is present. However, the awareness of an experience can be expanded, for example through reflection or conversations with others.

The story is the way people have become used to thinking about the experience and how they choose to describe it. The story is what one developed to give that moment a meaning, it is how meaning is organized. These stories depend on one’s relationship with the event, those involved, oneself, as well as the world as such. The story is also what may evolve with time, it’s a change that depends on how people change the relationships involved.

But it’s a system: once the story has been changed, the awareness of the experience changes impacting new experiences.