The Stories We Tell Ourselves
One of the things I’m most curious about in the psychological realm is the process of storytelling, sense making and finding meaning. The stories we adopt because of the experiences we have can guide us to the parts of ourselves that hold imprints of pleasure and/or pain.
After traumatic experiences, we don’t just remember what happened to us, but we tell ourselves a story about what happened. Developing narrative is a way of making sense of, and finding meaning in, experiences. This process quietly builds our perception – how we perceive ourselves, others, and the world at large.
For example, we draw conclusions about our own worth based on the behaviours of a parent. Or we create an identity of inadequacy based on the inability to meet a social standard. As an often-unconscious process, the narratives that help us draw conclusions about ourselves and the world around us, have the power to impact how we show up for ourselves. Later in life, they can reflect what kind of partners we attract, how well we perform at work, or how content we feel with the lives we lead.
Storytelling, as a natural psychological process, has the power to uplift or downgrade our sense of safety, belonging, and dignity in the world. If our sense of self rests on a negative-bias narrative, memories remain unprocessed, lessons unlearned, and repetition of patterns and cycles stay in motion.
On the other hand, if we adopt a positive-only narrative, we remain numb to the emotional realm of our experiences, the whole truth remains repressed, and integration remains out of reach. We stay afloat, but only through the buoyancy of a protective narrative. Centering ourselves in either extreme has its limitations. Our system is always seeking balance and wholeness.
The stories we tell ourselves act as a gateway to unlocking the whole truth of a situation. With the right support, we can work towards a wider perspective and embrace a narrative that acknowledges both the negative and positive aspects of an experience. We can learn to simultaneously acknowledge the hardship we’ve experienced and uplift our sense of self as we move forward.
With the complexity of experiences holding the potential for contradictory truths to coexist, the ability to expand our capacity for psychological flexibility can be assessed by the stories we tell ourselves. Have we made final conclusions about ourselves based on one relationship, or situation, or one ongoing circumstance? Are we rigidly attached to our story as the only truth in the situation? Most importantly, in addition to what we believe to be true, can we create a little more space to explore what else is true?
