Creating A New Narrative

Stories have always been a vital part of our human experience, and it’s not just the ones we tell to others. Whether we are aware of it or not, we are constantly in the process of telling ourselves the story of our own experience. There is an ongoing narrative happening in our heads that is assessing the situation we see before us and deciding how it fits into our tale. This process is natural and automatic for us humans, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have any say in it!

The way we frame our experience is vital to our narrative. If we decide that we are unlikeable and incompetent, then we probably won’t land that dream job. But if we decide that we just haven’t found the right fit yet and we are determined to keep trying, then maybe that dream job will become a reality and a central part of our story. That simple change in how we describe our experience makes a drastic difference. And it all starts with that initial narrative we’ve formed about ourselves in our heads.

So what can we do to form a new and better narrative? The first step is to notice the one you’ve been writing so far. Is it positive? Is it negative? It’s up to us to decide what our experiences mean. Taking a more active role in thinking about your narrative will help shape the ultimate story. If you’re feeling down or in a hopeless situation, try thinking about your experience in a different way, as if you were telling a story. You can even rewrite old narratives. Remember that one bad experience? Yes, it was painful. But is that all there is to the story? Maybe not. Maybe it also helped you to learn a valuable skill or lesson. Rewriting the old narrative can be just as therapeutic.

Try writing down the life struggle you are dealing with right now. How does it sound? If it is something you don’t like, try rewriting it in a way that still feels accurate to you but also has an overall message of hope. No experience has only one way of being. Depending on how you write it, it could take on a whole new meaning. Remember, you are the author of your own life.