I was brought up short on Friday night. I was spending the evening with my 15-year-old goddaughter who is growing into a wise, loving, grounded young woman. We were talking about life choices. She was asking me about mine, about the life I have lived up to this point and what I wanted for myself from now on (yeah, pretty impressive, right?). I was answering her honestly and talking about the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and how we have lived, and the judgments we make. I was explaining how, on a good day, the story I tell myself is a story that lifts me and fills me with a sense of pride, fulfilment and happiness. And how, on a bad day, it can sometimes turn into a story of self-doubt and recrimination. She laughed and told me about how earlier in the week she had been working on an essay for an hour and a half when, due to a computer glitch, she lost all the work she had done. She started again, only for the same thing to happen a second time. At this point, she told me, she had a complete meltdown and decided the only option she had was to give up that subject. When she heard my answer, she said “That’s like me deciding to give up Modern Studies that evening my essay got deleted on my computer. And what a mistake that would have been.”
There are so many different narratives we can construct about ourselves, our lives and relationships, about events that happen to us, about anything really. There is often a pattern to the one we habitually choose. It is probably the one we have learned over time and one which has been influenced by a number of factors, including our perception of significant others and their reactions to us (especially parents) and the particular flavour of own internal dialogue (the inner critic, for example, can have a field day here). The trick is always to spot the pattern in the first place and then make a choice. Will I choose to beat myself with a big stick or be my own best champion and believer?
Try it now! Take even just the experience of the last six months and see how many different ways you could tell the story of how you have navigated these times so far. If you get stuck, try the “on a good day, I tell myself..” and “on a bad day…” test and see what that surfaces. And when you have highlighted the different versions of the story, choose the one that best serves you in living well.
This is the work of personal narrative. It can be transformative — and it requires discipline and practice. It always comes back to noticing and choosing. On Friday night, in between George Michael and an Indian take-away, I was grateful for the reminder and full of love and admiration for the person from whom it came and the young woman she is becoming.