Narrative Therapy: Claiming Your Story
Have you ever thought about all the different stories about you that exist in the world? Maybe the narrative your third grade teacher has about you is that you were a troublemaker or your high school sweetheart still thinks of you and smiles for how much you used to make them laugh. Apart from narratives that we develop in our personal lives, there are narratives that we adopt from society too. If you’re a woman, perhaps you’ve absorbed the idea that to be beautiful you must have white skin, blonde hair and no body fat. If you’re a man, a narrative has been written for you about your only worth being attached to your output and how much money you take home for your salary. How do we shed these stories and write a version that works for us?
When we’re feeling vulnerable, it's common that we adopt whichever narrative is closest to us or the one that is being told the loudest. This is particularly true about childhood. We often integrate the stories that our parents and family members tell us about who we are into our own perception of self and carry that into adulthood. This can also be true outside of familial influences. Maybe you’re learning a new job and your manager is short and impatient with you about not having the skills required to be successful. You are up against something new, which might make you vulnerable to adopting a narrative that illustrates an incompetent and under qualified version of yourself. This commonly happens in relationships as well. Getting into a new relationship where you put trust in someone else can be a wonderful and exhilarating experience. It can also create an opportunity for a narrative to develop as you share with this person and receive feedback from them. If this narrative is detrimental to your self-perception, it can take a lot of time and effort to shed the ideas that you absorbed from that relationship.
Retroactively realizing that there were people or experiences that implanted beliefs about yourself that caused harm can be a maddening experience. It’s frustrating to realize how fickle the mind can be, especially when under pressure. When you uncover a narrative that you’ve been accepting, but you no longer agree with, it’s important to have compassion for the things you didn’t know at the time the narrative was developed. The more we practice identifying narratives and making mental edits that feel more congruent to us, the less upsetting the process will be over time.
When it comes to narratives that we’ve held since childhood, it’s important to remember that, as children, we were entirely dependent on other people to understand ourselves and how the world works. We don’t develop the brain capacity to think abstractly and introspectively until early adolescence. It’s worthwhile to sift through some of the narratives you picked up from childhood to see if they still hold water for you or not. Even if you realize that you agree with the worldview you developed as a child, you will still be reassured by knowing that you thought these narratives through and you can now consciously claim them as your own. Maybe you find some things that could use some editing in order to feel more authentic to the person you are now or are working to become.
Here are some common sources to keep in mind when you are reflecting on your narratives:
Family norms (“Davidsons don’t cry”, or “We don’t talk about *fill in the blank*”)
Religion
Culture (Being raised in a rural community vs. urban, south, west, midwest regions of the country and the cultural norms associated with each etc.)
Race
Gender
Capitalism (messaging about your identity as it relates to money and productivity)
Pop Culture (who were you watching on TV, listening to, reading about etc.)
Education System (your identity as it relates to academic success)
Reclaiming some autonomy for yourself by understanding and modifying the narratives you have received from these systems can provide a lot of gratification and relief. It can create context to help you to understand the larger influences that have shaped the way you see yourself and the world. Additionally, it helps you to avoid narratives that may be inaccurate or distorted in the future. Remember, you are simply responding and adapting to the stimuli that you are inundated with constantly. Anyone with your experiences and dispositions would draw the same conclusions you do. Understanding the bigger picture is helpful in creating a path for change.
Another helpful exercise might be to make a timeline of your life with points where impactful events happened such as trips you took, jobs you had, deaths, achievements, moves, relationships/break-ups etc. This creates a visual for when certain versions of you were born. We all have a story and we deserve to have our story feel whole. Narrative therapy is a beautiful journey to embark on. It can help us to feel that we are living more authentic lives. It can also provide agency and congruence, even when exploring the hardest parts of our lives. Don’t forget that you’re the main character of your life and can access the power to narrate it in a way that feels true to you!
Wishing you wellness!
Janessa