Tell me your story…
This is usually where therapy starts. Stories are important. They help define who, why, and what we are. In therapy, we call it your narrative.
Challenging Your Narrative
The thing about a narrative, though, is that they’re not always reliable. Our stories are tinged with our own take on things, our own experience, our interpretation of events, and what other people tell us about ourselves. Sometimes our narratives don’t serve us well, and they can bring us down and create negative core beliefs about who we are. The mind is not to be trusted! The good news? We can learn to adapt and pivot our narrative to one that is empowering and hopeful, and one that pushes us forward to new chapters of our lives.
Personal Reflection and Growth
I did some reflection this week on my own story and narrative. As I launch into private practice, I’m reminded of how far I’ve come and that I didn’t always know where my narrative would lead me. Times in my life I was lost, anxious, depressed, and feeling like my story was not one I wanted to read. But hindsight is 20/20, and we can’t see the ending until we’re there. Now, as a therapist, I can clearly see how suffering and hardship brought me to this place. I think back now, and I wish I had held onto more hope that my story wasn’t finished. Because… it wasn’t.
An Analogy of Hope
My dad likes to share an analogy in Church often (he is a minister) about winning the lottery. I’ve always liked it. The basic lesson is this: imagine you won 50 million dollars in the lottery. But, there’s a catch. You can’t get the money for 1 year. You know it’s coming, but you can’t spend a single cent of it yet. How would your life change in that one year? Well, you’d likely be the happiest person in the world! You’d have virtually no cares, and you’d be excited about life knowing this money is coming. It’s the thought of the money that matters the most, the hopeful future you can see in front of you. The present moment can be affected by the hopeful vision of the future.
Embracing a Hopeful Narrative
Your narrative can be like this story. You have a bright, hopeful future ahead of you where everything will make sense. All the hard times and suffering you’re going through, it all matters because it’s leading you where you need to go. Like the promise of lottery money coming your way, believe in your future. This hopeful belief in your future can get you through the painful times you’re living through right now. It makes ALL the difference.
The Role of Narrative Therapy
In counselling we use Narrative Therapy to help process our narratives, and learn how we can pivot them to more positive stories. Narrative Therapy is just one modality in therapy, but it’s a powerful one. In Narrative Therapy you work to deconstruct your narrative, examine how that narrative serves you today, and often, begin to craft a newer, more hopeful story. Even if you’re not in therapy right now, I encourage you to think about your own narrative and what it tells you about who you are. And most importantly, remember that you have many chapters to go. The story gets better.