The Importance of Story
Our story is important to where we are today. Our history contains pain and joy and learning and experiences that we love to reflect on. The important part of story is to be able to reconcile the parts of our story that are painful and appreciate the parts that were great. Many people do not reflect on their past. It can contain a part of them that is too painful. If that is the case for you, I would recommend that you seek out counselling and do so. When you are desiring to live fully and you have things in your past that are painful that are swept under the rug, they will often trip you up. When you are constantly training in psychology and even in spiritual direction training as I am, you look at your life path often with its highs and lows. I am currently in a soul care group of women and so once again that was part of an assignment.
Because the questions were asked differently, to my surprise, I got different answers to the beginning of my life. These were potentially quite painful. I had never thought about this before and did not feel the pain psychologically in my past. But I know that the body stores things through the right hemisphere of the brain into the body, especially if they are distressing (it is believed particularly before you are verbal – one of those things that are correlational but not able to be counted scientifically). So it was important that that was not a hidden part of my story and I could look at how it might have impacted me for the worse. It was also important that I give that part of my story compassion and see what good had come out of that experience. That helps to resolve the painful part so that it need not trip me up.
Thinking new thoughts about my story adds to my memory. Memory is not static as we think it is. It evolves as we take things out and look at them. This allows us to become unstuck when we change our story. Resolving an event also makes continuity in my life. When I see where I have come from and what I have accomplished, it makes me feel a sense of pride and helps with my confidence -competence loop. I encourage you to look at your life path, putting important good and bad times that occurred with approximate dates. You may have some things that you need to look at -or put a new slant on -in order to live your life more fully and appreciate more of who you are. Go forth and be wonderful today!
