The Stories We Tell Ourselves

We tell ourselves stories all the time, varying from “that’s just my luck” to the deeper less-acknowledged and sometimes self-sabotaging stories we’re barely aware of.

Thinking about the stories I was and still am drawn to, I notice that part of me is intrigued by tales (usually biography or memoir) in which the person bravely goes forward to do something that is doomed to failure, yet out of the resultant debacle something good emerges, something other than the original intent.

I was drawn, for example, to my father’s life story. He was in the RAF in WW2 at a time when men and planes were sent off to do impossible deeds and most of them didn’t survive, let alone succeed. He did survive, though, much to his surprise. He then had to work out a way to live a life in peacetime, in a world he found alien. He did this, more or less, but the traumatic stress never left him.

Unconsciously I took on this paradigm, at some deep level. I interpret aspects of my life as if this actually were my tale. In making it my story I’ve, perhaps, ignored a different story, and I’m sure my unconscious has been trying very hard to make sure I confirm this myth. In many ways it succeeded in that. I spent many years seeing my life as a series of lucky escapes just before everything went to hell.

But I can change this. I can choose a different story. I do not believe that everything is just about to go to hell. I believe we have much more productive work to do, all of us, and that we can do it.

But first we have to make sure we don’t believe a story that isn’t, in fact, ours.

So, what’s your story?