I would lie if I said that I started this blog having a detailed plan for going forward. But one thing I knew well: it would be about storytelling and the power of stories. It would be about how stories take hold of us, enlighten us or push us into submission, make us happy or miserable. How we live with stories – in fact, live inside these stories – for years or even decades, and what it does to our life and sense of self.

I feel that I’ve somehow drifted away from this recently and I’d like to reconnect with what made me start the blog in the first place.

Obviously, I am talking about stories in a broader sense: novels, folk tales, legends, and all sorts of fiction or semi-fiction (such as childhood memories). But most of all I am talking about self-narratives – the things we tell ourselves about who we are, what we are capable of, and who we can be.

Stories are enchanting. Spellbinding. They pull us in.

We need stories to find meaning and purpose, to heal, and to help others heal. Stories help us make sense of the world and our place in it. But it’s important to be aware of what these stories are.

I remember reading a novel about fifteen years ago. There were only a few dozen pages left and I slowed down my reading so I can make it last longer. I didn’t want it to end. It wasn’t the suspense, there was nothing dramatic left to happen. It was the bitter-sweet pleasure of extending my presence in that world. The emotional connection.

That was a story I didn’t just read. I lived in it for a while. I inhabited that space together with its characters, and I was miserable, lighthearted, or emotional along with them.

Self-narratives

I also remember living through moments of intense shame, guilt, or inadequacy. Often, it was hard to tell why I was feeling that way, and why the intensity. I knew it was linked somehow to my insecurities, desire to please, need for validation and approval.

These insecurities, doubts, shame, and inadequacy were also part of a story. It was a story that I kept on telling myself (or that kept on playing itself, like a song on repeat) under the radar of self-awareness. One that was rooted in a core belief of defectiveness.

The problem with self-narratives is that we can get stuck in their universe even if it’s hurting us. We don’t exactly know how we entered that universe in the first place, and we are unable to find our way back out. It’s like a door that simply disappeared and now there’s uninterrupted wall all around.

A novel can deeply touch and stay with us for months or years, but they are still narratives from which we can take distance. With self-stories, this detachment becomes much more difficult because the narrative becomes part of our identity. It becomes the basis of how we think about ourselves and our place in the world.

Self-narratives are part of our sense of identity. We become what we came to believe about ourselves, whether or not it has ever been true. Ideas of self-worth, competence, and ability and embedded in our narratives. Getting rid of a toxic idea means dealing with the story it is part of.

Toxic stories are persistent and powerful. Part of the reason is that it takes time and effort to realize their toxicity when you’ve been living with them long enough. It takes a shift of perspective, a degree of critical detachment, to start seeing them for what they are.

But even then, realizing their toxicity will not be enough to get rid of them. No matter how harmful, we may choose to hang on to the story because giving it up feels like giving up part of ourselves. It feels as if we don’t have anything else to hang on to.

Toxic stories are powerful, but they are not invincible. They can be undermined by learning to tell a better story. A kinder, more forgiving story that starts from the same basic facts but frames them differently. 

Learning to tell a different story

One way of reframing self-narratives is to identify the hidden assumptions of our self-narrative and question them. It may be that we’re feeling responsible and guilty for everything that didn’t work out. Or maybe we have a deep-seated fear of loneliness or failure. Once we start seeing behind the curtain of the drama playing continuously in our heads, the drama starts losing its edge.

There are several techniques and therapeutic approaches, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy, that encourage us to become aware of our cognitive scripts (the self-narratives). Once we do that, we can question them, put them to the test, play with them, and find alternative scripts. All this is meant to create some distance between us and the story we tell ourselves.

Once there is enough detachment, we recognize the story as a story. An artifact. Something that was made and can be unmade.

Toxic stories can also be undermined by simply paying attention to what others are going through. Gaining perspective. Getting out of our little bubble of misery and making space for compassion, empathy, and a sense of shared experience. 

Focusing on others shifts the attention away from our suffering, which changes our perception of how intense or pervasive this suffering is. More importantly, however, it also offers perspective and insight into our situation. We recognize ourselves in the struggle of others. 

Through them, we can look at ourselves from the outside. We see ourselves as human beings going through suffering without identifying with it.

Through them, we sense that all this hurt is not only ours — it’s a common human experience. And there are so many who had it way worse than us. There’s a certain humility that comes from detaching ourselves from our own suffering. Even in our suffering, we’re not that special. The world has not conspired to hurt us. It’s just the ebb and flow of life.