“Nobody likes me. I’m unlikable.” “I die alone.” “I don’t deserve to live.” How do the stories people tell lead to this end of despair? Did it start with abuse at home because of not meeting family expectations? Or maybe it was ridiculed by teachers for not being fast enough? Each “not enough” scorecard shapes who they are, their sense of identity. Until they reach a point in their lives when the burden of these problem-saturated stories becomes too heavy to bear. Others may look at them and wonder, “What’s wrong with them?” When the question is really, “What are they up against and what are the hardships they’ve faced that have shaped their stories?”
Humans are meaning-makers. The stories we tell ourselves help provide us with a structure for constructing meaning. A father looks at a child angrily and the child admits, “I’ve done something bad.” Most of the time, the father looks at the child angrily The child comes to a conclusion“I’m bad.” Our meaning-making is influenced by the cultural soup of ‘not enough’ in which we live. Normative ideas of competence and success that we constantly measure ourselves against.
“I keep feeling that something is wrong with me. I’m miserable” Vani shared this with me with a shrug and trembling voice. She was 11 and already talking about being “a frustration to my teachers and a burden on my parents”. She was neurodivergent and didn’t fit into the competent pedagogies drilled in schools. So the inevitable stories she was telling herself that she was told. The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice and the way we talk about them, and later, they talk to themselves Doers become their life stories.
What stories were told about you growing up and what stories are you telling about yourself now? These can be affirming stories where you describe yourself as lazy, irresponsible or unsuccessful, dismissive of losers, etc. as well as vivacious, caring, and funny. They may all co-exist but there is always one dominant story. It begins to shape the way we see ourselves and the world sees us. This story is influential because it shapes our identity.
This is why it is so important for us to examine this dominant narrative that, at times, can be too restrictive and harmful for speech. If of speech The story of his life “I’m unworthy” continues as she grows and becomes an adult, preventing her from believing in her abilities, finding meaningful friendships, and having a sense of agency in her own life. He may spend most of his life feeling ignored, isolated and invisible.
How can we reclaim the right to tell the story of our lives?
Make a specialty – Reflect on the story of a problem that can define your life. In this exercise, it is very important that we create distance between ourselves and this problem story. Since when has it been around? In what situations do you feel its presence? What would you name it (eg anxiety, inadequacy, loneliness etc.)? Maybe go a step further and give it color, shape, sound. If it was a cartoon character, what would it look and sound like? How confident are you? What language does it use to push these identification conclusions on you? How does it compare to others? What does it predict about your future? Do you see how the story of the problem you internalize is the cause of the insidious pressure we all face to fit standard ideas of success and worthiness? What if we could develop a mindset that reminds us, “I’m not the problem, it’s the pressure to fit society’s standards.” What if we could figure out where the problem is?
Inner compass – I found a fascinating set of questions. “What breaks your heart, what heals it and what steps can you take to heal?” What breaks my heart is the injustice towards children and the steps I can take to heal this is to extend the message of “Kids First” in whatever I do through therapy, teaching and my writing. It shakes me, hurts me, protects me and restores my faith in humanity. At every step. What will be your inner compass and what are the subtle actions you can take to sustain you on this journey?
Alternate voice – Sometimes the problem narrative will try to take charge and bring up self-doubt, inadequacy, fear, etc. That is inevitable. A turning point for us is an act of reclaiming our lives by making room for an alternative voice or story. We can give it a name, a character, a shape, even a tone. In my conversations with people, this voice has taken on different names – courage, joy, curiosity. 12-year-old Rahi was living in a house where she was subjected to a lot of violence and accusations. When I met him, he internalized the violence at home, saying, “There’s something wrong with me and I’m guilty.” We externalized the flaw through characterization and then discovered how much he valued compassion and care. He prefers to see an alternative voice in the form of a caring parent who gently protects him when violence erupts at home.
Sometimes people prefer to name it after an inspirational character from a mythological story or book or movie. Vani prefers to call her alternate voice Durga. Every time she heard the story of “You are miserable,” she would gently recall Durga’s voice and say to herself, “you are strongI am with you, and you can do it.” In time, her parents also began to believe in Vani and became her staunch advocates.
If we want to bring about change, we all have to stand with each other. This is not an individual responsibility, it is a collective responsibility. In the words of the late Aunty Barbara Wingard, a First Nations Australian storytelling practitioner, the magic lies in “telling our stories in a way that strengthens us”.
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