Facing Stories

On inner storytelling, narrative freedom, and the choice to see your story anew

Some stories don't shout

They thread themselves through gestures

A phrase we've inherited

A silence that shaped a moment

We don't just live life

We interpret it

And often, we forget

The way we tell it isn't the only way it can be said

The narrative isn't neutral

In narrative psychology

A story is not a memory

It is a frame

A lens

A rhythm we rehearse until it feels like the truth

Who do you think you are

Why

What do you believe you can or cannot do

But what if your story was shaped by voices, not your own

By conclusions drawn too soon

By a culture that spoke too loudly over who you might have been

Not fixing the story. Facing it.

You don't need to fix the past

But you can face it

You can listen differently

You can notice what still aches and what wants to breathe

To retell a story is not to rewrite history

It is to reclaim authorship

To offer it a new language and a different seat at the table of meaning

Questions to meet yourself differently

What part of your story was written by someone else

What happens when you move a full stop

Who are you in the version that ends with kindness

What remains when you stop calling it a failure

"The person is not the problem. The problem is the problem. The story around it can be retold."

Michael White

Narrative unfolding

Take one memory you revisit often

Write it in the third person

Notice what changes

Now try from another point of view

As if seen by someone who offers compassion

Let the story soften

Let the ending remain open

It may still be true

But it doesn't have to stay the same

You're invited to see it again

To name gently

To begin mid-sentence

Download: Facing Stories- Journal + Card Deck