Celebrating Your Story

Yes, you have a story to tell!  You know this story very well and all the minute details, because it is your story! You know, your life!

Maybe you have never considered that your life history is interesting, but trust me it is! I have never met a human being that does not have their story to tell that is unique and interesting.

If you were to walk into my therapy room for whatever reason, I would be looking forward not only to helping you in whatever way I can, but to be fascinated by your life.

Each human being is a walking and talking novel in the making.  Most of you have no idea how significant or how interesting your life history is.

When asked by a professional writer what kind of books  I prefer to read; I said nonfiction over fiction. Why?  Because listening to the lives of my patients I found far more intricate and interesting than anything that could come from  the imagination of a fiction writer’s pen!

Perhaps you think your life has been way too ordinary to be of any interest.  But ordinary does not exist in the trenches of living this life!

Each life is an intricate woven tapestry of life experiences as only you could have lived, and yes, each life is unique in so many details.

Don’t ever think that your life isn’t full of surprising twists that you probably may not have seen, because you were too busy in living it.

There are mysteries to your life experiences as well, as to why and how you ended up doing this and that.  As a therapist I enjoy connecting the dots so to speak that I can see as themes.

Your relationships with all the people who were significant in your life have all played a part in shaping how you feel and the perspective that colours your life vision.

The first most significant people in your life were of course your parents. You came into their lives totally innocent of whatever is to unfold in your life.

The relationship your parents offered you became your fundamental blueprint of seeing the world, for the best or for the worse.

If you were lucky to have a fairly mentally healthy father and mother, your life took off in the best of means.  If life dealt you a difficult card with very wounded parents, you were set up to suffer because of the scars they inflicted upon you.

How you have learned to navigate life with those scars that formed your outlook and your projections, becomes a fascinating tale of survival.

Some of you that came from an abusive childhood, have defied the odds and built a life of sanity around you.  Others have not been so lucky and are still dragging their cotton bag of hurts and pain around that has limited the horizons of their life.

Those scars may have led you into some rough and painful relationships, as in your own way you were drawn to them, because loving them recreated the very relationship you so desperately had hoped to heal.

Obviously, I am referring to one of your parents with whom you experienced your most painful conflicts that left imprinted connotations or mirrored  how you expected and saw others relating to you.

Your struggle with life, including dealing with the scars that you carried into adulthood are in reality a monumental history worthy of writing about and telling!

I remember during one of my very first clinical rotations of being sent to a nursing home.  I was blown away with the stories I heard from these elderly everyday folks who lived what they considered a very ordinary life.

Some of you may never had the luxury of sharing your life struggle with a therapist, who can marvel at your resiliency and strengths that you probably never knew you had.

You are  actually a sculpted walking masterpiece that life has chipped  and chiseled. Your individual twists and turns life has presented is interesting to how you reacted to them.

No, no other person can tell your story like you can.  That is why it is important for you to write it down or record it.  All of us can benefit from reading our own story told in our own words.

In doing so, you are able to see a more complete picture of your life.  Yes, more than likely there will be certain themes than you can look upon, not to be critical with yourself, but as information to digest and understand perhaps why.

If any changes of how you are living your life is desired, this is an excellent way to see the direction you are going, especially if you are willing to take a new route.

From your life story, you have the possibility to outline a new map.  This may be working towards a new perspective or a new way of seeing yourself.

Sometimes it involves a plan of action to start taking baby step towards achieving.  Changes and new directions must only come from within ourselves, as they can never be initiated at least successfully by someone else, being it a parent or well meaning love one.

A perfect example can be seen in listening to alcoholics and addicts, who would tell me that previously unsuccessful attempts at sobriety were done for others.

These attempts rarely succeed, because they did not come from the inner well of that suffering person, but from the concerns of someone else.

They often remark that when they fought for sobriety because they wanted it for themselves, is when the recovery process took root.  We really only value what we feel is best for us, not what someone deems we should do.

Did you ever think that your struggles in life might give someone else facing similar circumstances some food for thought?

We can often learn from the mistakes of others who have already fallen through the cracks of life and had to resurrect themselves.

Your story might be the very inspiration that could motivate another human being to start making needed changes.

Hearing about how you overcame life obstacles is uplifting and helps others devise a plan of climbing over their own seemingly insurmountable high brick walls.

Using your life story to help someone else if a gift, pure and simple.  The wisdom you have gained in living through life’s hardships can often offer hope to others that they too have a chance.

Another reason to write down your life story is for the many future generations to come.  How often I wished that I knew something about a distant great-grandfather or mother.

Not all of us are going to be born into a family where previous members made such societal waves and or accomplishments that their life history has been recorded by biographers.

As I mentioned earlier that no one else can record your story life as you can. There is one very important element to consider!

The truth! When others who only vaguely knew you or worse never had the chance to know you,  might very easily misconstrue what you stood for and how you really were in reality.

Sure, I realise there are con artists out there, who paint a super glossy portrait of themselves as if they were the new messiah or guru that hold the keys of a country’s direction or life’s secrets.

Many are in politics and finance that have risen through the ranks by fooling others into believing their lies and deceptions.

Their sugar coated self portrayals fortunately can be often debunked by the string of people left behind that have been fooled, stolen from and lied to.

One of the things I most often look forward to hearing about are the out of the blue opportunities that suddenly appeared to you or when doors are opened that you never knocked upon.

Another is the how certain people became significant relationships to you, that often take on surprising interweaving events.

It is amazing the amount of synchronistic events that happened in your lives, if only you know  how to look for them.

These seemingly coincidental happenings or occurrences in your life constitute some of  the most fascinating parts of your life that are mystical in dimension.

Whether you write in out by hand or on your computer to be printed out( the easier way), it makes for the most personal treasured gift to give to your children and grandchildren.

As we get older many of us start to get interested in our family tree, and our genetic lineage.  Once our beloved grandparents,  parents, aunts and uncles leave us, we will have no one else around to ask about our relatives past histories, unless they have been recorded and easily found.

Finding letters from these ancestors gives us so much more information about their lives, that you are not going to find in courthouse records.

I know my own children were absolutely fascinated by the life history written by their paternal grandmother who miraculously  survived war torn Europe.

You can also preserve your memories about great and grandparents for those in your family that will be born after them.

We can’t live forever, but our own life histories can as they can be handed down like a treasured family bible for future generations to come.

Now is the time to become a legacy!