“Who are you if your story begins to change? Do not be so loyal to your suffering that your healing doesn't stand a chance.” Vienna Pharaon

I had a frank conversation with a friend a while ago that shook the foundations of my world. That sounds melodramatic but almost in an instant, it reframed the way I thought about myself. It’s funny how that can happen. One minute you’re making your way through the world, thinking something about yourself and then all of a sudden you see things differently. My friend essentially told me that I am not aware of my own power.

“You are not aware of your own power”

Up to that point, though, I’d been thinking of myself as being powerless. I’ve done a lot of work on myself and I know myself pretty well, but at that point I was still healing from past trauma and while I felt strong and grounded in many areas of my life, this particular aspect had left me feeling raw and vulnerable in a way that hadn’t felt manageable.

While my feelings about my experience and the way I show up in the world were and are very, very valid, I realised that the stories I told myself every day about my struggles actually weren’t all that true any more. I started to understand that I’d been wielding my story like a shield. I was holding on to my past suffering, stewing in the energy of being a victim. Viewing myself through the lens of the past was clouding the way I moved through the world in the present and it was impacting on my ability to connect with people.

Even at that point in my journey, I was significantly further along than I had previously been. At one point, when my trauma was still fresh and raw I carried it like a weapon. I was ready to attack, rather than let people get close to me because I was hurting so badly.

I am not beating myself up about getting stuck in my story. We hold on to our stories to stay safe and it’s easier to push forward the hard parts of ourselves, rather than the soft parts that leave us feeling exposed. We let people see our projected version of ‘self’, the version that’s hypervigilant and ready to defend or fight, instead of offering the authentic vulnerability that leads to deeper connections.

I chatted about this to another friend recently and it struck me that when we put these old stories front and centre when meeting new people, we invite them to view us through that lens. We make what we’re telling them a core part of the way they experience us. Do we really want people to define us by our past experiences, or do we want them to experience the person we are in this moment?

Now, in this moment, I can feel how much I have softened. I am not defining myself by stories from my past, and I feel lighter. I am not projecting my past experience into the present (as much… I’m still a human being after all!) and it feels joyful to be more curious and have fewer expectations of others.

So who are you if your story begins to change? Are there stories that you tell yourself that don’t represent who you are now, in this moment? And how can you release them? Here are a few suggestions:

Think about the ways that hanging on to the story might be serving you
Write an inventory of where you are now. What is the evidence that the old story no longer applies?
Write your story out in detail and then ceremonially burn it
Reframe the story. What are the positive things that came out of it?
Work through your feelings with a therapist

Our stories are created by us and we’re under no obligation to honour them. You’re not the person you used to be, because none of us are.

“Do not be so loyal to your suffering that your healing doesn't stand a chance.”