Changing Our Narratives, Changing Our Lives: A Strategy to Unhook from the Unhelpful Stories We Tell Ourselves

Not long ago I was caught up in a temporary funk of self-doubt. I was at a several day event surrounded by incredibly talented people and I found myself slipping back into an old narrative involving social comparison and thoughts of “I’m not good enough.” In the past, these kinds of thoughts and stories I was telling myself could have spiraled me into a more stuck place. They might have even overtaken me. This time I was able to see what was going on from a more neutral, observing, and even compassionate place. I could recognize this very old story and not give it such power. Eventually it loosened its grip. The funny thing is, this was a VERY old story. It started when I was four years old and my sister was born. I was jealous, and from my four-year-old eyes, I believed that I must not be good enough since my parents had another baby to shower their attention on. And so this story began, and took on different forms throughout my childhood as other experiences unfolded to reinforce these beliefs. I am well into the seasons of my adulthood and yet these old beliefs can still resurface at times with a strong emotional pull. As a psychologist working with patients for over twenty years, one of the common sources of suffering that I see is how we can all get hooked into old stories and narratives that grew out of our attempts to make sense of experiences in our childhood, but that are ultimately inaccurate and that no longer serve us. As children, we inevitably experience...
Source: World of Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Mindfulness Personal Self-Esteem Self-Help Authenticity Inner Child self-compassion Self-Talk self-worth Source Type: blogs