When you can look a thing dead in the eye, acknowledge that it exists, call it exactly what it is, and decide what role it will take in your life, then, my beloved, you have taken the first step toward your freedom
—Iyanla Vanzant
Ten months ago, Mark and Tonya sat in my office crying, their heads heavy in their hands. They wept tears of sadness and relief. At least everything was finally on the table. Although their marriage had been leveled, they could glimpse possibilities for rebuilding. The shame, rage, and fear Mark had been carrying for years had simply become too much, so over a stretch of exhausting days, he revealed to Tonya layer after layer of truths that he had kept hidden deep within. He confessed to having multiple affairs—affairs Tonya had long suspected without confirmation. He also revealed that as an adolescent he had been sexually abused by a teacher. Tonya’s heart was broken. She hurt everywhere as she learned what Mark went through years ago, and she was full of rage and sadness about his dishonest behavior in the marriage.
Today the relationship between Mark and Tonya is the strongest it has been. Mark is devoted to his recovery. Before his world crashed around him, he was a victim. In addition to acting out sexually, he was prone to fits of rage, quickly blaming Tonya for the problems in the marriage and unable to look at his own behavior. He is now a survivor. He stands honestly in his story—the story of his abuse, the story of his inappropriate and wildly hurtful actions, and the story of his healing. He is by no means perfect, as that is never the goal. But he is honest, and he is brave. He takes responsibility for the relationship challenges that resulted from his trauma (difficulties with trust and feeling close), which means that he no longer unfairly blames his wife. Tonya is healing as well. At first she felt that staying in the marriage was a sign of weakness, but as she claimed much-needed time and space to focus on herself, she unearthed her deepest truth: wanting to stay and see what is possible within the marriage. She began working to forgive Mark and asking for what she needs from him in order to rebuild trust.
Not every couple could (or should) survive a chapter like this, but Mark and Tonya are buoyed by a deep commitment to the life they built together and a belief that “the way out is through.”
Doing couples therapy with Mark and Tonya reminds me of the power of story—how much healing is possible when we bravely claim the stories of our lives and stand without shame in our truth. Storytelling yields understanding within a person and between people. There is a branch of psychology called personality psychology, and researchers in this field take a variety of approaches to understanding a person. Some personality psychologists say that personality is a collection of relatively stable traits like introversion, extroversion, neuroticism, and agreeableness. Other personality psychologists say that if you want to know someone, you need to know his or her life story. According to these folks, our life story is our personality. They say that we are our life story. They say that the best way to truly know a person is to know the story they tell about the life they live.
I have loved this storytelling approach to psychology since I first learned about it twenty-plus years ago, and honoring the power of story has served me in the classroom, in my therapy office, and in my own self-awareness journey. It means that instead of looking for symptoms or problems or what’s “wrong” with clients, I opt to bear witness as they weave together the moments of their journey thus far. It means that together we explore how their stories are serving them and how their stories are getting in their way. Our stories have a huge impact on how we feel about ourselves and our intimate relationships.
Think about the elements of a story. A story has a plot, events that happen in a sequence across time. A story has characters, usually a main character or narrator and a variety of supporting characters. A story has a setting, a context in which everything takes place. Beyond these basics, what we expect and desire is for a story to make sense. We like stories to have coherence and cohesiveness, holding together and flowing through time and space. Now think about your life story. Your life is a series of events (or chapters) that have taken place over time, in a variety of settings, with key others who impact and are impacted by you. The events of your life are dots, and how you connect them illuminates and creates your very self. The stories you tell about your life reflect all the messages you have internalized (from yourself, family, friends, and culture) about who you are in the world as well as messages about how the world works. How you cast yourself in the scenes and chapters of your story reflects what you have been told implicitly and explicitly about who you are. Are you a hero? A villain? A victim? A warrior? A damsel in distress? A survivor?
Research shows that how we tell the story of our lives is more meaningful than what actually happens to us. The tone and quality of the stories we tell about ourselves and our relationships say a lot about who we are. How we fit the events in our lives together reflects and shapes our outlook on life. How we tell our story affects how we interact with the world around us. Those of us whose life stories include blessings, goodness, and hope—even within sad and painful chapters—tend to live with more happiness and peace of mind. Those whose life stories are fragmented, incoherent, and thin tend to struggle to connect deeply with self and others (McAdams 2006). Your life story affects how you connect with those around you, so creating a life story that is coherent and cohesive is a key aspect of relational self-awareness.
The great news about our stories is that we are always in charge of them. We are the authors! And, when we are willing to bravely explore how we are living within our life story, we open the possibility to change course. This doesn’t mean denying or minimizing painful events in the service of writing a fairy tale. But it may mean that the first step toward greater empowerment, authenticity, and wholeness is becoming aware that early events in your life led you to be cast in a role that no longer serves you.
This shift toward greater empowerment, authenticity, and wholeness is the essence of Mark’s transformation. Mark had habitually cast himself in the role of a helpless victim in the story of his life. Plot lines were all about his need to keep his guard up to protect himself from others who were out to get him. This is indeed an accurate portrayal of the chapter in his life during which he was abused. He was in danger and he was not protected. Yet this traumatic chapter cast an enormous shadow on every other chapter of his story, leading him to connect the dots in his life in a way that reflected and perpetuated his victim stance. Haunted by a past he didn’t know how to face, he unthinkingly but vigilantly scanned the world for potential danger: His boss was going to betray him any day now, and his wife was deceitful and controlling. This lens skewed his perspective, created tremendous internal fear, and deeply compromised his ability to love. (For more about the impact of trauma, see appendix 1.)
Even without a trauma history like Mark’s, each and every one of us has negative themes that recur in our life stories. Let’s call these negative themes our core issues. A core issue is a vulnerability, a tender spot. It is a wound in need of healing—or at the very least, a still-tender scar. Core issues are sometimes called our shadow, our emotional allergies, or our emotional blind spots. Our core issues tend to hang just outside of our conscious awareness, leading us to mistake our perceptions for absolute Truth.
When we are unaware of our core issues or when we avoid or ignore them, we actually fuel our core issues and give them power. As the opening quote by Iyanla Vanzant reveals, looking your core issues in the eye and calling them what they are defuses them and allows you (not your pain, not your past) to be in charge of your life. I believe 100 percent in something that family therapists call the health premise (Pinsof 1995). The health premise is the idea that we are healthy until proven otherwise, and we are inherently worthy, good, and whole. Sometimes, usually because we are in pain, we behave in ways that are forgetful and do not honor that which we truly are. In other words, our natural state is supportive of connection and love (love of self and love of others). We learn hate, we learn fear, and we learn mistrust. Keeping the health premise in mind can reduce our resistance to looking at our core issues, as doing so helps us remember that we are deeply okay even as we look at parts of ourselves that feel messy and very much not okay.
When we don’t take the time to identify our specific tender spots, we are essentially stuck in an old story—one that may have accurately described the past but that doesn’t belong in the present. Being stuck means we are at risk of moving through the world with little awareness and even less control over our internal, emotional landscape. We are at risk of unfairly blaming others. We are at risk of feeling repeatedly like a victim. When Mark was stuck replaying his old story of pain and betrayal, he couldn’t show up for his relationship with Tonya. Showing up means being present and taking full responsibility for ourselves.
In all my years as a therapist, I have yet to meet a core issue that does not invoke my compassion and empathy. Core issues come from life experience, from the “nurture” aspect of the nature-nurture formula. Core issues can be created by experiences in your family of origin, experiences in school, experiences with friends, and/or relationship experiences.
Core issues can also be created by elements of your cultural identity intersecting with your life experiences. For example, an African American man growing up in the United States may identify a core issue of pervasive mistrust because of feedback he has received from the world around him based on the color of his skin. He may develop this core issue even if he grew up in a home where his parents provided an atmosphere of emotional safety and security. Similarly, a woman who identifies as lesbian may find herself struggling with a core issue of defectiveness because of societal messages she received about what it means to be gay.
Regardless of the origin of your core issues, one thing is for sure. Your core issues will get stirred up again and again in your intimate relationships. You have no control over that. It is the very nature of love. What you do have control over is how you respond when your intimate relationship invites you into deep, close contact with your tender spots. For example, Suzanne has a pattern of not being able to get past a first date with new women, and her story each time is that her date “says something stupid that’s a turnoff.” It is entirely possible that Suzanne keeps meeting Ms. Wrong. But I would invite her to entertain the hypothesis that this pattern reflects a core issue within her, and that her story about herself and the world around her is getting in her way.
Transforming this pattern and getting to a second date requires her to bravely examine how the story she is telling herself is getting in her way.
Willingness to stand honestly within our story takes guts. Tempting as it may be to omit chapters with pain, disappointment, and cruelty, doing so compromises our relationship with ourselves and therefore our relationship with others, including an intimate partner. Working to create a coherent and cohesive life story is healing. It also shines a light on negative themes, or core issues. You will begin to identify your core issues here and continue the work in later lessons as well. Owning our core issues moves us from passive to active, from victim to survivor, deepening our capacity to love.
How you tell the story of your life shapes how you live and how you love. Learn your old story so you can choose to make it anew.
The Story of Your Life
Create a table of contents for the story of your life. Ask yourself:
The intention of this exercise is twofold. Working with the story of your life in this way can help you bring to light the major themes that are at play in your life. In addition, the very process of working with your life story creates narrative coherence, which is healing.
Filling in the Details
As you create your table of contents, add some detail and richness to it by answering the following questions:
Next Chapters
As the author of your life story, your voice is everything. This final exercise will help you become and remain an empowered author. Select three to five overarching words or themes that capture the chapters of your life story so far. Some themes may be positive (resilience, setting and reaching goals, and so forth), but some may be negative, pointing you to your core issues. Next, write down three to five words or themes that you would like to have capture the upcoming chapters of your life story—your upcoming chapter themes. Put these two lists—your core issues and your upcoming chapter themes—side by side, and take note of the changes you are hoping to make. It might be helpful to frame these changes as shifts: “Shifting from ________________ to ________________.” If you prefer images to words, you could paint, draw, or create a collage that captures what you would like to bring into your life going forward.