Star of Your Own Story
When asked I do consider myself the star of my own story. But doesn't everyone, I mean, if we were really honest about it? After all, how many of us have daydreamed about writing the great American novel or experienced moments that felt like scenes from a movie?
Sigmund Freud distinguished healthy and unhealthy narcissism. Starring in our personal narratives is only narcissistic if the titles of our stories are ‘me, my, and only mine’. But what if the title of your novel is ‘serving humanity’ or ‘family comes first?’
Martin Luther King and Mother Theresa starred in numerous biographies written about them. They were the stars of their stories, but their storylines were about living for causes larger than themselves.
Research suggests that our brains are wired to process information in narrative form. Think about it, we tell stories all day, about how we spent the day, funny things that happened, and issues that bother us. We often frame our stories in terms of supporting characters, spouses, parents, children, friends, colleagues, to name a few. Adversarial ones, the disapproving mother-in-law, the psychotic, power hungry boss, or the crazy ex boyfriend. We classify our lives as chapters, which we call the good old days, hard times, getting married, and raising children. We get frustrated by sudden plot twists, excited by climaxes like weddings and falling in love, and we are disheartened by tragedies.
The whole social media revolution is predicated on people's desire to tell their stories in moment-to-moment sound-bites and more explicative narratives. May your tiger be tamed.
Despite our predilections as natural storytellers, few of us actually take time to step out of our stories and figure out what they're about. Who is writing our script, why we've selected our chosen roles, or how the challenges we face can help us develop the strengths we need to move to the next chapter.
It's very difficult to be objective about our own stories. As a practicing psychotherapist, I've noticed that people call me when they're stuck in old storylines that no longer serve them. Tired of telling themselves the same self-defeating story over and over, they seek in me an objective listener who can read between the lines of the scripts in their heads and help them restructure their narratives in ways that are powerful and meaningful.
Another reason is that many people are afraid to question their storylines for fear that they might not like what they find. But this might be more a problem of over-valuing materialist achievements and undervaluing the subtle but substantive personal victories that build character, facing a fear, changing an attitude, or kicking a bad habit.
With so much pressure in society to have it all together, so many don't realize that their lives can be works in progress and still be masterpieces.
Psychology Today
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