Rewrite Your Life...

If your life story isn’t what you’d hoped, it’s not too late to write a second draft.

 

- Margie Warrell

When I talk about writing your life story, or more often ‘rewriting’ your story, I’m not referring to penning a dazzling autobiography to be placed front and centre in book stores around the country. Far from it. 

The life story I’m referring to may never be read by anyone, but it can have no less a profound impact on your life than hitting the New York Times bestseller list. Here’s why. 

As human beings we live in ‘stories’ – about who we are, about how we were raised, what our parents got right, what they got wrong, about how we were wronged or the wrongs we committed. Our stories aren’t necessarily  ‘the truth’ but they are our interpretation of it. And every story produces an emotion – pride, shame, guilt, blame, bitterness, gratitude, ambition, anger or anxiety, and so on. However, too often people have a story about their lives that doesn’t serve them and holds their future hostage to their past. Perhaps they blame their parents for screwing up their childhood, or bought into a belief that they aren’t worthy or are deficient in some way. That they aren’t educated enough, loveable enough clever enough, capable enough or able to change those aspects of their lives that make them miserable.

When we live from a story like this, it shrinks what we see as possible for ourselves and stops us from ever even daring to change our lives.