Making Sense of Our Stories

We often worry that we won’t have a choice about how we turn out as adults; and if we have children, how we will parent them. It’s a common fear I hear in my professional work and in my personal life. There’s a sense that we’re tethered to our past. Or that our past experience casts a long shadow that we can’t escape, its dark outline looming no matter how much progress we make. 

This is certainly true to an extent—our relationships to ourselves and others are deeply informed by the all the experiences we had and behaviors we learned in our formative years. For some of us, that’s a good thing. We’re thankful for those experiences and hope to pass them along.  Others of us are haunted by the idea of becoming what our parents were. And for many, we’re somewhere in the middle. We have a lot to love and a lot we hope to do differently.  

Whatever the case, that shadow of our past looms large. We wonder if we’re fated to repeat it all. The only way to change that shadow is to turn on the light, to turn it on brightly and examine our story, to organize and understand it, and ultimately to accept and move through it. When the shadow is eliminated by the light of reflection and insight, the story finally makes sense and gets integrated into our lives. 

Understanding, sorting through, and making sense of our stories is a useful way to sum up a lot of therapeutic work. We use therapy to excavate our past in order to understand how it informs our relationships and present experiences. We can’t effectively make change without understanding our stories because our stories inform who we are today, and it’s liberating when we begin to understand those connections. Instead of reacting blindly in anger when a child misbehaves, or when a friend cancels dinner, we’re able to choose how to respond in the present moment because we understand why those interactions are triggering our feelings.

It turns out that most often in our triggered moments—when the energy you feel inside is bigger than the event outside—our reactions aren’t really about the child’s behavior or the cancellation. They’re about our interpretation of those events based on our past experience.  If your house was always chaotic and unpredictable, your rambunctious misbehaving child may make you so anxious that you get angry. And if you couldn’t count on your dad to follow through or prioritize you, your friends needing to change plans will feel like confirmation that you are alone and you can't count on anyone. 

“Early experiences are not fate: If we can make sense of our past—if we integrate our narratives—we can free ourselves from what might otherwise be a cross-generational legacy of pain and insecure attachment.” - Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., Mindsight

For parents, the goal is to raise children with a secure attachment style, which means they have a sense of well-being that enables them to feel secure and to go out and explore. That sense of well-being is created by predictable and sensitive care-givers. Securely attached children are more likely to develop positively in many areas from social to emotional to cognitive.  The way we provide that for our children, or for ourselves and our adult relationships, is to continue to develop into securely attached people ourselves.  But what if you weren’t given a good start, if you weren't given that secure base—are you fated to make poor choices in your relationships? This is where research has wonderful news for all of us. It’s therapeutic to tell your story to someone who cares about you. 

“Studies have shown that individuals can move from what was an insecure attachment to a secure adult attachment status. These studies examine the finding of an ‘earned-security’ status, one that is important for our understanding of coherent functioning and possibilities for change. Individuals with earned security may have had troubled relationships with their parents during their own childhoods, but they have come to make sense of their childhood experiences and their impact on their development as adults. Relationships, both personal and therapeutic, appear to be able to help an individual develop from an incoherent (insecure) to a more coherent (secure) functioning of mind. Such growth is carried out through relationships that help an individual to heal old wounds and transform defensive approaches to intimacy,” - Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., and Mary Hartzell, M. Ed., Parenting from the Inside Out

When we move from an incoherent narrative of our lives (meaning we haven’t really examined, understood, or accepted our experiences) to a coherent narrative (meaning we’ve been through that process in the context of trusting relationships), we can have more influence over who we become to ourselves and our loved ones.  None of us get to pick where we start in life, but with intentional care, and making sense of our stories, we can all have a say in where we end up. 

Read More:

Mindsight, Daniel Siegel, M.D.  (Chapter 9)

Parenting From the Inside Out, Daniel J. Siegel and Mary Hartzell, M.Ed. (Chapter 6)

Becoming Attached, Robert Karen, Ph.D.