We all have our story. From time to time we tell our story… to friends, relatives, co-workers, co-passengers, bystanders, strangers, bartenders, and of course people tell their story to therapists. It’s your story and you are the one telling it.
Here’s a big question: When you tell your story, do you tell the truth?
Some people embellish their story. Some people hedge a bit. Some gloss over details here and there while others outright fabricate.
So I ask you again: When you tell your story, do you tell the truth?
I believe you always tell the truth. You can’t help it. But the truth I’m talking about here is not objective, universal truth. I’m talking about your personal truth.
A therapist’s job is listening to your story and trying to zero in on the truth. Not the truth of the story, but the truth of you, the person. These are quite different things. We are always telling the truth about ourselves, to anyone who can see past our words.
Sometimes, for whatever reason, someone else winds up telling our story.
Here’s another big question: When someone else tells your story, do they tell the truth?
Absolutely they do! However, the truth they tell is their truth, not yours. You are hearing their story told through the details of your life. That is a very interesting (and potentially confusing) turn of events. But there is an upside…
It takes your story to new and interesting places. It opens up new ways of seeing the story when you view it through someone else’s eyes. This is a very rich opportunity indeed! It gives us the chance to find refreshingly new takes on our story… and ourselves.
Recently some very accomplished story tellers decided to tell a bit of my story. Here is a glimpse of what it can look like when that happens: