"We tell ourselves stories in order to live... We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the "ideas" with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience."--Joan Didion
As members of the human race, we were made to tell stories.
Stories are a way for us to control the world around us, create meaning in places it doesn’t exist. Stories help us to process our own emotions, and relate them to others. We tell stories to create bonds, and be a part of a shared history.
Stories are passed down in families, cultures and even nations. Fact or fiction, legend or epic, we’ve fed on these narratives since birth.
But what about the stories that aren’t told? The ones about ourselves that we’d rather forget? The ones that are shameful, damning or scarring? The ones that are painful to remember, let alone process and put into words?
These stories are powerful too.
The stories we refuse to tell are dangerous, because they’re denying a part of ourselves.
Based in fear and shame, we isolate ourselves and bear the weight of these stories alone. And by doing so, we believe we are.
When we don’t tell a story, we hold it so deeply inside ourselves that it becomes a part of us, whether we like it or not. All the unspoken fears weigh in our chests, growing and living a life of their own.
We try to forget these stories, and pretend that they never happened. But the difference between the stories we hear and the stories that are a part of our lives, is that our stories cannot be erased or forgotten.
The stories of our lives were not meant to be forgotten; they were meant to be shared.
Even if they’re hard to tell, they need to be told; because stories exist to let us know we’re not alone.
All it takes is the courage to tell them, and you’d be surprised at how many others have a similar story. And that it’s okay to feel that way.
The stories we refuse to tell grow inside of us, and in the darkness seem so large and frightening. But in the light, there is truth, and freedom in seeing them as they are: just stories.
When we don’t tell a story, we can’t escape from it within ourselves.
But when we tell stories, the stories no longer belong to us, and there is freedom in that.
Telling a story presents the narrator with a choice: whether to let the story become a part of themselves, or let it be only a story. Because after all, you are not the things that happened to you, or what you do; you are who you choose to be.
You are the protagonist of your own story, and you have nothing to fear.
