We story everything. Romances, friendships, circumstances, and virtually all life experiences are fit into categories of what makes sense to what we know and believe. We have foundations in check, cognitively, religiously, and spiritually that we fall back on in tough circumstances.

But how we story everything matters, and matters a lot, as argues Deborah Khoshaba of Psychology Today. Therapy knows this, and often works to re-frame an existing narrative that is destructive to a person's growth or ability to move forward. There are two ways, according to do this in modern psychological discussions: we can change our behaviors or we can change our dialogues.

To change our story is to change our dialogues. "People learn how to reflect upon and organize their thoughts and feelings into a meaningful dialogue about their lives and the things that happen to them." These things can be good or bad, but those definitions are often left up to us at the end of the day.

Throughout the article, Khoshaba uses the example of Gayle Haggard, the wife of Ted Haggard. Gayle Haggard had to refocus her life after revelations that her husband, Ted Haggard, a fierce Christian evangelical advocate against same-sex marriage, paid male prostitute, Mike Jones, for sex for three years. How she must have felt in the midst of the scandal must have been unimaginable, but she asked herself these questions: "Who am I going to be in this story? What do I really believe, and what do I really value, and what's worth fighting for, for me?"

So how do we re-frame and change our stories and our dialogues? That is a question I often ask myself, these days. Are the soul-searching, self-critical and scathing questions I ask about myself these days just the wrong questions? Am I missing the point?

Khoshaba first urges us to "consider your thoughts and feelings, even the ones that you may be trying to avoid or deny." It is important for ourselves to address the feelings we have, and let ourselves feel them. If you're suffering, suffer. If you're afraid, let yourself feel afraid. The first step is a plea against denial, and face the worst parts of yourself and your life. You have to consider if all your fears were true, if all the things people say about you and people you love were true, what would happen next?

Next, Khoshaba urges us to "second, generate the understanding and meaning from this process that opens you to the role that best serves the aims, goals, and purpose of your whole life." This is the step where you have to reconnect and remind yourself who you are. My pastor asks me to remind myself, whenever I doubt and whenever I ask myself scathing questions, that I'm a beloved child of God. Remind yourself of what your values are, and list the three values that are most important to you. My lifelong values, that I fall short of far too often, are inclusion, unconditional love, and empathy.

Of course, in a moment of crisis where we have to re-orient to see which values matter most in our individual conversations. In crises I'm currently struggling through, patience and peace may supersede some of my lifelong values. It's important to acknowledge and address when we're in an especially conflictual chapter of our stories.

"Third, pick up on the stories already inside of you that perhaps you have forgotten, missed, or lost. These stories that have been in pushed into the background of your awareness often contain aspects of your personality that you can use to start a new chapter of your life."

There's often no better evidence for our inner strength and resilience than our own autobiographical memories. And finding this evidence sometimes has to go a long way back. I find myself patient with people in a non-traditional, persistent way. I will get frustrated. I will get impatient when my friends are chronically late and don't follow through on plans, but never have I pulled the plug on anyone. In fact, it led me to appreciate those friends more. In the past, I have been open and vulnerable past boundaries that people generally talk about. I'm more willing to talk about my deep personal issues than I used to. It is from the old storylines that we find new ones.

"The story framework that results from these three steps should serve as a bridge to your future." The best organization of our life experiences is the one that gives us the most peace, that invokes a physiological response of simultaneous tumult and joy. Your story has to be a "personal story [that] allows you to endure, learn and grow," and with an honest story that mixes the good, bad, and ugly, we give ourselves the fuel to move forward.