Be Mindful of What Stories You Tell about Your Life

Imagine being in the process of getting to know someone new. Inevitably,
there comes a moment when they ask you about the story of your life.
I guess you don’t need to think especially hard to answer. And that ability of
your mind is pretty fascinating.


You see, telling the story of your life is more than a systematic listing of the
facts and events. Aside from being boring, that would be very time-consuming.
No, as a skilled storyteller, your mind continuously creates narratives
from a vast array of memories. While telling a story, you are not only
remembering your experiences, but also simultaneously selecting and
adding meaning to them. At different points in your life, you have slightly
different memories included in your story—depending on a variety of
factors, like your current mood, newly acquired beliefs, or your current physical
environment. It’s a bit like being in Kurosawa’s famous movie Rashomon
where different narrators tell their own recollections of the same event.
Through these narratives, you express who you are now, how you became
who you are, and where you believe you will be in the future. In other
words, by connecting your individual experiences into a whole story, you
paint a picture of yourself.


You can legitimately speculate that because people’s life experiences differ
greatly, so should their stories. However, when researchers carefully collected
the life stories of many people, they noticed an interesting thing—many
stories follow remarkably similar structures. In fact, they were able to distill
the stories into two overarching storylines—redemption and contamination.
A contamination storyline is about your life going from good to bad, from
good fortune to tragedy or failure. For example, you were very successful,
but then you fell ill, and your life rapidly worsened.


On the contrary, a redemption storyline begins with a negative experience
and ends with a positive one. In other words, this type of story tells how you
were able to overcome the obstacles and find a silver lining. For example, in
adolescence, you got into drugs, but eventually managed to get clean as an
adult, and now you are living a fulfilling life.


At certain points in your life, you may start believing that your life is a
story progressing from good to bad, and that you can’t change that.
Perceiving your life as a contamination story is correlated with many negativ
e outcomes, according to studies. For instance, it can make you passive or
even apathetic. So in case you start thinking about your life as a contamination
story, remind yourself that while you cannot change the past, you can
reinterpret it and focus on your future.


It’s important to acknowledge that you have the power to change your
story. Therefore, take a step back, analyze the situation, and make sense
of it. Could it be that you are jumping to conclusions? If this is truly
your low point, could it lead to you bouncing back? Could you view this
disadvantageous experience as an opportunity to learn from and improve
as an individual? For example, your job used to be very fulfilling and
everything you ever wanted. But the organization shifted its focus, leaving
you very unhappy with your job, and it feels like it’s going nowhere. You
could see this as a contamination story. But you can also perceive it as a low
point in your redemption story, and that can motivate you, for example, to
actively start looking for a new job. Eventually, you may find an even better
one than your current one ever was.


How you tell your stories may lead you to believe that you are the only one
struggling, the only one whose stories have tragic endings. In reality, a lot of
people are facing uphill battles. So when you catch yourself thinking of your
life as a contamination story, try to reinterpret it into a redemption one.

References:

Fivush, R., Booker, J. A., & Graci, M. E. (2017). Ongoing narrative meaning-making within events and across the life span. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 37(2), 127–152.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0276236617733824

McAdams, D. P., & McLean, K. C. (2013). Narrative identity. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 22(3), 233–238.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721413475622

Wilson, T. D. (2015). Redirect: Changing the stories we live by. Back Bay Books, Little, Brown and Company.

Like being in Kurosawa’s famous movie Rashomon: Kurosawa, A. (Director). (1950). Rashomon. [Film]. RKO Radio Pictures.

many stories follow: Alea, N. (2018). Does the life story interview make us make sense? Spontaneous and cued redemption and contamination in life story scenes. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 37(3), 271–292.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0276236617733837

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