Choose your story wisely. Most of us have experienced significant challenges. How we tell our story to ourselves and to others matters. Do you plant the ladder of your story on the sinking sands of victimhood, or on the solid ground of survivorship? If you’re reading this book, you are a survivor. Tell your story from that perspective. You will not diminish what happened; you will be telling the truth about the present.
How you tell your story changes the way your brain stores the information each time you tell it. You literally have the choice to lay new tracks over old in your memory. Stories of courage, hope, strength, and transformation reinforce your ability to continue taking courageous, hopeful, strong, transformative actions.
Kendall was terrified of the things her ex-husband said about her and of the awful things he might do. For years, she told her story from the perspective of a helpless victim.
With coaching, she learned to share her story as a courageous survivor. She was amazed by her new abilities to pay less attention to his threats, to land a more lucrative job, to raise their children, and to develop a large network of supportive and fun-loving friends.
Excerpted from Jill Woolworth’s, book, The Waterwheel, available on Amazon and barnesandnoble. com. Jill is a therapist at the Center for Hope & Renewal and is working on her next book.
