Our Stories Matter

Our stories matter.

The stories we tell ourselves can have a huge impact on our mental well-being. Whether we realize it or not, we all create stories, or “narratives” to process information and make sense of  events that happen in our lives.  The way we construct our stories can radically influence our lives and the lives of our family and friends.

“We have very little control over what happens in our lives, but we have alot of control over how we integrate and remember what happens.” (Henri Nouwen)

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal reports that people have the ability to improve their sense of life satisfaction and psychological and social well-being by the stories they choose to tell. The article discusses two recent research studies that show people who frame events in their lives-even negative ones-in positive ways have better mental health, and those who frame events in negative ways have poorer mental well-being. The researchers considered good mental health to be” low levels of depression and high levels of life satisfaction and psychological and social well-being.”

As the researchers listened to the life stories of participants and assessed their physical and mental health over time, they paid attention to four major themes that often apppeared in the people’s stories:

1) Agency-Did the person feel able to influence and respond to the events that happened to them? Or did the person feel like a helpless victim, at the mercy of external circumstances?

2) Communion-Did the person feel connected or disconnected from others?

3) Redemption-Did the person find a positive outcome from a difficult life event?

4) Contamination-Did the person tell narratives of good things turning bad?

Click here, to read the full article, “It’s Healthy To Put A Good Spin On Your Life” and learn about the interesting results that were discovered.

This particular article got my immediate attention because it started out with a real-life story of a triathlete who suffered a heart attack after his 107th triathlon. He survived, but doctors told him he could no longer do endurance training. His first reaction was despair…one of the most important aspects of my life has been ripped away (initial story).  Over time, he was able to recast his story: I can still run, bike and swim for recreational purposes, I can spend more time with my wife (positive stories). As an avid marathon runner who manages heart issues of  my own, this article hit close to home. I too, have had to look for similar unexpected positives and am so thankful I found a cardiologist who will still let me run as long as I keep my heart rate below a certain level.

Challenge: What stories are you telling yourself, especially about the negative events that have happened in your life? Are there any that you would like to recast? If so, what’s the new story that you would like to create?