life narratives (2)

How do you re-author an identity story?

Re-telling, re-membering, collecting narrative fragments (especially with trauma), and shifting “thin” narratives into richer, multi-voiced stories: this is the work of re-authoring. The process allows us some space to consider who and what we are really about and to creative a future narrative we want to live into.

For me, the basic structure of re-authoring looks something like this: write or record your primary identity stories; apply some critical thinking, some objective reassessment, and a deeply compassionate lens. Then, rewrite the story from the perspective of your innate ‘inner knowing’.

If that seems inaccessible (and even if it doesn’t), gather wise voices around you. Let them inform your stories and fill in the gaps with graces, the hollows with reassurance, and the horrors with witness and presence. Allow yourself to craft a revision, an altered landscape that allows you to heal and flourish.

The process in four words: awareness; allowing; re-claiming; proclaiming.

That means getting more comfortable with the shy, intuitive, and scaredy-cat side of you that wants to believe what you know but is worried that you might create some fabrication. No, that has most likely already happened. Your inner ‘knower’ is not going to let that happen.

Some questions you could reflect on:

 What do your stories say about you?

 Who first told you the stories of who you are?

 What stories need to be re-written?

 Whose voice is missing in your story?

 Who are you listening to? Who is listening to your stories?

 Are there chapters needing a rewrite or an ending?

 When you are asked to share a story about yourself, what comes to mind?

 What is the title of your life story?