Our stories define us - and are the springboard for what we can choose to become.

WHAT'S YOUR STORY?

Story is vital for self-understanding and for understanding the world. I recall a special lady used to say, "Reading stories and giving hugs are the two most important things parents can give their kids." The message she gave is also important for adults and for the 'inner child'.

Understanding - yes - But storying and re-storying can also heal.

Have you ever thought of writing your story down?

If it helps get it out from your memory you could record it - tell it to a friend real or an empty-chair imaginary friend.

Perhaps you could write a time-line version, followed by a fuller version.

Perhaps arranging photos and objects in sequence or groups is your way in - if you are a visual or tactile person.

OK so you've got some sort of story version of your life, or particular sections of your life - now what?

Guess what, you are in charge - you can change the story!

I never forget, when I used to teach 11-12 year-olds English the surprise when I told them that they could mix 'fact' and imagination in producing a piece of creative writing such as 'The row we had at the break-fast table'

STORY IS CENTRAL TO US AS HUMAN BEINGS

Story is at the centre of our lives and at the centre of what we are and how we deal with ourselves and 'the world'.

It is:

how we learn to imagine other worlds.

how we give account of each day's events.

how we traverse our own culture, and how we enter the cultures of others.

We each have a personal narrative formed by all of the encounters and experiences along the path of our unique journey.

If we have been abused that abuse can either drag us down or it can be the launch-pad through which we grow and become a healing for others.

That is to say we can choose to create new narrative for the future BUT we also can choose to re-frame the past. To re-frame the past we don't ignore, or suppress the fact of events we simply make them part of an alternative narrative - part of a different way of telling our story to ourselves and others.

ABUSE & THE KEYS TO HEALING

Often there is one or more 'key thoughts' and 'insights' that let in the light of healing.

Although the abuse I suffered was mild compared to many it plagued me for half a century - and the healing took small steps over the whole of that time, and each small step was an insight that was like a key in unlocking both self-understanding and understanding of 'the world', including other people.

But the 'new story' is more than healing it is the means to the astonishing saying that 'Its never too late to have a happy childhood!'

But don't forget the process, with whatever help we can muster, is in our hands. We choose to get on the path of healing, or stay in the state of 'poor me'.