I noticed a while ago that a key difference between healthy and unhealthy responses to the misfortunes that life sent my friends’ way seemed to be the stories they were telling themselves. I was reminded of that while reading Hannah Reichel’s amazing For a Time Such as This: An Emergency Devotional. In chapter 16 she talks about the difference between loneliness and solitude being a subjective one—do you interpret being alone as being rejected and ignored, or are you taking the opportunity to rest, get to know and enjoy yourself, spend time in your own fascinating company? I see those as two different stories about being alone.
I first noticed this difference emerge between pain and suffering: in both cases, the stimulus was the same (broken hand, broken heart…), but the story I told myself about the pain made a huge difference—whether on the one hand I was telling myself that it was temporary and focusing my energies on comfort and healing, or, on the other hand, if I was living in the pain, magnifying and catastrophizing it, telling myself I was always going to be as miserable as I was in that moment, or marinating in fury at whoever or whatever caused the pain.
I’ve found storytelling to be a really powerful ally (or a really tough obstacle) when it comes to recovery from trauma. We should pay attention to the stories we tell ourselves about what we’re going through. It can make all the difference between experiencing pain or suffering, enjoying solitude or being lonely, being left or free, being a victim or a survivor.
The Rookery 