Why does the story of your life matter more than you think it does? You have a story. That story matters. The only way to experience significant shifts in your heart is be engaging your story. Your life experiences shape the very structure of your brain, and therefore profoundly influence how you are presently living your life. Your earliest relationship with your primary caretakers has had the most shaping power on your brain.
Let's start this with two main points:
#1 You have a story and that story matters.
#2 The only way to experience real changes in your heart is by engaging your story. (Addressing it, reflecting upon it, etc.)
What does Adam mean by "story?" This was very confusing to me when I first listened to this podcast. To be honest, this is at least my fifth time listening to this very first episode. My counselor, Kim, had told me that this was the Podcast for me, and while I attempted it, I just couldn't make sense of why she was sending me this.
But the story of our life has plot. It has setting. It has characters. Even if you think you do not remember your story, you remember enough to engage that story. And failure to think about your past or dwell on it or focus on it, means that you are pushing away the pain of your life.
Period.
Every single relationship and dynamic in your life becomes a trajectory that launched you into the world. Your relationship with God also has a plot line. The core story is how you have interacted with God in regard to your desires and your disappointments. What have you done with God in the midst when desires raged and were either met or unmet?
What would the timeline of your life look in regards to your relationship with God? How much would be "the good stuff" which is above the main axis line? And how much would be the "bad stuff?" How did deep disappointment affect your relationship with God?
Remember, there are also plot twists when you tell your story. All of a sudden something intrudes and disorients you. This is what happened to me in 2024. My life was going along fairly normally. Sure, my husband and I were arguing more. Okay, I was raising my voice more than how often I would like with my kids. But mostly, I thought my life was good. And fine. And okay. And mostly good.
Until my body completely SHUT DOWN. It wouldn't work. It couldn't get out of bed. It couldn't function. It was, at first, horrific anxiety. But it soon shifted into very debilitating depression. Bad, awful stuff. All of a sudden, the ground I had always stood on became very shaky. And it was in this season of disorientation that I found out what I really desired and what I was truly made of.
My life story is actually far-more interesting than the best movie ever made (Lord of the Rings?) What if I took my life seriously. What if I looked at how God and I are co-authoring this story?
Okay, if you don't like this abstract way of thinking of this? Let's switch to something very scientific.
You have billions of neurons in your brain. And each of those neurons is connected to thousands of other neurons. And there are only TWO ways that those neurons develop:
1. Genes
2. Life experiences (which means ... your brain!)
Your STORY means the particular ways that the neurons in your brain are wired and connected with one another.
With the exception of the genes that you are born with, your brain is a function entirely of the experiences you have had in life. BOOM!
Change means that neurons link up differently with one another. You will not change deeply until you engage your neurons. This means, until you engage the experiences you have had in life, change won't occur.
The most influential relationships you have had in life is the relationship with your parents. This is a scientific statement. This is not designed to be an emotional comment.
1. Relationships influence the brain more than anything else. (More than exercise, drugs, meditation, religion, etc.) It influences the way your neurons are connected to each other.
2. Your earliest life experiences/relationships have a much more significant influence on the development of your brain than later experiences due to the speed of your brain growing when you are young.
Okay then. So you don't remember anything about the first few years of your life. You have no idea how your parents related to you when you were 18 months of life. Actually, your implicit memory remembers all of that. (And we will discuss this more in future episodes.)
But here's a fact: you know how your parents reacted with you when you were little because you see how they interact with you now and in elementary school, and high school, and college. You can infer backward. You know the dynamics of your relationships with your mother and your father. You know them. But you often have refused to look at them closely and have just accepted them as "well, that's that."
But honestly, you can infer what it might have been like for you when you were six months old in your crib. Knowing your mother, what do you think it was like for your mother when you were inconsolable in your crib? You can infer. You can deduce how it might have been for you when your brain was growing during the first few years of your life.
Many people have objections to looking at their story. Here are some of the top ones:
1. Looking at your story is just naval-gazing (self-indulgent and selfish behavior or contemplation of oneself.)
Answer: Neural science has showed that people who know themselves, have much more empathy than others. Engaging your story is not a selfish endeavor. You cannot engage well with others and love others well and empathize well until you have addressed the wounded parts of your heart. People who are good at self-reflecting, have an increased ability to empathize with others. In other words, if you want to be other-centered, you need to practice reflecting on your own brain, heart, and story.
2. I don't want to blame my parents.
Answer: There is a difference between blaming and naming what has been true of your relationship with them. Blaming is a posture of contempt and condemnation and just naming what has been true of your relationship. A therapist might often say to a patient: "There's nothing about your posture right now that is blaming or condemning. In fact, you couldn't be further from a posture of blame. The past 30-minutes you have worked on defending them. And now you are worried you are blaming them?" We all know the difference between blaming and naming if we really think about it. If you want to love your parents well, it is necessary for you to name what has been and is true of the nature of how you relate to your parents and how they relate to you.
3. My parents did the best they could.
Answer: This objection most often comes from Christian clients. If people weren't Christians, it would make more sense. It is such an odd objection for Christians to make because according to the Bible, no one does the best they can. Everyone was a sinner. Our parents have harmed us. That harm has been intentional. And it doesn't make them an awful person. It just makes them a sinner. Why do we, then, tend to raise this objection? We want to say they did their best because then we don't have to look at the reality of the sin in their hearts, and we don't have to look at how deeply they hurt us. If it is the truth that sets us free, we gain nothing by closing our eyes to what has been true of our relationship with them. Have you NAMED the primary ways your father sinned against you? Your mother? The common or frequent ways that your parents harmed you? As a mother now myself, I realize that the people I harm the most and sinned against the most, are my husband and children. We are deeply affected by our parents' sin. Wouldn't it be helpful to name the particular ways that that has been true for us?
Think back to Joseph in his Bible and the intense dysfunction in their family. Joseph had to name the harm that had been done to him by his family members. Joseph finally named the way that his brothers have sinned against him. If it is okay for him to do that, isn't it okay for us to do the same? Honesty requires that you name how life really was for you. How have you been hurt? Name it. Honestly will change your life. It will change your brain. You will never be the same.
Naming how you have been harmed is about 70% of the battle. We are all excusing our parents. The question is: when and where are you excusing them? Some we will name. But many areas we are very reluctant to name how devastating that was to your heart.
#4 My Dad/Mom was abused as a child so that's why they hurt me.
Answer: Even when we do acknowledge their failures, we follow it up with a fervent explanation of how they really did the best they could. Are these sentences true? Yes! Abusive families have profound influences on how our parents parented us. Living through difficult economic times affects how our parents parent us. But oftentimes, we use sentences like, "My father grew up with an alcoholic mother or father" to avoid naming and sitting with the ways our father in-turn, harmed us.
Most of us prefer explanations ... to a savior. I'd prefer to explain things away than I would to cry out to God saying, "Our family is broken, and we need a family to redeem incurable wounds!" The promise of the scripture is that God cures incurable wounds.
#5 What's the point of dwelling on the past?
Answer: There will be much depth to this in episodes that follow. But for now, let's quote William Faulkner, "The past isn't dead. It's not even past." What's he getting at? Neuroscience has confirmed the truthfulness of those eight words. If you think your past is in the past, you don't understand how the brain is built and how the brain functions. Whenever you have an experience in the present, the very first thing your brain does is, it filters that experience through all of your past experiences. No one experiences reality as it truly is in the present. That is fiction that doesn't understand how the brain is formed and how the brain operates throughout life. You see more of what you have already seen.
Example: Your father abused your mother when he was drinking. And when you are in the presence of a drunk and angry man, you will think he is abusing the women around him more than he might actually be doing. Your neurons are wired from your childhood. And those neurons fire together. Your brain has been primed that the next thing that happens when an angry drunk man begins to rage, is that the woman gets hurt. God has designed the brain with neurons so that it anticipates the next thing based on past experience. This is a brilliant mechanism for surviving in a dangerous world.
The point of engaging your past is so that you can actually live in the present. Until you engage your story, you are actually living as much in the past as you are in the present. So what is the point of dwelling on the past? It's so that you can live in the present.
So what are the positive reasons to look at our past and engage our story?
The practice of reflecting on the story of your life, actually promotes healing in your brain. This is because
(1) Brain health is a function of the degree to which all parts of your brain are connected with one another
(2) the process of reflecting on your story and sharing it with another person and hearing their reaction, that process connects neural networks that were previously separated. In other words, connecting is a key to healing. Engaging the core stories of your life, heals your brain by connecting areas of the brain that weren't previously connected. This happens by connecting:
(a) left to right: your thoughts when experiencing harm (stored in the left brain), become disconnected from the neurons representing your feelings (which are stored in the right brain). Telling the story requires that your brain link up your thoughts about your story with your feelings about the story in your right brain. If you are able to tell your story while remaining connected, links up the neural networks and this actually helps heal. It leads to integration. Or what the Bible calls Shalom.
(b) top to bottom: Top refers to the portion of your brain that is behind your forehead. Bottom is the limbic brain (triggers fight, flight or freeze). When you begin to reflect on the parts of your story that are very painful and tell it to another person: the other person's limbic brain regulates you and soothes and calms your brain. Their holding of your story brings containment and grounding to your limbic brain. Also, as a result of their soothing, your cortical brain forms connection between the top and bottom of your brain and leads to changes in your brain's wiring! Your brain develops new neural connections. And this is very healing as well because these pathways allow you to self-regulate when you become overwhelmed with fear, shame, or rage.
May you find the freedom to begin to step into your story, if not for the first time, then in new ways!
Go HERE if you'd like info on how to write your own story.
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