How to Engage Your Story
Here are a few thoughts followed by steps you can take that may encourage you in the pursuit of your story. If you're going to tell it with significance, you'll need to be courageous, especially if you have a story that includes difficult, life-dominating memories.
You may have to "borrow a little brave" from your circle. What? You don't have a circle? In order to engage your story, you need a circle! We’ll talk about that.
Memory Threads
Our stories are comprised of threads woven into the fabric that is us. Each memory with others, and I might suggest that one long thread manages to touch every other.
We know so much more about the brain than we used to. Hollywood likes to strew creative seeds in this realm—implanted shared memories, devices that extract select memories for examination and evaluation, procedures to shift through and remove only certain memory data in the brain’s library with laser-like precision. I think we know it doesn’t work that way, but maybe we wish certain parts of movie fiction were reality.
The hard, life-dominating memories are the ones we’d love to isolate, extract, and toss into the round file. But we can’t. The current Christian counseling thought leaders argue we shouldn’t. Forgetting (or extracting, if we could) wouldn’t lead to anything helpful or to healing at all. Friend, what if the “forgive and forget” advice we try to embrace or share with others could do catastrophic harm to us, the people in our stories, and the people we advised?
Step One: Acknowledge the memory.
A Memory Isn’t a Thing
Memory is amazing. It’s a gift from God. And it can be the heavy burden (read: curse) we bear.
Memories are little puffs of cloud vapor, easily blown with the winds, shape-shifting from moment to moment. Opaque with significance. Elusive in their misty recollections.
Do you see what I did there? Those are my own words romanticizing memory. In my defense, it’s how I felt at the time. I knew a memory wasn’t something I could see, smell, taste, or touch; at the same time, a strong one could engage all the senses in a phantom way. My experience of a moment was the way I personally experienced it, and it just remained in storage or faded into nothingness, I thought.
A memory isn’t a faded, broken, insignificant thread in the fabric. A memory is the past that lives, breathes, and informs our present thoughts, words, and actions. As such an important part of our life, memories should be treated with honor and gentleness. Hold the memory with some tenderness and respect before opening and delving into it.
Step Two: Honor the memory.
Memories Hold Power
The experience was powerful enough to leave what looks like an indelible mark, yet words could almost invalidate it with the turn of a phrase and a dash of shame. Maybe you initially believed the characters in the story who shamed, blamed, or dismissed you. You tried to stuff the emotions because you were told your take on the story was faulty, the characters in the story weren’t to blame (or even bad characters), or that your actions were a catalyst for the story’s events (in part or whole). Invalidation only led to a stronger emotional response.
The power in a memory is simply that “The past is never dead. It’s not even past” (Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun). Our past truly informs our present. Basically, our past is not some dormant, wispy thing; it’s the insidious, treacherous compass that directs us far from true north.
In light of the power a memory holds, it is wise to approach with care. It’s the reason we “leak” all over the ones we love.
Step Three: Handle the memory with care.
The Wound
Engaging our story is not a process of opening up a festering, poorly-dressed wound and calling it “getting fresh air“ for healing. The truth is, a festering wound requires special care and treatment for genuine healing. And we don’t take a scalpel to a scar without causing another (different?) scar after the procedure.
If you hope to engage a painful memory, it’s important to acknowledge a deeply painful event happened in your story. While all the key elements of story are involved (characters, setting, plot, conflict, and resolution), there will be time to think about those elements later. Before engaging them, take time to acknowledge a significant wound was created in a moment. That wound and its pain should be held gently, with all the honor and careful respect it deserves.
Go slowly. There is no rush; in fact, rushing will open a wound and leave it, gaping. No real healing can happen in a flood of “cathartic” words on the page. I might know something about that. Will you trust me?
Step Four: Acknowledge the wound and its pain.
Friends are Golden
I should have led with this critical piece of the process, but I didn’t. I’m highlighting it last, hoping it will stay in your mind as you go off to your day. It’s a risk I’m willing to take. Step five, honestly, is a first step.
As we talk about the wounds in our stories, proper dressing and presentation to the right people is important. I said you needed a circle at the start, and I’m not kidding. Who you invite into your circle and the role they fill matters!
The people in your circle need to be unique in this culture. Let them be people who will speak truth and refuse to collaborate with you in lies. You may not know what this means yet (it’s a topic for another post), but the friends in this circle need to have special skills and traits.
When you present your story (the wound and its pain) to someone in this circle, consider that this friend must
be able to sit with you well (weeping in the right places and spaces)
hold your story with gentleness, respect, honor, and confidentiality
know truth as it is in the Bible (Joseph in Genesis, Job, and Jesus come to mind)
refuse to take part in lies (ones you believe or that others perpetuate)
Trusted friends might be a skilled and gifted pastor, lay pastor/counselor, or a professional therapist. Choose to fill in the circle with friends who assume an appropriate leadership role in your life in a capacity that matches the journey you’ll be taking. Don’t forget to include people who genuinely care for you.
I personally choose godly, Spirit-infused people in my circle because I want counsel that is in keeping with my faith. Each person’s role and function is specific, and I’m choosy about the content I share, the depth to which I share, and (initially) the people invited to the deeper parts of my story.
Step Five: Create your circle.
I hope you enjoyed this piece. Now, go get your circle of carefully-chosen friends!
