Neuroscience and psychology attempt to map the terrain of the brain and mind.
But narrative psychology asks a different question:
What story are you using to explain who you are?
Inside all of us exists a kind of internal landscape shaped by memory, relationships, pain, culture, triumph, and interpretation. This can influence how we see ourselves, what we believe we deserve, and who we imagine we might become. Narrative identity is the evolving story we use to make sense of our lives, linking memory, emotion, relationships, and meaning into an understanding of who we are, it is a story we then share with others..
While neuroscientists follow cerebral maps, we are planting gardens within the landscapes shaped by our experiences. The landscapes of our minds hold movement and growth. Others hold stillness. Some lead back to origins we would rather not revisit.
Stories we create for ourselves differ wildly. We create narratives of agency, redemption, triumph, contamination, meaning-making and so on. Redemptive stories are usually ways in which we process our own suffering. These stories account for growth, learning and positive personal transformation.
When I was young, my words escaped me like steam from an overheated kettle. At the dawn of the internet my words became less filtered, it comes with the territory right- the sense of false safety behind the blue-lit screen of your desktop. I would DM silly things to people – with the ignorant hope that it was truly private. I learned from those experiences and had to teach myself self-control, reframe thoughts to be less hostile and learn to love by understanding that my expectation of perfection inside and out made me highly critical of everyone including myself.
If there is one thing to take away from my story, it is this: we do not create positive narratives simply by existing. These stories are forged through suffering, relationships, failures and repair. Stories emerge from lived experiences, refined by grueling journeys of trial and error, the tangible art of being human.
Where you grow up offers a plot to plant seeds, and your memories and experiences help narratives of identity and culture flourish.
Redemptive stories, political ideologies, and even our sense of self vary wildly depending on the gardens we are planted in, whether we choose to remain rooted, uproot ourselves, or learn to grow elsewhere.
So again, I will ask, what stories are you using to explain who you are?
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Stay Whimsical. Eternally Yours,
Liz Eclair
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