Do you struggle with a loud and annoying inner critic voice where you can’t even trust yourself from the hundreds of thoughts that dictate who you are?

Are you someone who would rather tend to others’ needs (aka people pleasing behaviours) to distract yourself from feeling the intense overwhelm that is going on inside you?

Are you feeling lost, stuck and isolated?

Unlearning

Our brain does this thing where we link together selected events into a plot or theme that shapes who we think we are. We devote our efforts into collecting evidence, kind of like a journalist that only reports one-sided, propaganda-like news articles to make sense of what had happened. The brain can produce some strange stories like self-blaming after traumatic events as if we ‘should have known’ or ‘dealt with it better’. When a bunch of these similar articles come together, the brain creates neural networks and boy, have I encountered many harsh ones during therapy sessions as a psychotherapist. 

The problem story

I have my own problem story that I am sharing in this post to illustrate this concept. The headline, “The Isolated Introvert” is the neural network of my problem story. I started noticing that I completely believed it and practiced living like an quiet Asian girl with low self-esteem throughout my adolescent years. It hurt and broke my sense of self. "The Isolated Introvert” story sucked the fun out of everything.

Becoming a Journalist

Along the way, I had a hunch, as a rookie investigator, that “The Isolated Introvert” story wasn’t serving me. I came across this term called neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity implies that our brains can literally learn to remap and rewire existing neural pathways and create new ones that help us out. This means that it is never too late (despite the myths out there) that we can practice and adapt new skills so that we can gradually make peace with our problem story.

It is like being given a second chance. I am still revisiting, rewriting the stories I lived through on a daily basis.

The Preferred Story

When I give myself permission to look back and change the headline of my lived experience, I became curious because I was able to recall the moments where I had to go through all of that on my own. I started to develop rare moments of empathy for myself. At this moment, I am able to name the preferred story headline as, “The Mindful Psychotherapist”. “The Mindful Psychotherapist” story owns the hardship of the journey, the resiliency of my spirit, my creativity and empathy which are ways I communicate in this world and is helping me choose to come closer to my suffering to grow with it all.

TLDR; Retelling our narratives can help you to build new neural networks and rewrite old narratives to own back who you are.

I am living to empower and encourage my clients to change the headline and rewrite the version of their story. Also note that it wouldn’t be the same if I had gone through an “easier route”.

I am inviting you to give yourself a second chance. Do you have a problem story? What about your preferred story, are you feeling ready to begin to investigate this? I hope we can work together to retell the stories and own back who you are.