Dr. Shadé ZahraiChange your Life in 3 Steps | Re-Write your Story through Narrative Identity - Shadé Zahrai
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10 min read · 1,621 words- 0:00 – 0:30
Narrative identity: how your life story shapes your confidence
- SZDr. Shadé Zahrai
What's your life story? How do you tell the story of what you've lived through? The stories that you tell yourself and others about your life and experiences shape your life and experiences. It's called Narrative Identity, and in this episode, we're going to explore what it is, how it affects you, and how you can re-script your life to absolutely transform your confidence. Now, let me give you an example of why this is a really important concept to grasp. Someone I used to work with and who I know very well is an exceptionally talented
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A real-world example: the talented “complainer” and the trap of chronic negativity
- SZDr. Shadé Zahrai
professional, and yet I noticed that he had a strong tendency to always complain. There was always something wrong: too much work, not enough work, I'm over-committed, my life is so much harder than everyone else's. And this was the narrative that I'd hear every time I'd ask him how he was going, to the point that I actually stopped asking him how he was. Because every time I asked, it would trigger a monologue about how challenging he was finding his life. And the more I got to know him, the more I realized that this approach of focusing on everything wrong was something that permeated so many areas of his life. It was how he explained the world. He was the ultimate victim, and the world was against him, at least in his mind. And it got me thinking. This person who seemingly on the surface leads an objectively wonderful life - loving wife, beautiful kids, great job - he couldn't be happy because something was always missing, and he was always focused on that gap in his life. So I started thinking even further.
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Why some people grow through hardship while others feel defeated
- SZDr. Shadé Zahrai
How is it possible that others who have objectively extremely challenging lives - health complications, they've lost everything, they've experienced severe trauma - how is it that some of these people were so positive? When I would speak to them, it's almost like they had a way of explaining every bad situation as something that had helped them grow, like it was part of the suffering that they needed, a life test to teach them something new, to become a better and stronger version of themselves. What was going on? It wasn't until I came across
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McAdams’ framework: contamination stories vs redemptive stories
- SZDr. Shadé Zahrai
a concept from psychology professor Dr. Daniel McAdams that things really fell into place for me. Narrative identity tells us that we are the stories that we tell ourselves and that we tell others. We identify with them, and then we internalize them. If you're always telling stories about how difficult your life is, how everything always goes wrong, and how life isn't fair, this is known as a contamination story. It's been contaminated by victimization and powerlessness. You
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A self-check: how you narrate your latest setback
- SZDr. Shadé Zahrai
aren't able to move on from bad life experiences. You become these experiences. Your sense of self becomes intertwined with these negative life events, and this is what I was seeing with this guy that I used to work very closely with. Interestingly, people who believe their lives are meaningful tend to tell stories defined by growth, empowerment, and hope. These are called redemptive stories. So think about the last failure you experienced or the last negative experience that you had. Maybe a rejection, negative feedback, a business idea crumbling, a relationship ending badly. Whatever it is, what story have you been telling yourself and others about it? Are you focused on how wronged you are, how challenging it is, how it derailed you, how unfair it was? Or do you acknowledge that it happened, but instead choose to focus on what you learned, how it made you stronger, gave you new insight, a new perspective, helped you discover or develop inner strength? Your ability to redefine,
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The good news: small edits to your story can change your life
- SZDr. Shadé Zahrai
rewrite, rescript your life story, these stories that you tell yourself, ultimately impact the quality of your life and what you're able to achieve. Now, the great news is if you find that you tend to write contamination stories, and let's face it, us humans have a negativity bias that predisposes us to focus on the negative and to blow things out of proportion. So if you do notice that you have a tendency to do that, the good news is that you can make edits to your personal narrative. And even making small edits to your personal story
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Narrative therapy: separating the person from the problem
- SZDr. Shadé Zahrai
has been found to hugely impact your life. It's not about denying what happened. Far from it. It's about redefining how you perceive it. Because we create our own personal histories, so we have the ability to rewrite them to live lives with greater purpose, and it's all based on what we choose to focus on. Fascinatingly, this idea of rewriting your personal narrative is captured in something called narrative therapy, which is often used by qualified psychologists and psychotherapists to support trauma survivors. So how do they do this? Well, it's a form of experiential therapy that works by identifying individuals separately from their lived experiences and empowering those people to use that same approach when dealing with their problems. It helps people to unpack their lives and their trauma to process it and both recognize and understand how the language of their stories shapes their life and identity. Studies show that the majority of trauma survivors don't actually
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Post-traumatic growth: why many survivors don’t develop PTSD
- SZDr. Shadé Zahrai
develop PTSD, and a large number even report growth from their experiences. Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun coined the term post-traumatic growth, which captures this phenomenon where people experience a positive psychological change as a result of their trauma. And one explanation for that is that they rewrite their story. Instead of trying to avoid their emotional experience and pain, they accept it with openness and seek to work through it. They engage in something
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Cognitive exploration: curiosity as the engine of meaning-making
- SZDr. Shadé Zahrai
called cognitive exploration, which is defined as a general curiosity about information and a desire to explore thoughts and feelings in a non-judgmental way. This is one main factor that allows people to turn their adversity into advantage. When you do this, when you consciously engage with your struggles and adversities and rewrite them to focus on growth and meaning, it's been shown to lead to greater appreciation of life, greater appreciation and strengthening of close relationships, increased
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What growth can look like after rewriting your narrative
- SZDr. Shadé Zahrai
compassion and altruism, the identification of new possibilities or a purpose in life, enhanced spiritual development, and even creative growth. So there are three steps that we can learn from this narrative therapy technique and apply to our own lives to feel a greater sense of meaning and purpose in life. Step one, understand your current story. How do you see yourself?
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Three-step method (Step 1): understand your current story through journaling
- SZDr. Shadé Zahrai
How do you describe yourself? How do you describe the challenges that you've lived through? Set a timer for 20 minutes, grab a notebook and a pen, and journal. Answer these questions. How would I describe myself to someone else? What do I want to change about myself? Thinking back to my last big challenge, how did I interpret it? What did I do? How did it affect me then? How does it still affect me? Once you've written whatever came to your mind, review what you wrote objectively.
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Three-step method (Step 2): externalize the story and reconnect to values/goals
- SZDr. Shadé Zahrai
Don't judge it, but pay attention to the language that you used. Are there any patterns? Did you blame others for your situation or adversities, or do you take ownership? Step two, externalize your story. This is where you need to acknowledge and recognize that your story of challenge, hardship, or adversity is separate from your identity. And because it's separate from your identity, you can tweak or edit your story. Take time to think about how you could find meaning in each of your challenging experiences. What's
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Three-step method (Step 3): re-author with empowering language and meaning
- SZDr. Shadé Zahrai
the story you would prefer to be telling? How would you prefer to see yourself coping with that situation? Here is where you think about your values and what's most important to you, along with your goals and aspirations. Remind yourself of what you're working towards and why. Step three, re-author your story. Now that you understand your story, the impact of your language, and how your current story and the story that you want to tell differ, you rewrite what you wrote in step one, but this time focusing on using more empowering language and focusing on finding meaning through it. As Dr. Viktor Frankl wrote in Man's Search for Meaning, "In some ways, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning." So how can you rewrite this challenge, this adversity, to focus on the growth? What did you learn? How did you grow? How did it shape your perspective, your worldview, give you greater empathy for others who also suffer? When did you almost feel overwhelmed
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Acceptance of the past and the call to take ownership of your narrative
- SZDr. Shadé Zahrai
to the point of giving up, but you didn't? What qualities did you demonstrate to stay on course? It's important to acknowledge that we can't change the past. What happened, happened. And while many of us may prefer that it didn't happen, it did. So this is about acknowledging the reality, recognizing the stories that you've written that prevent you from moving on, and then reshaping your perceptions of yourself and your surroundings to ultimately change your life. So I hope this episode has sparked a few ideas for you about how you can take ownership of the stories that you're telling yourself and how to re-author them to focus on meaning and growth. If you found value in this episode, please give it a like and feel free to leave a comment. If you're not already part of the community, please hit the subscribe button so you find out every time we post a video just like this one. It's been an absolute pleasure. I'll see you in the next one.
Episode duration: 9:36
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