What if so much of life is just the story we’re telling ourselves?

I had an incident not too long ago where my colleague and I de-escalated a fight. I went home and wrote about it. The next day I even sent it out in my Wise Girl Workshops newsletter.

I asked my colleague if she had read the newsletter. When she said she had, I asked her if she remembered it the same way. She said not exactly and set forth telling me her view of our experience. We were each there, yet carried different versions of the same story.

Last weekend, I spent time with a dear friend whose husband passed away a little over two years ago. We sat together talking the way you do when you have uninterrupted time with someone you love—about our children, marriages, struggles, grief, and all the complexities of being human.

At one point, we started jokingly talking about our lives as if we had absolutely no problems. We laughed so hard as we described how “easy” everything was. And somewhere in the middle of the laughter came something meaningful:

So much of life is interpretation.

Not denial of pain. Not pretending hard things don’t exist. But recognizing that even within heartbreak, there are still many possible ways to tell the story.

I love reading because stories constantly remind me of this. Just when I think I know where things are headed, there’s a twist. The meaning changes. A character changes. The ending changes.

Maybe our lives are not as fixed as we think they are either.

Maybe the story we tell ourselves today is only one version.

And maybe, most importantly, we still get to decide what we do next.

What’s Next

Maybe we don’t always get to choose what happens to us.

But we do have the opportunity to become curious about the stories we’ve built around those experiences—and whether those stories are still serving us.

Sometimes all it takes is a new perspective, a compassionate conversation, or someone to help us see what we’ve been unable to see on our own.

If you find yourself feeling stuck in the same story or repeating patterns that no longer fit the life you want to live, therapy can be a place to gently explore those narratives and begin writing a new chapter.

If you’re interested in working together, I’d be honored to be part of that journey. Go ahead and contact me to schedule an initial appointment here.