19 Jun The transformational power of how you talk about your life
via the BBC by Christian Jarrett
How you talk about the major events of your life has a profound impact on your personality. If you change your life story, could you become a healthier, happier person?I
Imagine that, when you were 12 years old, your family moved to the other side of the country. In your new school, you were bullied for the first time. When you reflect upon this period of your life today, do you see this as just one of many episodes in which things were going great, and then turned sour? Or do you see it as another example of a tough experience that had a happy ending – perhaps the bullying toughened you up, or led you to meet the person who became your lifelong buddy?
It may not seem as if the way you tell this story, even just to yourself, would shape who you are. But it turns out that how you interpret your life, and tell its story, has profound effects on what kind of person you become.
How you talk about the main events of your life can have profound effects on who you become (Credit: BBC/Getty Images)
In the mid-20th Century, the show This Is Your Life was a popular staple on British and US televisions. It involved celebrities and non-celebrities being presented with a red book that featured key events, pivotal turning points and memories from their lives. For the show, these life stories were compiled by researchers. But in reality each of us walks around with a version of the “red book” – one personally authored, often without us even realising it – in our mind.
These narratives exist whether we choose to give them much conscious attention or not. They lend meaning to our existence and provide the foundation for our sense of identity. You are your story. As a team led by Kate McLean at Western Washington University described it in their recent paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, “the stories we tell about ourselves reveal ourselves, construct ourselves, and sustain ourselves through time”…
… keep reading the full & original article HERE
#psychology #positivepsychology #life #happiness #transformation