Tell me about your life story, describe to me what you’d learnt, what you’ve lived through and experienced…

And how you tell these stories will shape your life and experiences now and in the future.

Negative / contamination storytelling bad

Let me give you an example:

For example, if you tend to tell stories about

• how difficult your life is

• how X person did this to you (stole your credit, took your stuff, made you feel bad)

• how everything always goes wrong

• how life isn’t fair

This is known as negative storytelling, also known as “Contamination Storytelling”

Contamination stories like its name, these stories causes contamination, weaknesses and disempowerment. Most of the time, people who subscribe to this way of storytelling consciously or unconsciously create and perpetuate more

• feelings of powerlessness or

• feeling like a victim

It’s a very common way of telling stories…but I want to introduce a different and better way of story telling.

Redemptive storytelling good

It’s the other side of the coin, which is known as “Redemptive Storytelling”, kinda like the balance between good and bad.

People who believe their lives are meaningful, worth something, they tend to tell stories that are filled with hope, growth, learnings (lessons learnt) and love.

Redemptive stories bring about stronger sense of identities and empowerment and they continue to feel that

• their lives have purpose and meaning

• they have sense of control

No denials or lies needed

Look I don’t believe in lying at all.

Neither is denials good or needed.

We don’t have to lie or “spin”, truths are truths, but we can reframe the way we tell our stories, be it to ourselves or others.

Just by making small tweaks, micro-edits to your personal stories, you can feel very powerful effects on your self of self, purpose and well being.

How to change your inner dialogue for your own good?

I use these words: What I learnt & What I Hope

• using the words “What I learnt” makes you take on the hat of a student, where you’re learning and finding lessons in the experience

• using the words “What I hope” puts a perspective of hope in the future

So instead of saying, my life is so difficult, you can reframe it very specificly to say:

I learnt to hone and harness patience working in this painful place, and I hope this patience that I learnt becomes a powerful ability when I became a mum / dad / fur parent / entrepreneur etc

Why I share this is because I know we not only create our own personal histories as we live and experience life forward, BUT we must remember that we have the power and ability to write, rewrite and reframe our life stories to live life with meaning, love and purpose…

…just by choosing what we want to focus on.

Today, I encourage you to choose to fill your stories with hope, growth, lessons and love.

What stories will you tell going forward?