Lori Gottlieb is a wonderful therapist with a great blog, and has a super insightful book called, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone. Her premise is that each of us have a story, but the plot twist is that most of us are “unreliable narrators of our own story.”
This is not to discredit our experiences, our pain, our trauma, but rather to invite us into our story to explore. She invites us into a liminal space of viewing our story from an outsider’s perspective. This is hard, but sometimes getting space from our thoughts is the best thing for us.
We are not our thoughts, we are the thinkers of our thoughts. You do not have to believe everything you think!
Some questions she entertains are:
- What do we minimize?
- Are there details we leave out or add?
- What do we exaggerate?
After years of being a therapist, she noted some themes that emerged in peoples stories like “I am unlovable, I am an imposter, everyone has it better than me,” and many more.
What is your theme?
Therapists are experts in story holders and co-edit with you! The cool thing about this approach is that if you have a theme documented in your heart, then that also means you have the power to edit this story! Finding a theme in your life might feel like hiking in the dark, do not do this alone! As Lori says “maybe you should talk to someone,” and maybe that someone is an unbiased, neutral, licensed professional therapist trained in the healing process!
Check out her TED Talk here!
Written by: Catherine Virden
