5 Steps for Changing Your Unhealthy Narratives

This post is a follow-up to my previous post, "Why We Do Things We Regret."

If you have unhealthy narratives that are getting in your way and that you’d like to change, let’s first look at how those narratives got there. (To review what narratives are, see “How We Form Lifelong, Unhealthy Narratives.”)

They most likely originate from painful childhood experiences. Interestingly, many of these narratives weren’t initially unhealthy. For example, as a young child, if your parents don’t show up for you, if their love was unreliable and often lacking, you’ll probably develop a narrative along the lines of The people closest to me often leave me. There may be other narratives that accompany this one, such as Separation leads to abandonment or Don’t get too close to others.

To illustrate, this ... :

Source: Evan Shopper

becomes ... :

Source: Evan Shopper

As a child, we develop narratives to help us get through hard times. In this example, if you know in your heart that people will leave you, perhaps you can do things to keep them close. Or you can prepare yourself for their abandonment.

These narratives—and the behaviors they produce—help you survive. You rely on them because they are useful and they feel true.

When you become an adult, these narratives remain very active, but now the players are different.

And there’s the catch: We expect people in the present day to act the same as people in our past.

For example, as you develop an intimate relationship with a partner, the childhood narrative you carry in your heart can radically influence your behavior.

Source: Pixabay / Pexels

Because your narrative tells you that your partner will abandon you, you might hold on to them very tightly. You might furtively read their texts or demand to know where they are at all times and who they’re talking to.

As an adult, your head—that logical, thinking part of you—might recognize that these behaviors are going to cause problems, but your heart—the emotional part of you—is too flooded with emotions to let you act rationally.

You could say that your head and heart are having a fight, and your heart is winning.

There’s an unfortunate irony in all this: By gripping your partner so tightly, you’ll likely cause them to flee your stranglehold, which, in turn, only reinforces your initial childhood narrative that people will abandon you.

The childhood narrative that had initially been helpful and adaptive has now become unhealthy and harmful.

The 5 steps to change unhealthy narratives

On the face of it, changing these narratives seems fairly logical and simple:

1. Begin by identifying and understanding your own childhood narrative.
2. Identify the feelings that accompany the narrative and cause you to make unhealthy decisions.
3. Get your head (the logical part of you) to talk to your heart (the feeling part of you).
4. Act on your thoughts, not your feelings or the old narrative.
5. Repeat again and again until your heart doesn’t believe anymore in the childhood narrative.

The reality is, these five steps are quite hard, so let’s look at them more closely.

Step 1: Identifying and understanding the childhood narrative. Identifying your own narratives can be challenging, though it can be greatly facilitated by an objective person (like a therapist). Consider what things trigger you and how those triggers are related to your early childhood experiences. Look for patterns and old habits that get in your way; at the root of these habits often lies a childhood narrative.

This can take a bit of soul searching, and it can be painful when it brings up old, emotional injuries. (For more, see “The 7 Most Common Unhealthy Narratives in Children.")

Source: Nadezhda Moryak / Pexels

Step 2: Identifying the feelings, and Step 3: Head/heart communication. Sitting with those feelings can be painful—sometimes it’s helpful to share those feelings with someone you trust—but it’s necessary to help your head talk to your heart (Step 3).

For your head to effectively talk to your heart, your head has to speak directly to how your heart is feeling.

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Your head has to, firstly, voice the emotions your heart is feeling, then, secondly, name the source of these feelings, which often takes you back to your childhood experiences. Only after your head speaks to how your heart feels can it approach your heart intellectually by, thirdly, adding some logic, and supporting it with data/evidence from the present.

I know this sounds a bit abstract or even vague, so here’s how it might sound:

“Hey, Heart, I know you’re scared your partner is going to leave you [1. Naming the feeling] just like the times your dad went out of town for a month at a time, or when your mom was too depressed for weeks to show up for you when you needed it [2. Naming the source]. That sucked and hurt [Adding a little compassion]. But your partner loves you, shows up for you, and isn’t like your parents one bit [3. Adding logic and data]. You don’t have to be scared this time [Returning to the core message].”

Step 4: Acting on your thoughts, not the feelings and old, unhealthy narratives. If your head gets in the game and speaks effectively to your heart, your heart will listen to your head. Rather than sneaking your partner’s phone to read their texts (what your heart wants to do), your heart trusts that your head is right: You don’t have to be worried because the old narrative no longer applies.

However, expect some anxiety to come with all this.

When your head starts running the show, it’s interfering with all those years of coping skills and behaviors that your heart has used to manage its fears. Now, when your head convinces you not to check your partner’s phone, your heart screams even louder: “You have to check those texts, otherwise you’ll never know what’s going on!”

This is a key stage in changing your narrative. It’s an anxiety hump that you have to get over. It’s new territory for your heart, and your heart is going to be scared. And that’s OK. If you can tolerate the anxiety, your heart can start learning a new narrative based on new experiences: Some people can be trusted not to leave.

Step 5: Rinse and repeat. Change comes slowly—years slowly. Especially if you’ve spent the last decade or two (or three!) believing and acting upon a childhood narrative.

Be patient with yourself. Expect times when your heart wins out or your head checks out.

Just keep working on getting your head in the game. Like exercising, the more you do it, the easier it gets, and the stronger you will become.