In a world where Facebook and Instagram leave you looking at people whose lives are not just rosy but totally peachy, self-editing is king. In the social media world I post what I want to, when I want to; my food is fabulous, my holiday snaps are wonderful and my moaning is minimal (just to make me look more human).
There is a place for self-editing as Dan McAdams of Northwestern University has discovered. We write our own life stories, making it up as we go along; no surprise there, but the what and how we write makes a massive difference. People can so often experience the same event where some start to sink rushing to hit the bottom, while others resurface like corks in the ocean.
McAdams talks about “narrative identity” as a person’s personal story, a script that people work from at the deepest level; the who are you, how did you get here kind of stuff.
Resilient people have learned to be the editors of their own life stories, they have learned to work through the different emotional viewpoints and consider the options. One way of doing that is through the process of expressive writing.
This practice over time helps you to question assumptions and challenges our tendency towards conformational bias.
People use it to find meaning that is not obvious especially in the heat of an emotionally charged event.
In doing this regularly a pattern of thinking is seen that not only helps in healing past hurts but perhaps more importantly enables individuals to recover their balance more effectively in the future.
The process that we teach in our resilience workshops is simple to do and involves writing about events experienced over a number of days.
Each time the writing time is short and not to be looked at again.
What people have found is that by writing emotions are acknowledged and forgotten details appear. New insights or conclusions are often drawn. But while it can lead to different conclusions that in itself is not the important piece.
What tends to happen is that people discover new meanings from events, which increase personal resilience. The practice point, which is key, is openness and daring to acknowledge to themselves what they are thinking and feeling.