The Stories We Tell Ourselves—and the Story That Saves Us

The Power of Stories

Great stories have a way of captivating us. Stories like J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. The harrowing tale of characters like Frodo and Sam reflects themes of courage, friendship, and hope—all set against unimaginable darkness.

So too do films like Man on Fire, where former CIA agent John Creasey lays aside his overwhelming guilt to rescue a young girl, Pita, from the abyss. In their story, we are reminded that no one is beyond redemption.

We get lost in stories like these because this is how we think, from a recent family vacation to the larger chronicle of our lives.

Sometimes the stories we tell ourselves are helpful—overcoming adversity, facing our fears—but often they are tales of failure, regret, and shame. Far from words on a page or images on a screen, we often get lost in the stories the mind tells us. And while lost in these painful stories, we lose sight of the Great Story.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

As a psychologist, I have the great privilege of hearing life stories. Stories of tragedy, loss, regret, shame. Often, when someone comes to see me, they and their stories are one. Thoughts, interpretations, and memories—the plot of our personal stories—feel like truth.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) calls this fusion. Like the heat of a welder’s torch bonding metal joints together, fusion makes description and identity indistinguishable. This can sound like: “I’m a failure.” “No one understands me.” “I’m unlovable.” Even when our stories contain grains of truth, the problem arises when we fuse with them and mistake them for the whole truth.

Testing the Spirits: Why Not Every Story Is True

Psychology is only now rediscovering what the Catholic spiritual tradition has long taught: not all thoughts are helpful—and not all are even our own. St. Paul put it succinctly, “Test everything, hold fast to what is good” (1 Thess. 5:21).

Classical Christian discernment, particularly in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, emphasizes that thoughts can come from different sources: from God, the flesh, or the Enemy. It is the latter two that so often trouble us.

The stories from our fallen nature (the flesh) are those of fear and frailty. Narratives that, to paraphrase the Venerable Fulton Sheen, are all the Cross without the Crown.

Then there are the stories the Enemy tells us. Like images in a carnival funhouse, they are distorted and warped—accusations meant to drive a wedge between us and our Redeemer. What these stories ultimately do—if we let them—is pull us away from the one story that gives meaning to all the others: the story of rescue, redemption, and return.

Breaking the Bond with Our Stories

There is power in naming something. In Genesis, God gives Adam dominion by granting him the power to name all creation. So too Our Lord asks the name of the Gerasene demon. In Luke’s Gospel, it is recounted as, “Jesus then asked him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Legion’; for many demons had entered him” (Lk. 8:30). Though phrased as a question, it is a command.

One of the best ways to loosen the grip of our stories is by simply naming them. In ACT, this is part of a process called defusion, which can sound like:

• “Ah, here’s the ‘I’m a failure’ story.’”
• “Here is the ‘I’m unlovable’ narrative again.’”
• “My wounds are telling me, ‘No one understand you.’”

When we name our stories, we unhook from them. That alone can shift the narrative—and open us to the Great Story.

The Great Story: What We Forget When We Cling to Lesser Ones

The most profound thing I had a priest tell me in confession was, “You know God wants you to be happy, right?”

How often do we forget that truth?

Our painful stories speak only of our limits, our sins, and our wounds—never of our Redemption—like Frodo, who believes he is nothing but a burden, forgetting that Gandalf has a larger plan.

Yet every fairy-tale concludes with that famous cliché, “and they lived happily ever after.” Tolkien called this the “eucatastrophe”—a sudden turn towards joy. Fairy tales, and all good stories, echo the Gospel because the Gospel is the True Story behind all good stories. Richard John Neuhaus summarized this best when he wrote that “all truth is God’s truth, because all truth comes from the Truth” (Death on a Friday Afternoon). The stories that captivate us—those of sacrifice, rescue, and hope against impossible odds—move us so deeply because they resound, however faintly, the Great Story Christ revealed.

That story, which came to its climax on Calvary, is this:

• We are made out of love and are so intimately known that “even the hairs of your head are all numbered” (Mt. 10:30-31).
• We are the subject of the greatest hostage rescue in history, where Our Lord “has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col. 1:13).
• Our story does not end here. We were made for the day Our Lord promises where, “I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy” (Jn. 16:22).

It is this story we are invited to dwell in.

Living in the Great Story

Letting go does not mean denying our wounds. After all, when Christ appeared to the disciples in the upper room, He carried the wounds of His Passion.

But it is in His wounds that we are invited to place ours, just like Thomas, whose story of doubt sounds so much like our own. To that painful story, Our Lord answers with His own “put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not be faithless, but believing” (Jn. 20:27).

In His wounds, all our hurting stories have profound meaning. Meaning that is not discovered in dwelling on the old narratives but by responding to our present circumstances. Viktor Frankl, the Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist—a man whose personal story included the hell of a Nazi concentration camp—called this responding to the “demand of each hour.” Christ asks us not to “fix” every inner narrative, but to love in the demands of each hour.

St. Padre Pio famously prayed, “My past, O Lord, to your Mercy; my present to your Love; my future to your Providence.” Every part of our story—especially the painful parts—is meant to be surrendered to the Writer of the Great Story. In so doing, we choose which story dwells in our hearts: the narrow story pain dictates, or the vast one God invites us to take part in.

What Story Do You Choose?

Every story has decision points. Frodo chose to let go of his fears and insecurities and carry the ring to Mordor. John Creasey chose to set aside his despair, to take action and bring an innocent child home.  

Perhaps today is your choice point. A moment where you can choose to:

• Let go of the story that says you are beyond hope.
• Let go of the story that reduces you to your wounds.
• Let go of any story, no matter how “true” or how painful, that moves you away from the Author of Life.

Today you can make a choice to live in that Great Story—the True Story where all Truth emanates from: that you are known, you are loved, and you are redeemed. And realize, too, that you are invited toward the happiest of endings.

Author’s Note: Readers seeking professional support may find a licensed Catholic clinician faithful to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church through the Catholic Psychotherapy Association at https://cpa.ce21.com/directory. 

Photo by Linus Sandvide on Unsplash