This document discusses how people create life stories or histories from their past experiences and presents counseling perspectives on helping clients address problematic stories. Key points: - People interpret their past experiences and connect them into narratives which are their life stories, not objective histories. - These stories come in various colors, lengths and thicknesses and influence present and future more than the actual past. - Counselors should listen to clients' stories rather than just facts and help challenge unhelpful stories or develop alternative stories. - Metaphors like life as different threads or an overall tapestry are used to show stories are interrelated and one's full life can only be understood with broader perspectives.

1. Your Life Story
A Pastoral Counseling
Perspective
Bukal Life Care
2017
www.bukallifecare.org

2. Try to Picture in Your Mind Your Life
Story as a Piece of String

How long would it be?

What color is it?

How thick is it?

What is it made of?

What makes your “life
string” unique from that of
others?

Is it a source of Pride?
Embarrassment? Frustration?

3. Sorry... but it is a trick question.

No one has a life story
(history). Each of us has
life stories (histories).

Also, these stories are
not things we “have.”
They are things we
create. These stories
come in all sorts of
colors, lengths, and
thicknesses.

4. How Do We Make These Stories?

We take specific
moments,
circumstances, or
relationships in our
lives.

5. How Do We Make These Stories?

We connect them
with a running
narrative based on
recurring themes or
causal relationships
we feel that we can
identify.

“Well, ___________ happened. And then
_________. And other time there was
__________, and that caused me to ________.”

6. How Do We Make These Stories?

We thicken the story
with supporting details
and feelings.

The “thicker” the
story, the more we are
justified to say it is an
important story.
“Thin” stories we may
or may not think are
important. Regardless,
they have little
support.

7. How Do We Make These Stories?

We “color” the
story... is it a good
story or bad, happy
or sad.

We then label the
story. “I am a
success!!” or “I am
a failure” or “I
never give up!” and
so forth.
“I never do anything right” story

8. Some Important Thoughts

No one has a life story
or a history. We have
many many potential
life stories or histories.

It is not so true that
our past affects our
present and future so
much as that the
stories we make of our
past affect our present
and future.

We CANNOT change
our past, but we can
ALWAYS change our
histories (our life
stories)

That is because these
stories are only
interpretations of our
past.

9. How does this affect us as pastoral
counselors?

We should spend less
time trying to
determine the FACTS
of their past, as much
as we want to hear
their STORIES of their
past.

On the other hand, we
don't confuse their
stories with reality.
Their stories express
their interpretation of
their experiences.

10. We also remember that every person has
many stories. Here are some stories that
Paulo has:

Paulo the Great
Success.

Paulo the Failure.

Paulo, everyone's
friend.

Paulo the unlovable.

Paulo the generous

Paulo the selfish

Paulo the depressed

Paul the hopeful
seeker.

11. Some people can get “stuck” in one life
story. How does one help Paulo who is stuck
in the story... “Paulo the Failure”

Listen to his story, but challenge
aspects of it. Is his entire life
one of failure? Or are there other
stories he is ignoring?

Change the “color” or title of the
story. Should the title be “Paulo
the Failure” or should it be
“Paulo learning and growing
through mistakes” or “Paulo
never giving up.”

Help him develop other stories
such as “Paulo the success” and
“Paulo the good friend.”

Help Paulo “thicken” stories
that challenge his focus on
failure. Thickening means to
add details and events that
show a story is more important
in the life of the person.

“Thin” the failure story by
helping him reinterpret
(reframe) aspects of it. (After
all, success comes from
learning from failure.)

12. Threads as Life Stories can be useful.
But we can also change the metaphor.

Think of each story...
each thread being
related to every other
thread.

That makes sense
since these stories all
come together to make
up the life each of us
lives.

One might imagine all
of the stories of one's
life being woven
together into a
tapestry.

If so, WHAT DOES
YOUR TAPESTRY
LOOK LIKE?

13. We Don't Know What the Tapestry
Looks Like. Why?

We are too limited.
Limited in knowledge,
understanding,
perspective, and time.

We can only see bits
and pieces of the
pattern that the stories
of our life form.

14. To Understand our Life Tapestry, We
Need Help.

Others can help us see
more. They can help us
broaden our perspective.

Of course others are
limited in their
perspectives too.

Johari's Window speaks to
this... removing our
blindspots with the help of
others.

15. Johari Window

16. We Don't Know What the Tapestry
Looks Like. Why?

With help, we can gain
a better understanding
of ourselves... who we
were, who we are, and
who we are meant to
be.

For this, we need more
then self-reflection,
and help from others.
We need divine
illumination.

17. Ultimately, However, it is Only God Who
Has the Knowledge and Perspective to
Judge the Entirety of our Lives.

When the Bible says
to let God be the
judge, not us... that
is more than
showing respect to
God.

It is an admission of
our ignorance and
lack of competence
to judge.

18. Tapestries (and most visual arts) are
More Appealing with Many Colors

The pain, the sadness, the
failures of the past, do not
destroy the pattern.

The scars of the past have a
potentially redemptive aspect,
adding value and demonstrating
God's power to make all things
beautiful in His time.

Even brokenness can be
beautiful in the hands of a
Master craftsman. (Consider, for
example, Kintsukuroi, “Golden
Repair,” Pottery.)

19. References

Alice Morgan, What is Narrative Therapy? An Easy to Read
Introduction. (Adelaide, Australia: Dulwich Centre Publications,
2000)

Robert Munson, Theo-storying: Reflections on God, Narrative
and Culture. (MM-Musings, Baguio City, 2014)
www.bukallifecare.org
www.munsonmissions.org