The Narratives We Live By - Part 1

Image by Pablo Stanley

Part 1: The Weight of Untold Stories

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“What's your story? It's all in the telling. Stories are compasses and architecture; we navigate by them, we build our sanctuaries and our prisons out of them, and to be without a story is to be lost in the vastness of a world that spreads in all directions.”

Rebecca Solnit, The Faraway Nearby

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We all have a story.

There is the story we tell,

And then, there is the one we carry.

The one shaped by what is missing, what hurt, what we hid.

Most of us do not realise how much of our lives are shaped by the stories we have attached to the events of our past.

Not just the facts, but the emotions we never spoke about,

the things we still do not have words for.

It is these hidden stories, the ones we never quite tell in full, that often shape the kind of life we allow ourselves to live.

What lives in the silence of our stories?

Shame.

Guilt.

Grief.

Rage.

These emotions become layers in the story.

And the more we try to bury them, the heavier the story becomes.

It settles into the body, into our chest, our jaw, our gut.

It settles in our choices, our silences, our breath.

I know this because I have lived it.

I carried shame and guilt like a weighted cloak,

hiding parts of myself from those closest to me.

And in doing so

I kept a wall between myself and the people I longed to connect with.

One day, I knew I had to tell my story, all of it.

Not for applause, not for absolution,

but because the burden had become too heavy.

And when I did, something incredible happened.

I felt lighter.

More myself.

And slowly, others began to share their stories with me

stories they too had been carrying in silence.

Of course, some judged me.

This is often why people stay quiet,

But I learned that the judgment of others is never heavier than the judgment we place on ourselves.

I have come to believe that every person has a story.

Not just a biography, not just a timeline of events.

But a deeply felt, embodied narrative that needs space to unfold.

When left untold, it builds pressure in the body.

It clouds the heart.

It becomes a pervasive dis-ease,

One that eventually surfaces in the form of fatigue, anxiety, illness, or disconnection.

Stories keep us alive and connected to each other

It is in the telling that we find grace.

For ourselves.

And for others.

Our stories can become medicine.

A starting point.

An anchor.

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"There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you" ~ Zora Neale Hurston.

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And so, we begin to unearth what has long been buried.

We name the stories.

We honor them by telling the truth,

But the feeling of it all.

Because our stories are like balls of yarn,

and soft clay,

We are the weavers and the molders,

Choosing the colors, shapes, and threads.

Creating something from everything.

Telling a new story.

Reshaping an old one.

Spinning the tales that are our lives.

This is who we are

The bringers of hope,

the storytellers,

The ones who take what is heavy

the pain, the shame, the guilt

and begin again.

Creating a new pattern.

Filling each stitch with breath,

With love,

with joy,

with renewed hope.

And in so doing we find a new kind of medicine in

Stories - Ours and those of others.

Community

Breath.

Movement.

Connection.

We do not heal by burying our stories.

We heal by allowing them to rise, slowly, in safe places,

until they no longer control us from the shadows.

Until the sorrow lifts, the pain subsides, and every exhale is a gentle letting go.

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"In the strongest stories, we see ourselves, connected to each other, woven into the pattern, see that we are ourselves stories, telling and being told. Stories like yours and worse than yours are all around, and your suffering won't mark you out as special, though your response to it might" ~ Rebecca Solnit ~ The Faraway Nearby

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 This piece is part one of a two-part reflection on the stories we carry and what it means to live from a place of deeper truth. It gently leads into an upcoming workshop called “Remembering,” a gathering centered on breath, movement, and story, as a path to reconnecting with who we truly are. A different kind of medicine. More details will follow in time.

With Gratitude

Surayya Hassan - The Holding Space

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