Narrative Identity

Your life is like a big story, and you are the person writing it! Every day, you tell yourself a story about who you are and what you can do. When you are alone, you can think about the chapters of your life and decide what the hero — you — will do next. You can choose to tell a story where you are brave and kind. This story helps you understand where you came from and where you are going.

You are the person writing your own story. You are not the events that happened to you. You are the story you tell about the events that happened to you. Two people can survive the same disaster. One writes a tragedy. The other writes a comeback story. Same facts. Different authors. The facts are not the story. The narrator is the story. And you are the narrator. You have been the narrator the whole time. The pen was never in anyone else's hand. They may have written on your pages. But the binding is yours. The spine is yours. And the next chapter — the blank one — belongs to no one but the person holding the pen right now. That person is you.

McAdams' narrative identity model: the internalized evolving story of the self that integrates past, present, and imagined future. The facts are not the story. The narrator is the story. And the next chapter belongs to no one but the person holding the pen.

SOUND: The scratching of a pencil on paper: the sound of the self being written in real time.

SMELL: Old books or a new notebook: the scent of stories waiting to be told and stories that already were.

TASTE: A family recipe passed down through generations: the taste of a story that survived the storytellers.

TOUCH: Turning the pages of a thick book: the fingers participating in the passage of time.

SIGHT: A long road stretching toward the horizon: the plot visible but the ending hidden.

BODY: Feeling the balance of your body as you walk: the protagonist moving through the scene.

Music: Looking Too Closely (IIUII) by Fink

Music: Over the Rainbow by Judy Garland

Part of Identity & The Self — CONSCIOUSNESS — Education Revelation