There are many different trainings or theories that I have walked through in my personal and academic life. Each one has offered a unique skillset to help myself and others navigate stormy seas. One of the most recent approaches has stuck in my mind more than others in the past. It is an approach created by Dan Allender and taught to me from an LPC named Matt Kenney under the name of  “Story Retelling.”  The premise is fairly simple: each person at one point in their development incurred a wound. This wound spoke a message of shame to the child. The child then created a vow to be a certain person or live a certain way so as to never feel that shame again. As a result, a false self is created through which the child learns to interact with the world. This false self is the point of discontentment and battle within the adult.

It begins with a wound. The fallen nature of the world ensures that each person will be hurt by someone in their childhood. The wounds that hurt the most are often from caregivers, siblings, friends, teachers, coaches, etc…namely, a person that carries some influence over the child. The wound can occur from strangers as well. There are two categories of wounds. The first is an “assault” wound. These are the powerful hits right to the gut of a person: a nasty insult from a parent, sexual abuse from an older sibling, public humiliation by a teacher or coach. The assault wounds are often easy to identify but difficult to talk about. The other wound is the “passive” wound. These are more difficult to identify sometimes. They can be the silence of a parent when an encouraging word was needed, the look of disgust on a friend’s face when you did something you didn’t even know was wrong, or the neglect of a caregiver regardless of the cries of the child.

As children often do, most people blame themselves. “The wound must have happened because I did something wrong.” A consequence of many wounds is that the child develops a message of shame in order to make sense of why the wound happened. It is this shame message that begins to form the negative core beliefs that so many people carry with them throughout their lives. I’m a failure, I’m unlovable, I have to be perfect, I’m irredeemable, I will never be good enough. The list goes on and on. This shame message creates a narrative cycle in the mind of each person, where they begin to seek ways in which it is confirmed in other situations. This confirmation bias further buries the message.

When the pain of the shame message becomes unbearable, the child makes a vow or an agreement with themselves. This vow is the direction they will point their future so as never to feel the shame of the message or put themselves in a position to experience a wound like before again. The vows use ultimate language, such as always, never, must, and need. They can sound like, “I will never trust anyone again. I will do whatever I have to do to be accepted. I will bully people before they bully me.” There is another type of vow that can be made as well, which relates to a specific type of false self (discussed further down). These vows sound like, “ I will never be good enough so don’t try. I must always keep the real me hidden so they don’t reject me.”

As a result of the vow, the child constructs a false self to uphold their vow and protect themselves from the pain of shame. People typically create a false self that operates one of three ways in reaction to the shame message: they fight it, they embrace it, or they avoid it. Someone who fights a shame message of not being good enough may vow to never be belittled again. Therefore, their false self is a perfectionist who works long hours and seeks to always get first in regard to materials, prestige, or accolades. Someone who fights a shame message that they’re unlovable may vow to do whatever it takes to be accepted. Therefore, their false self has porous boundaries, and they allow themselves to be taken advantage of so long as they aren’t left alone in life. Someone who fights a message saying they don’t belong may vow to never put themselves out there to be mocked. Therefore, their false self stays behind closed doors fixed to screens and hobbies with extremely rigid boundaries. In all of these, the aim is to never be put in a position to feel the wound again and to keep themselves so distracted upholding their vow that they can block out the nagging shame message.

This path leads to exhaustion, bitterness, insecurity, and broken relationships. The person may avoid the external wounds, but when everything is silent, they cannot escape the echo of the message in their head. The continuously run from themselves until they become discontent with themselves. It is only when we pause with them to look at the wound and name it for what it is; a painful event from childhood, a decision they regret making, an absent parent when a loving embrace was needed. When we accept that it is part of our story regardless of our wishing it wasn’t, it opens the door for us to step back into that memory and re-parent the hurting child. We can do for them the thing we wish was done at the moment of the wound. Whether that is to pick the crying child up off the floor and tell them everything will be okay or to step between the child and the bully and show them they are worth protecting, we get to identify the shame message as a liar and allow God to comfort us with His truth. By retelling the story, we can negate the message of shame, renounce the vow, and deconstruct our false self so that our new self, bearing the image of Christ, empowered by His Spirit, can move forward in peace and freedom.

Ryan Hannah | MA, LLPC