We all create stories in our minds every day. Stories to make sense of our lives and our place in them. The trouble is, all too often, the narrator of our life stories is fear … and fear is a very unreliable narrator.

Let me give you an example from my own life.

Once upon a time, my parents split up and my mum moved out. I didn’t see this coming at all and the shock and pain went bone deep; soul deep.

Within a few months, fear had taken over the narrating of this story and the synopsis went something like this.

Your mum left because she didn’t love you.

As I grew up, fear started adding new chapters to my story.

Your mum didn’t love you because you aren’t loveable.

If your mum can leave you then of course a partner can.

And fear started scanning my life for subplots to add to this story; events that would confirm this morbid take on events.

Completely ignoring the wonderful boyfriends I had in my early dating years, it zoomed in on the one man who cheated on me.

He cheated on you because you aren’t loveable.

You must never trust a man again.

But fear is a very unreliable narrator.

Just like reading a gripping psychological thriller and discovering that the protagonist is actually a compulsive liar (with the obligatory drink problem, naturally) discovering that you’ve been deceiving yourself in your life stories can be an epic and empowering plot twist.

What if you made love the narrator of your life story? How different would things be?

By taking a more loving perspective on my life and myself I was able to see that my mum leaving was nothing to do with me.

And neither was my ex-partner’s cheating.

It was all to do with their own hurt …. and accepting that fact has set me free.

Now, whenever fear starts narrating a story in my mind I scan my life for empowering stories: the incredible inner strength I found in the face of hurt, the wonderful men who have loved me.

Has fear been narrating your life stories?

Try rewriting them from a loving and empowering perspective.

And keep rewriting them until you set yourself free.