Everyone Is Worthy of Owning Their Story

“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process

is the bravest thing that we will ever do.”

Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection

 

As recovering codependents, one of the most difficult things we must do is own our life story. For many years, I distanced myself from my story in the same way that I distanced myself from myself and from owning my own life. The strong desire I had to escape from myself meant that I had to escape from my story as well. And my method for escaping myself and my story was to enmesh in someone else and to come to own his identity and his story.

Owning our story means many things to me. First, it means we have to come face to face with ourselves and decide that we will no longer run from who we are. In doing so, we have to look past our denial—all of it. We have to acknowledge and accept that we are worthy, good and lovable (though flawed) people. We have to be able to look in the mirror and say “I love and accept you just the way you are and I forgive you for not being the person that I wanted you to be.” Then we need to explore whether or not being the person that we wanted ourselves to be was feasible. Was it realistic? Or was it a perfectionistic nightmare that we forced onto ourselves?

Moving past our denial also means that we must own all that has happened over the course of our lives; and this includes the good and the bad. It requires that we accept all that is good and beautiful and admirable about ourselves—honestly—by removing the negative lens that we have always examined ourselves through in the past.

It also means that we must truly acknowledge how painful much of our past has been. We have to stop minimizing the pain we experienced. Maybe we were emotionally abandoned by our parents and we’ve denied the true pain of that experience because we’ve had a longtime friend who was physically abandoned by her parents. It’s easy to minimize our pain by comparing ourselves to someone else. But owning our story requires that we stop doing this and face the truth. Abandonment, whether emotional or physical, is still abandonment—and it’s equally painful either way.

Moving past our denial, so that we can truly own our story, requires a tremendous amount of courage. And admittedly, many of us have been cowards most of our lives. We’ve been consumed by fear: fear of not being good enough, fear of not being worthy, fear of being abandoned again and again, fear of walking through life in our shoes. Yet fear and courage are two sides of the same coin. Certainly, there is no courage without fear. Being courageous doesn’t mean we are fearless. It means we are scared shitless and yet we still move forward, willing to face the truth so we can own it.

Admitting we are powerless over others and that our lives have become unmanageable requires a good deal of fear-tinged courage. Telling our story in 12 Step meetings requires a good deal of fear-tinged courage. And owning our story completely by dropping all of our denial will also take a great deal of fear-tinged courage. But we can do it. All it requires is the belief that we are worth it. Start believing today that you are worth it. Begin the process of getting in touch with yourself, your life and your story. Go to a meeting today and start telling your story. Everyone is worth it. NO EXCEPTIONS!