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...