Telling your life story helps you avoid past mistakes

What's your story? You've got one, and it's important.

Sooner or later each of us develops some sense of how we got to where we are in our lives. We may not like where we are, perhaps we aren't all that happy about how we got there, but it's our story nonetheless.

Our story is at the foundation of how we see and understand ourselves and our lives. Whether we are a good enough person, whether we are liked and loved, whether our life has been worth living, the basic wisdom about life in general that we accumulate over the years - all are based on the story we tell to explain our lives.

Often the first thing I ask of people I work with as a therapist is simply to tell me their story. We talk about the family and communities in which they were raised, the good and bad they experienced, the choices they made, the successes and failures that have come to them.

What they say and don't say, how they say it, the sense they make out of it all, tells me more about them than any diagnostic test or series of questions.

There are other reasons such personal story telling is so important. Each of our stories is bound to include struggle, disappointment, rejection, pain, despair. A crucial part of our coming to terms with these unpleasant chapters in our lives has to do with our talking about them and being heard and accepted by another as we talk. As we experience this acceptance from another, we also begin to grant it to ourselves.

Such acceptance of our story allows us not only to come to terms with its less-positive elements, but also frees us to write new stories. As we tell our story to ourselves and others, we can learn the lessons that can enable us to avoid past mistakes.

And it can help us to set new directions that will be more fulfilling and rewarding. The story of the rest of our life does not have to be repetitions of the story of the life we have lived so far. Our future is not yet written.

If you have never told your story, you don't have to seek out a therapist to do so. Consider writing down your story in a diary or journal just for yourself. Or find a friend who would enjoy exchanging stories with you. As you do so, ask yourself what you have learned from the life you have lived and how you might use this wisdom in writing the story of the years to come.

We all love stories. They capture the fullness and complexity of life - perhaps better than any other medium. Tell yourself a story - the story of you. It is a story worth telling.

• Dr. Ken Potts is on the staff of Samaritan Counseling Center in Naperville and Downers Grove. He is the author of "Mix Don't Blend, A Guide to Dating, Engagement and Remarriage With Children."