You Do Not Have to Tell Your Story

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There’s some pressure in the more ‘psychologised’ cultures to be open, to share, to tell your story, and it’s easy to find yourself swept along and unthinkingly revealing more than, in retrospect, you want to. There can be a great deal of centredness, self-respect and power in silence.

Evan Hadkins recently pointed out that we have a choice about what we reveal and what we don’t. (See Collaborating With Life.) It got me thinking about what a powerful moment that is, when something arises and is on the tip of our tongue, and we stop and decide whether we want to say it or not.

I’m a therapist and a writer, so as you can imagine, I am generally on the side of “let it out”. Articulating, shaping, understanding our experience and writing our own stories about our lives can be crucial in healing. Once fresh air gets in to stuff we have been carrying around for years, sometimes this is enough to dispel the crushing weight of the problem. When someone receives what we are saying within a relationship of unconditional respect and ‘gives it back to us’ — that may be even better.

But I am increasingly coming to think that there is a lot to be said for keeping your own counsel. There is a good deal of pressure in the more ‘psychologised’ cultures to be open, to share, to tell your story, and it’s easy to find yourself swept along and unthinkingly revealing more than, in retrospect, you want to.

It is not really that secrets can entirely be hidden; they show up all over the place, in how we walk, sit, talk, and breathe. But the histories attached, or the explanations we use to make sense of them, may not actually need to be shared. There can be a great deal of centredness and power in silence. Once a difficult feeling or experience has been ‘aired’, if only within ourselves, and understood well enough, sharing it again and again may serve only to strengthen the story as a part of us. This might be helpful, in finding solidarity with others in similar situations, or it might not be helpful — reducing us to the one story, when the fact is that we all have many stories.

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I have found many times over in therapy that it is liberating to know what you have to say and to know that you can stop for a second to make the choice. So often we have grown up with scripts that tell us that we must say nothing about what is happening, and pretend everything is alright — or conversely, that our worth depends on our working constantly on communication and relationships. (This last applies particularly to women. Sometimes we are stunned to think that we don’t actually have to tell our partners/mothers/friends everything!)

There’s often a new sense of self-respect that comes with making a choice to say or not to say, and a sense that rational decisions and emotional needs can go hand in hand. Some helpful questions to ask are: Do I actually trust this person enough? Is this the right time for me to talk about this? Do I want to give this thing any more of my time and energy? Do I feel I just have to say something, and if so, what is that about? Or do I feel I don’t want to, but I should say something? Maybe I feel I shouldn’t say anything, and that makes me want to rebel! Maybe there is something else going on right at this minute which is actually more interesting and engaging to me, and I can just let this feeling arise and pass on by.

I would certainly urge people, even in therapy, not to feel they have to ‘say everything’. While it’s necessary to look at any taboos on revealing things which might have been imposed on us, it is not a case of the more that is said, the better. It is the case, that the more awareness and choice you allow yourself, the better. Effective, empowering therapy is possible without telling all the stories explicitly, in words.

All clinical material on this site is peer reviewed by one or more clinical psychologists or other qualified mental health professionals. This specific article was originally published by on and was last reviewed or updated by Dr Greg Mulhauser, Managing Editor on .

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