Tell Your Story in Freedom

The years that lie behind you, with all their struggles and pains, will in time be remembered only as the way that led to your new life. But as long as the new life is not fully yours, your memories will continue to cause you pain. When you keep reliving painful events of the past, you can feel victimised by them. But there is a way of telling your story will become less pressing. You will see that you are no longer there : the past is gone, the pain has left you, you no longer have to go back and relive it, you no longer depend on your past to identify yourself.

There are two ways of telling your story. One is to tell it compulsively and urgently, to keep returning to it because you see your present suffering as the result of your pat experiences. But there is another way. You can tell your story from the place where it is no longer dominates you. You can speak about it with a certain distance and see it as a way to your present freedom. The compulsion to tell your story is gone. From the perspective of the life you now live and the distance you now have, your past does not loom over you. It has lost it's weight and can be remembered as God's way of making you more compassionate and understanding towards others.

by Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love