During a first session with a brand new client,  I asked her to tell me her story, and to let me know what she thought were the most important parts of it.

She replied, “It’s complicated. It’s hard to talk about”.  That made me wonder if there is anyone out there who doesn’t have a “complicated” life story.  I don’t think so.  Life takes many twists and turns for all of us. In order not to get completely turned around and lost, because the map is too confusing to follow, or the story too convoluted, too painful, too hard to face, we need to teach ourselves to look at our stories in a different way and to listen to them differently. We need to learn to use them to guide us in a new direction.

Think about your own story and the themes that seem to have run through it. For some of us, the themes change over time and are very different in middle-age or senior years than they were when we were teenagers. For others, those same themes keep repeating themselves over and over. They can be themes of loss, themes of needs that did not get met, themes of self-blame, poor choices, themes of the results of always putting needs of others before ourselves, or themes of persistence, hard work, lucky breaks, or maybe no breaks at all. They may be themes of faith and security, or themes of suspicion and feeling alone. These themes and how you interpret them, have shaped the way you feel about and do things in the here and now.

I know people who have already written the endings to their stories, at least in their minds, even though they have a lot of living left to do. Their repeated themes seem to hold them captive. They don’t want to learn from, to edit, or to simplify their stories.They replay the worn, predictable plot lines, and the old melodies that come into their heads.  They don’t seem to realize they have the ability to put down the book and start a new one, to change the station on the radio, or to pop in a new CD.  Their actions and choices almost have a momentum of their own, because these people have been doing the same things, viewing the same things in the same ways, and making the same choices for so long, they are on automatic pilot. It’s kind of like having your car drive you where it wants to go, (probably a future possibility) or where it has been programmed to take you. Is the destination that is programmed into the car where you want to go, though?

When these melodic fragments, if you will, come forth and superimpose themselves on your life in the present, they may not always create positive emotions for you.  They may replay repeatedly and cause echoes of earlier negative associations. Listen hard for the melody of a theme that has run through your life.   You can use this feeling, this recurrent theme or melody, to take you back to the strengths and survival skills you acquired in the past even while going through tough times.

If you  boil down to a few words, or even to a sentence or two, the major themes or highlights of the stages of life you have been through, by asking yourself some key questions, you will start to  know what you need to work on.  You will likely find a leitmotif, or a couple of them that have recurred and have run through each part of your life. As in music, a leitmotif can transform, or can occur in different guises, but it can tie things together. It can be a teaching tool, and not just something that always evokes the same emotional responses, once you retrain yourself to stop and look for what you have learned.

You can’t change the past. You may not be able to get your insistent leitmotifs out of your head, but you can practice paying attention to them, thinking about them and how they make you feel. Knowledge truly is power. Can you hear the music that evokes your past experiences and your old story, as a simple, but powerful melody that can inspire you to change?  Don’t listen to this with fear, boredom, or resignation because it is so old and familiar.  Think about your recurring themes and music, however sad and evocative of pain they may be,  as binding together the various parts of your life into a rich and wonderful whole.

You are not the only person who has had a complicated life, but there are always opportunities to make changes and to create simplicity out of complexity once you know what is truly important to you, and what you are tired of repeating with only unhappy or poor results.