Your Unlucky Event Could be the Best Thing that Ever Happened to You
Studies show how narrative therapy can change the impact of negative events on your life.
Have you ever experienced a romantic rejection so painful it still lingers in your mind years later?
Or maybe you had a business or startup that didn’t work out, and even now, it stirs a sense of shame whenever you think about it?
What about a chronic injury, failed relationship, or just long periods of being single that makes you feel as though you’ve wasted years of your life that you could never get back?
The more I work with people, the more I see how so many of us carry those events around. While you may think you’ve moved on and there is not cost to your life today, you would be wrong.
The cost is that background anxiety you bring into every new relationship, the self-doubt you operate from in every new venture, and the constant fear of being in that same situation again.
What if I told you that instead of just getting over it, those events could be the best thing that ever happened to you?
Better still, what if I told you that you could reframe that today even if those events happened decades ago?
I recently went through this exact process with a coaching client of mine using narrative exposure therapy, which is a powerful tool used widely used with people who have experienced extreme or chromic trauma such as refugees, survivors of long-term abuse, and patients with chronic diseases.
Through the lens of her story, I wrote a step-by-step guide on how to apply narrative therapy. In addition, I provide all the scientific research behind NET (including links to the source). Here’s a preview of that story:
In 2021, my coaching client, Mira, was having a terrible year. She had just received her 80th rejection letter for job applications. Prior to this phase, life had felt relatively easy. She had gotten several prestigious positions without much trouble, had a solid relationship, and lots of time to do all the activities she loved.
But suddenly, she felt very, very unlucky.
Mira tried getting career coaching and even applied for lower-level jobs. But after two years of getting nowhere, she was filled with self-doubt.
To make things worse, she developed a mysterious and chronic back pain and achy joints. She stopped being able to do basic life chores much less the physical sports that made her happy.
Mira’s moods also became began to rollercoaster which affected her relationship. Eventually, her boyfriend of twelve years broke up with her. With no income and needing support, she was forced to move back in with her parents.
But now, only three years later, Mira has a completely differently life and is convinced that those exact combination of events were the best thing that could have happened to her.
How did she make the change?
When Mira initially became unemployed, she coped with her growing despair by distracting herself. Instead of using the time to self-reflect, she would alternate between bingeing on Netflix and long days of hiking. At the end of the two-year period, Mira had made no progress. So, she sought my help.
I encouraged her to try Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET). NET has been shown to be extremely powerful in situations of extreme trauma or chronic trauma (see below for research on refugees and abuse survivors). NET works because it doesn’t try to change the events or the fact that suffering happened but instead helps you reframe those events in a way that is meaningful and empowering.
Mira isn’t the only person with whom effectively I’ve used Narrative Therapy with. I use it often because there is a solid body of research around it.
NET is effective over a broad range of experiences
NET has been shown to be effective in relieving negative symptoms, fostering resilience, and generating hope in a wide variety of experiences. These include extreme trauma (such as refugee youths, abandoned children, people with complex childhood abuse, and stroke survivors) as well as people suffering from more chronic conditions such as depression, autism, chronic pain, eating disorders, and ADHD.
NET can improve social and emotional skills
Researchers collected 813 stories from children between the ages of 8 to 10-years-old for two years before and after receiving narrative therapy. They reported that children receiving NET intervention demonstrated a significant improvement in self-awareness, self-management, social awareness/empathy, and responsible decision making when compared to their own initial stories and the stories from children in a control group. A different study also found that NET can reduce symptoms of social phobia among boys aged 10 to 11-years old.
NET can improve relationship satisfaction
One of the most surprising pieces of research on NET I came across was a study showing that women experiencing low marital satisfaction could significantly improve their satisfaction in their relationships even if they were the only ones undergoing NET. Results from repeated measurement showed a significant difference after eight sessions compared to a control group.
The effects of NET are lasting
The best part about NET? The effects appear to be lasting. Researchers found that if you are able to apply positive meaning to a negative event, your brain will adaptively update this memory so that every other time you remember this event, you will also feel positive emotions instead of negative ones.
If you are interested in learning more about how we turned Mira’s situation around using NET and how you can apply NET to your life, click on the buttons below. Reading my articles in Medium and clapping, highlighting, and/or commenting on them is a free way for you to support my writing.
