You’ve seen it. Cinematic montages of morning coffee captioned like movie scripts, dramatic retellings about life’s mundane events, plot twists, and people stepping into their “main character era” like they just walked onto a film set. The idea is simple- romanticize your life, see yourself as the protagonist, and bask in the spotlight of your own narrative.

Sounds empowering, right? Well, not always.

What is Main Character Syndrome, anyway?

Main Character Syndrome (MCS) isn’t an official psychological diagnosis, but it’s definitely a cultural moment. It’s the tendency to see yourself as the star of the show; where everything that happens is part of your storyline, and everyone else is just supporting characters, obviously!

A little self-importance is natural. Heck, it’s even necessary, but when does it go too far? In my own understanding, perhaps it’s when your personal story arc becomes the story.

Reality with a Filter

Social media didn’t just encourage MCS, it put it in 4K resolution and everyone wanted social media to be the director of their lives. Platforms like TikTok and Instagram have turned everyday existence into a performance that encourage people to document their lives like a carefully curated film reel.

It was no longer about just about sharing life’s moments, it became so much about crafting a narrative and making sure they look like something straight out of an A24 film, complete with aesthetic coffee shots, dramatic text overlays, and indie soundtrack-worthy captions.

But constantly curating your life to fit a storyline can wrap self-perception. You just end up spending too much time scripting your life, and before you know it, you are living for the aesthetic, not the experience.

When we’re too focused on being the main character, it’s easy to forget that everyone else is living an equally complicated, messy, meaningful lives too.

Main Character Energy Gets Lonely

There’s nothing wrong with adding a little flair to your life; after all, perspective shapes experience. And tbh, romanticizing your life does have the potential be all fun and games. You might even manage to convince yourself of this, but …

when everything becomes content, conversations will turn into dialogue rehearsals, experiences become photo ops, and relationships can feel transactional. The pressure to constantly be someone funny, wise, effortlessly cool, and whatever else is trending, can leave little room for just being.

When you’re always trying to fit your life into an Instagrammable narrative, the mundane parts of existence (which, let’s be honest, is most of life) start feeling unbearable.

Everyone knows that not every moment is a perfect, slow-motion, sun-drenched scene. Real life isn’t always cinematic. Sometimes it’s awkward, uneventful, or downright boring. Sometimes you spill coffee down your shirt five minutes into the day.

And that’s okay.

How to Be the Main Character Without Losing the Plot

Social media rewards a carefully curated version of authenticity, but true connection comes from embracing the unfiltered parts of life too. Studies have even linked excessive social media use to higher levels of narcissism and decreased empathy. This is exactly the kind of behaviour that shows up when people start treating others as background characters instead of fully realized humans with their own emotions.

When your desire to be the protagonist disconnects you from reality, or makes real-life relationships feel secondary to your own narrative, it might be time to take a step back. Because the best protagonists evolve, stay grounded, and (shockingly) care about others too.

You are the main character in your own life, but you’re not the only main character.

So, how do we embrace self-romanticization without getting lost in our own echo chamber?

• Acknowledge other storylines. Every person you meet has their own plot twists, struggles, and triumphs. Don’t just play a role in their lives, actually engage with them.
• Drop the script. Let go of the performance because not everything needs a highlight reel.
• Be real, not just relatable. If you’re having a deep conversation with a friend, maybe don’t pause to tweet about it.
• Appreciate the unedited version of life. Not every experience has to be aesthetic or romanticized. Sometimes, a cup of coffee is just a cup of coffee.

At The End Of The Day…

There’s nothing wrong with embracing your main character energy now and then. But the real magic happens when we recognize that we’re all protagonists in a shared world, with overlapping narratives, unexpected plot twists, and co-stars worth listening to.

Real connection is about embracing life in all its unfiltered, unedited moments. So go ahead and romanticize your life, capture the aesthetic, but don’t forget that sometimes the best scenes unfold when no one’s watching.

The post Dear Main Character, You’re Not the Only One in the Story first appeared on SUNGJEM AIER.

What Is Selective Morality? The Psychology Behind Convenient Ethics

The dissonance is deafening. We talk a big game about values but only until those values come home for dinner.

This isn’t about hypocrisy. This isn’t about judging you. It’s about understanding why we do this and how our minds work. And why being morally consistent is much, much harder when love, guilt, tradition, and identity are in the mix.

Moral at a Distance

Somehow it’s surprisingly easy to call out people we don’t know. You can comment, block, rage-cry in a tweet thread and sleep peacefully. But when it’s your best friend who cheated on their partner, or your uncle who said something offensive at a family gathering, suddenly it’s “not my place.” This common justification highlights how selective morality operates in personal relationships.

Psychologist Albert Bandura coined the term moral disengagement to describe how people rationalize behavior that contradicts their personal ethics. We tell ourselves it’s “different” when it’s someone we love. That they’re not a bad person. That they’re “just going through a phase.” We convince ourselves that silence is protection.

When Blood Dilutes Ethics: Selective Morality Within Families

A man steals from an old woman. It’s on the news. We’re furious. We repost, we write angry captions, we say “justice must be served.” We shame not just the thief, but his family, his friends, anyone remotely related.

But now imagine it’s your sister.

She didn’t rob anyone, but she did take something intangible. Maybe she manipulated a coworker. Gaslit a friend. Pulled strings at work. It’s still harm. And the moment someone brings it up, your defense kicks in.

You go from being a critic to their crisis manager like a PR agent for the behavior you once condemned.

This is where cognitive dissonance hits the hardest. When your actions and beliefs don’t line up, your brain scrambles to resolve the tension caused by this selective morality, and often, the easiest way to ease the tension is to rewrite the narrative. Downplay the wrongdoing. Focus on the “good parts” of the person.

You can call this in-group bias – our tendency to protect our own- the closer they are to us, the harder it becomes to see them objectively. And now, you’ve got a family WhatsApp group full of silence and saved face.

Selective Outrage: Who Gets Held Accountable?

We hold public figures to higher moral standards than we hold our families. And ourselves.

You’ll cancel a celebrity for a problematic tweet from 2008, but excuse your cousin’s slurs at the dinner table because “that’s just how he talks.” You’ll call your coworker out for body-shaming, but stay silent when your aunt comments on your niece’s weight in front of everyone.

And again, it’s not because you’re a bad person. It’s because confronting the people we love risks more than just being uncomfortable. It risks closeness. And for many of us, especially in collectivist cultures, family harmony > personal values.

The Unspoken Rulebook: Family First, Morals Later

Somewhere along the way, we were taught not to “air dirty laundry.” That family matters more than truth. That blood comes before boundaries. Even when it means protecting someone who needs to be corrected.

Ethics is not about being perfect. It’s about being honest- with ourselves and with the world. Because at the end of the day, the hardest battles are not the ones we fight in the streets but the ones we fight inside our own homes.

The Psychology Behind Selective Morality

When we see a wrong committed by someone we don’t know, we evaluate it using the cold cognition part of our brain. Logic, facts, right vs. wrong. But when the same thing is done by someone we love, it activates hot cognition and which is the emotion-driven decision-making.

Research on moral licensing also show that when people feel morally validated in one area (“I stood up for this one issue!”), they tend to give themselves a pass in other areas (“So I can let this one slide.”), a cognitive loophole enabling selective morality. You stood up for the environment at work so you let your dad’s plastic dumping slide.

It all adds up.

Combine that with years of social conditioning (be loyal to your tribe, respect elders no matter what), and you’ve got a recipe for moral silence.

Does Empathy Justify Selective Morality?

Compassion is important. Nuance is necessary. But we can’t keep confusing empathy with avoidance.

And no, confronting someone doesn’t mean cutting them off. Sometimes, love can look like difficult conversations.

Now That We Know, What’s Next?

There’s no easy answer. This blog won’t end with a 3-step plan to fix your family’s moral inconsistencies. (You’d ignore it anyway. We all would.)

But maybe the next time someone you care about messes up, you won’t rush to sweep it under the rug. Maybe you’ll sit with the discomfort and ask yourself, “If I didn’t know this person, how would I react? And what does it say about me if I only act when it’s easy?”

Morality isn’t convenient. That’s what makes it moral.

The real test of our values isn’t what we scream in public. It’s not the silence in courtrooms or protests. It’s what we whisper at the dinner table- where truth gets served cold, or not at all.

The post Selective Morality 101: Why We Cancel Celebrities, Not Cousins first appeared on SUNGJEM AIER.

There’s a kind of grief we don’t talk about enough. And it’s the grief of unlived lives, of who we could have been. It lingers in the spaces between our choices, in the roads we never took, in the lives we imagined but didn’t live.

It sneaks up on you in small moments like when you scroll past someone living the life you once dreamed of, when an old ambition resurfaces out of nowhere, when you wonder, what if? It’s not exactly regret but something softer, and it’s heavy nonetheless. It’s a mix of nostalgia, curiosity, and sometimes, a little bit of sadness.

And this grief is not just personal, but cultural too. A lot of our choices never felt entirely our own. We came of age in a time that preached independence and ambition, especially for women. We were told we could be anything, do anything but in the background, tradition kept whispering reminders of what we should be. Marriage, family, stability- those age-old benchmarks that have long defined a woman’s worth. So while we reached for more, we also carried the weight of expectations that inadvertently shaped our decisions.

By mid to late 20s, we’re expected to have a steady job, an income, and a life that looks put together. But what if getting there meant giving up parts of ourselves? What if, in choosing the practical path, we had to let go of the dreams we once nurtured?

And if so, how do we live with this grief? More importantly, how do we stop mourning the lives we didn’t live and start embracing the one we have?

The ‘Job by 26’ Rule

Remember those kids in school who swore they’d be astronauts, artists, or world-famous chefs? Fast forward a decade or two, and most of them (like us) are just trying to figure out how to reply to emails without having an existential crisis.

Maybe they wanted to be an artist but ended up in a government job because you can’t eat dreams.

Maybe they swore they’d leave town, yet here they are, running the family business.

And maybe you too see yourself in them.

Most of us didn’t choose our careers out of passion. We chose them out of necessity. And now, at 28, still figuring things out feels heavier than ever, especially in a world where every teenager seems to already own a startup.

Many of us weren’t just chasing a career, we were stepping into roles as family breadwinners, cultural torchbearers, and proof of success for our parents’ sacrifices. The weight of responsibility often shaped our choices before we even realized it.

The Psychology Behind the Grief of Unlived Lives

This longing for a parallel life is more than just a passing thought, it has deep psychological roots.

The “What If” Loop: Our Brain’s Obsession with Alternate Endings

Psychologists call this counterfactual thinking. Our brain’s tendency to replay past decisions and imagine different outcomes. It’s a survival mechanism. If we analyze our past mistakes, we might avoid similar ones in the future. But when this becomes obsessive, it can trap us in a cycle of regret, making us feel like we failed simply because we didn’t choose a different path.

Neuroscience also backs this up with studies that show how the medial prefrontal cortex (a region linked to self-reflection), lights up when we think about our past choices. The more emotional the memory, the stronger the brain’s response. That’s why we feel the deepest regret when our identity – our careers, relationships, or personal goals- is on the line.

Erik Erikson’s Theory

Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development explain why this grief intensifies at different life stages.

• In our 20s and 30s (Intimacy vs. Isolation), we’re making major life decisions like career, relationships, independence. This is also the time when regret creeps in because we compare ourselves to peers who “figured it out” faster or seem more successful.
• By middle age (Generativity vs. Stagnation), we start questioning our impact. Did we build something meaningful? Did we waste time? This is where people feel the strongest pull toward “what could have been.”
• In old age (Integrity vs. Despair), all those bottled-up regrets can start to bubble over and not in a poetic, healing way. You know that one grandpa on the block who grumbles at kids for existing? Or the aunty who always looks like life personally offended her? We joke and call them hags or grumps, but honestly that could be any of us if we don’t make peace with the “what ifs.” That kind of cynicism doesn’t just come from age but are the results of emotional leftovers from a life full of should-haves and could-haves, microwaved over and over till it sours.

We Pretend We’re Fine, Then Scroll and Compare Anyway

Ah yes, the age-old villain of every TED Talk, therapist’s office, and Sunday night existential crisis- social media. That highlight reel we keep doom-scrolling through has turned into a full-blown comparison Olympics. We’re out here watching everyone’s greatest hits- job promotions, Bali vacations, baby announcements- while sitting in our pajamas wondering if switching shampoos counts as personal growth.

What we don’t see is the behind-the-scenes mess. They also pushed through bad days, wrestled with silent doubts, and made compromises to get where they are. And yet, it’s so easy to believe everyone else made all the “right” choices while we accidentally took a nap during life’s roadmap briefing. No wonder this stuff feeds our grief; especially the grief of the life we never lived.

Rewriting the Grief: Finding Meaning in Your Current Life

So, how do we stop circling the what-ifs and start moving forward? How do we release the lives we didn’t live and fully embrace the one we’re in?

It starts with reframing regret- not as a sign of failure but as proof that we cared. That we had dreams. That we were capable of imagining different possibilities for ourselves. And that, in itself, is a beautiful thing.

1. The Myth of taking the “Right” Path

One of the biggest lies we tell ourselves is that there was one perfect path, and we missed it. But life isn’t a linear story with a single correct script. It’s a collection of choices, circumstances, and chance.

If you’re a Marvel fan like me, maybe you’ve had this thought too- the multiverse theory. Somewhere out there, another version of you chased her passion, moved to a new city, or married someone else. But here’s the thing we don’t consider: even in that timeline, she has regrets too.

Every choice comes with trade-offs. We romanticize the lives we didn’t live because we don’t see the behind-the-scenes: the doubts, the sacrifices, the struggles. But they’re always there. Just hidden behind a prettier filter.

2. Reframe Regret : What Did Your Choices Give You?

Instead of mourning what you lost, ask yourself: What did I gain?

Sure, you didn’t become an artist, but maybe you found stability and a way to support your family.

You didn’t move abroad, but you built a community where you are.

You didn’t follow your teenage dreams, but you discovered new ones along the way.

We call this benefit-finding– the practice of recognizing positive outcomes from past decisions, even if they weren’t what you originally planned.

It’s not about toxic positivity or pretending everything’s perfect. It’s about shifting your focus from “what I missed” to “what I gained.”

When we reframe our past decisions through this lens, we stop seeing them as mistakes and start seeing them as meaningful stepping stones. Because even the so-called wrong turns had something to offer.

3. Flip the Script on Your Story

The stories we tell ourselves about our past shape how we feel about our present. If you constantly replay your life as a series of missed opportunities, you’ll always feel like you fell short. But if you see it as a journey- one with detours, unexpected lessons, and second chances, it becomes a story of growth.

You’re not “too late” for anything.
There’s no invisible timeline you need to catch up to.
This is your life and you’re allowed to move through it at your own pace.

4. Find Ways to Honor Your Grief

Just because you didn’t take a certain path doesn’t mean you have to bury that part of yourself forever. Maybe you can’t go back and redo your 20s, but you can still:

• Take that art class.
• Visit the place you once couldn’t stop thinking about.
• Write, dance, create- whatever it was you once loved.
• Mentor someone who’s walking the path you once considered.

The dream doesn’t have to die, it can just grow up with you.

5. Letting Go of the Need to “Prove” Yourself

A lot of our grief comes from feeling like we need to show the world we made the right choices. That we have something to show for our decisions. But true contentment doesn’t come from external validation, but it comes from internal peace.

As Erikson’s theory suggests, we reach true life satisfaction when we stop trying to compare, compete, or prove, and instead find meaning in what we have.

And if you ever feel like you “should be further ahead” by now, remind yourself:

You are not a failure for taking a different path.
Your worth isn’t measured by a timeline or a title.
You are allowed to be proud of the life you’ve built, even if it’s not the one you imagined.

You Are More Than Your Grief

The grief of who you could have been is real. But so is the beauty of who you are now. Life was never about ticking all the right boxes. It’s about stumbling, learning, growing, and learning to hold space for both the dreams we lost and the person we became instead.

And if you ever find yourself looking back, wondering what could have been, just remember:

The version of you who made those choices was doing the best they could with what they knew.
The version of you today still has time to create, explore, and redefine what fulfillment looks like.
And the version of you in the future will thank you for choosing to be present, instead of living in the past.

The post The Grief of Who You Could Have Been: Rewritten first appeared on SUNGJEM AIER.

The cost of cultural loyalty often lies in the battles we fight within ourselves. The kind that doesn’t make headlines but tugs relentlessly at our choices. It’s the constant push and pull between honoring cultural norms and chasing personal freedom. And while no one explicitly says “you can’t do this,” the silent pressures often speak louder than words.

Growing up in a culture rooted in tradition feels like walking a tightrope. Village councils and societal norms pulls us from one end while we also try to tiptoe into modernity.

We carry more than just our names. We carry our villages, our families, and the understanding that every mistake reflects on everyone we belong to.

Take the simple decision of moving abroad to work or study. Technically, there’s support. Parents cheer you on, friends wish you well, but there’s a lingering thought that follows you: “Should I be staying back?”

It’s not always loud, but it’s there. The cultural expectation that, one day, you’ll return home, settle down, and carry on the legacy. It’s not an obligation enforced by rules but by love, duty, and tradition.

There’s pride in belonging, but also guilt in stepping away from it.

Collectivist Guilt and Responsibility

And this isn’t just cultural, it’s psychological. Cultural loyalty creates belonging, but it can also cause guilt when personal dreams clash with group expectations. This concept of collectivist guilt (individuals feel responsible for group well-being) can slowly lead to anxiety, depression, and burnout.

In communities like ours, where cultures hold very strong communal ties, often foster a sense of collective responsibility. This means that individuals weigh their decisions against the larger good. It’s why many of us hesitate to pursue choices that could be seen as “selfish.”

Even everyday decisions like what you wear, how you express opinions, even the way you engage with your faith. Every choice is filtered through, “What will people think?” and ‘Will this reflect badly on my family?”

I remember when I first chose to study psychology. The reactions were a mix of confusion and concern.

There was genuine fear that delving into the human mind meant stepping away from God. Ironically, it was my faith that shaped my compassion for others.

The “Pray It Away” Culture: When Faith and Cultural Loyalty Collide

In many communities, therapy is often sidelined, with prayer centers being the first (and sometimes only) recourse. The belief isn’t malicious, generations have rooted this belief in the understanding that suffering is spiritual and healing comes through faith. But this often leaves mental health struggles in the shadows.

There’s another layer to this and it’s what psychologists call learned helplessness. When people are told, time and again, that prayer is the only path to healing, it can lead to resignation. Over time, it feels pointless to seek help elsewhere because the belief has been shaped that nothing else will work. It’s not a lack of faith, but a conditioned response.

Labeling mental health issues as spiritual failings silences people.

I’ve seen it happen. Someone struggling silently, told to “pray harder” or ‘”have more faith.” And when the struggle continues, it feels like a personal failure. Shame grows, and so does the isolation. People stop seeking support, not because they don’t need it, but because they believe it’s futile to ask for it.

But the truth is, therapy doesn’t diminish faith. If anything, it strengthens it by offering tools to navigate pain that prayer alone may not address. It helps break that cycle of helplessness, reminding people that seeking help isn’t a sign of weakness, but courage.

Bridging the Gap Between Prayer and Therapy

The Path Forward

Navigating cultural loyalty often brings up questions about personal choices. Selfish or Selfless? explores this reflection further, shedding light on the dilemma of decision-making.

The post Cultural Loyalty: The Burden of Being Rooted but Restless first appeared on SUNGJEM AIER.

When it comes to psychology and therapy, there are many misconceptions that prevent people from seeking the help they need. Let’s debunk five of the most common ones:

It’s Just Talk Therapy

One of the most common misconceptions about therapy is that it’s just a one-to-one conversation with the patient and therapist sitting across from each other.  Although that’s not how every therapy session goes, you can’t be blamed for only thinking that therapy is all about talking because popular TV shows and movies only show this side of therapy. Except for a few, the therapist is always a glasses-wearing, formally dressed, writing pad holding, excessively nodding person!

There are so many types and forms of therapy in the world. The extensive study of psychology has introduced many pioneers, founders, and developers of different forms of therapy that benefit society in many ways.

Psychologists have always understood that each person is unique and thus needs unique approaches to tackle their problems. 

So, no. Talking is not everything a therapy session is. Depending on what type of therapist you go to, you will have different experiences. Therapists use various techniques, like role-playing and group sessions, to understand client needs.

Misconceptions About Who Needs Therapy: Only for Serious Mental Illness

This age-old stigma has glued on to us like gum on our shoes. It never really goes away. Tiny traces of it always remain.

Anything that gives you solace, lets you feel at peace and maybe takes your mind off of the stress a little bit, if not all, is therapeutic. 

You don’t need to have a raging, life-threatening problem to go to therapy. Not everyone who goes to therapy needs to pop pills to feel better.

People come for struggles with relationships, self-confidence, career choices, self-esteem, motivation, and so many more. 

When repressed, suppressed, and not dealt with, the minor, seemingly insignificant problems and issues are prone to manifesting themselves into more extensive issues and consuming power over you. 

I can’t stress enough the power our mental state holds on our physical life. We think by suppressing such thoughts, we are growing, and we’re not affected by it. But more often than not, this issue comes back and manifests itself in many forms that we don’t even realize why it happens. This is where therapy comes in.

What you think might be a trivial matter could be the biggest struggle for some. So when someone comes to you for help on such issues, be open to lending them a listening ear; that could be all they need. 

You’ll never know unless you deep dive into your own self and uncover the truth. 

Therapists Blame Your Past for Present Problems

Therapists believe in “no shame, no blame.” But one of the most used phrases with misconceptions about psychology is that they blame your past for your problems.

However, the entire repertoire of a therapist consists of “no judgment” no matter what. The job exists so people have a safe place to talk about problems without fearing judgment or shunning.

Contrary to popular belief, not all therapy focuses on the past. Yes, many problems can have their roots in the past, and uncovering the past truth will give you answers. There’s no denying that flipping through your book of life will undoubtedly bear the answers to some of the problems you have now. But sometimes, the answer lies in the now. 

Take Solution-Focused Brief Therapy, for example. Therapists who specialize in this form of therapy focus on the problem at hand. They do not need to know your past to understand your situation now. Focusing on solutions, they say ‘the problem is the problem, not the person.

Misconceptions About Therapy Results: Immediate Improvement After 1-2 Sessions

Misconceptions that therapy is a quick fix, is widespread. But therapy is not a quick fix. Unlike traditional pain killers, therapy does not have a one-stop solution to all your problems. 

They say “good things take time,” and I believe that taking your time to navigate through life, with each step, calculated in a way that benefits you, adds up to make a life for yourself that’s free from unnecessary stress.

A typical therapy session lasts 40-45 minutes, and this can be repeated 2-3 times a week. It will depend on your case and what your therapist deems is beneficial for you. Although, some new forms of contemporary therapy, like Brief therapy, are considerably shorter than traditional therapy. 

With that said, the beauty of therapy lies in the relationship you build with your therapist and vice versa. A healthy relationship takes time and effort from both ends. When this happens through days, weeks and months, it makes the relationship even more important to your mental health.

There is a fundamental importance in the building of a strong client-therapist relationship. Only if the connection is strong will you trust your therapist, be open, and eventually allow you to accept yourself. 

Trusting your therapist is everything in a therapy session. And for this, you need a positive therapeutic relationship.

Therapists Give Clear-Cut Solutions

When we talk about psychology misconceptions, one thing that rings loud is the idea that therapists give you all the answers. But the truth is, you should never go into therapy expecting clear-cut solutions to all your problems. You can, but if you do, you’ll most probably come out of it discouraged or dissatisfied. 

The main goal of therapy is to guide you and give you the necessary tools to navigate your life correctly. Therapists are there to listen to your problems. They try to understand how you feel, and develop coping strategies to help you find your way in life successfully.

In many ways, your therapist is the older adult in the movies, spewing wisdom. Or they can be the person you meet to ask directions when you’re lost, the one that ushers you to your seats in a show. Ultimately, your therapist is the one with the map. 

They first learn where you’re coming from, where you want to go, then give you the directions and the tools you need to get there.

I once heard a saying that goes something along the lines of, “if you give credit to your therapist for feeling better, the job of the therapist is not yet complete. But if you credit yourself for getting where you are, then you have had the opportunity of finding the right therapist for you.”

Don’t let misconceptions hold you back from achieving mental well-being. Discover practical strategies for building a healthy mindset in our article, What goes into building a healthy mindset?

The post Debunking Five Misconceptions About Psychology first appeared on SUNGJEM AIER.

Whenever I get asked the question, “Who are you?” a hundred different answers run through my mind.

Each of these identities forms a narrative, a story I tell about myself, which Narrative Therapy, in turn, helps us examine and reshape. Indeed, even with this whole paragraph of identities that I and others have about me, I can still be another 100 paragraphs’ worth of identities.

The Architect of Your Narrative: How to Re-Author with Therapy

Narrative therapy believes that you are the stories you tell about yourself. Reality is socially constructed, therefore, the interactions we have with people become our reality. Moreover, narratives of our lives, including hardships, achievements, and hopes, form our experiences, and consequently, our live stories.

It lets people create stories, controlling their realities. We tell stories that identify who we are by stitching together different moments in our lives into a cohesive whole. These stories carry the essence of who we are. By the logic of this type of therapy, the narrative you carry about your life is your reality.

Identifying Problem-Saturated Stories: A Key Component of Narrative Therapy

If I carry a story about me as a good cook, I have come to this conclusion by putting together a series of events in my life where I was appreciated for the food I prepared. Indeed, the more snippets of stories I add to this, the easier it is to demonstrate how I am a good cook because “someone once said…”

However, my competence in cooking is fiercely dominated by the idea that I have done exceptionally well in a sequence of events while dismissing the times that I might have done a terrible job because it does not fit into the dominant story- that I am a good cook. Similarly, negative thoughts can fester in your mind and actively convince you that you are what you think.

Like many others, narrative therapy carries a political and social agenda- to help individuals liberate themselves from their culture dominated problem-saturated stories.

These stories are ‘distorted,’ ‘disempowering,’ and ‘unhelpful’ assumptions that dominate our narratives; sometimes to a point where it might seem unlikely that an alternate story exists.

Externalizing the Problem: The Art of Externalizing in Re-Authoring

The problem story paints the picture of an event or an experience in such a way that it cripples the reality of the storyteller, making it seem like there’s no end to the problem and nothing can be changed.

The narrative therapist will try to flip this situation by showing the narrator that there are visible choices and responses they can make to change the dominant problem story.

Instead of, “Anxiety is trying to control me,” we externalize the anxiety. Hence, you can begin to see it as a separate entity, something you can challenge and manage, rather than an inherent part of yourself.

In other words, therapist helps the narrator tell their story from a different point of view, one that makes them more powerful, bigger and stronger than the problem.

Challenging Dominant Discourses: Re-Author Against Dominant Narratives

Narrative therapy aims to brand the narrator as the expert in their experience through capitalizing on the individual’s story-telling tendencies. The uniqueness of our cultures and societies birth different dominant discourses which can influence our personal narratives and become our realities.

Mirror, Mirror: Extending Compassion Inward

As social beings, we navigate an intricate web of unspoken rules, designed to maintain harmony. We crave peace, not just on a global scale, but within our own minds. Whether we seek relaxation after a long day or the satisfaction of reaching a hard-won goal, peace is the underlying pursuit. So, why the stark contrast?

If we would never label a friend incompetent, unlovable, or hopeless, why do we subject ourselves to such harsh judgments? Why remain trapped in a self-destructive narrative when we possess the power to rewrite it?

We are the narrators of our lives. Our thoughts and words shape our reality. They do!

You are the narrator of your life story.

Therefore, you are quite literally what you think!

Re-Author Your Life: Finding Meaning and Purpose Through Narrative Therapy

From the perspective of the therapist, these dominant discourses play the most vital role in creating the problem stories which bring people to therapy in the first place.

Unlike most therapies, narrative therapy is focused on the way people construct meaning rather than on the way people behave. The prime detail in therapy is to separate the person from their problem so that the issues are externalized, creating a clear distinction between “an individual with problems” and “a problematic individual.”

Narrative therapy believes that all people have good intentions and don’t need or want problems. Which stands true because who wants to be prematurely bald, constantly burdened, stressed out and on edge?

As the goal of therapy is to separate the person from the problem, once this is done, people are free to create and re-author their own stories.

The therapists seeks to UN-label individuals as “the problem”

There exists a notion in existential psychology that believes in a world with no inherent meaning. (A detailed story for the next blog!) Therefore, if there is no meaning in existence then people can create their own meaning.

There is no absolute truth because people can have multiple interpretations of a single event/experience. Narrative therapy encourages people to create their own stories and negate the “universal or absolute truths” that do not necessarily apply to them.

Finding meaning and purpose in your life that serves you and your truth is the final goal.

You are more than the stories that bind you. If not now, when? If not you, who?
Your story starts now.

Beyond reshaping your narratives, practical steps are essential for a healthy mindset. To learn more about these strategies, consider reading What goes into building a healthy mindset?.

The post Re-author your life: Narrative Therapy for Lasting Change first appeared on SUNGJEM AIER.

The cost, a relentless tide…

And then I felt it.

It fell- my heart

It fell from my chest and I didn’t even try to stop it

It broke.

I swear I felt it break

It broke mercilessly and nothing could stop it.

I felt it.

Bits of my heart in the rubble

I hear it wail in the heartache

I feel it.

The wreckage that is my heart

I feel it scratching against my skin

I let it consume me.

The post COST first appeared on SUNGJEM AIER.

Think about what you’ve wanted to be as a kid. For most of us, the world was happy and kind and we could be anything we wanted to be. Fast forward and here we are, writing a blog in the middle of a lockdown, reading about “flattening the curve,” and listening to podcasts that list everything wrong with the world.

Such a downer, isn’t it?

We’ve wanted to be medical health professionals to save someone.

We wanted to be educationists to teach someone.

We also wanted to be artists to inspire someone

To be in businesses to help someone

To be politicians to uplift someone.

And we wanted to be in services to assist someone.

But right now, the world feels vague and uncertain. With leaden steps, all that we worked towards is piling up and becoming what I would like to call, TRASH.

We’re still pushed towards a lot of deadlines and expectations that seem meaningless now. What we were taught as children: “to follow our dreams” has gone right into the gutter because all I dream about is larger than life cats that birth humans with whiskers and I’m not even a cat person.

The Hard Truth

What has left me totally flabbergasted is the idea that we have brought these pandemic woes upon ourselves. I mean it’s hard to admit mistakes and own up to what the world says is our own fault. But 3 months into this lockdown and I’m starting to accept this heavy truth. We are terrible at this; at being humans.

Not always, not everyone, but enough to make a global mess.

I don’t speak for everybody and I’ll bet my life on it because even to blog has taken me several years. I’ve always been afraid of what my ideas might sound like to some. I’m not all for “constructive criticism” however immature that makes me sound. I guess what I’m trying to say is that this realization has brought me full circle. Now I’m looking at my own life and see how much time I’ve wasted being bothered by something that is innately us.

Facing the Existential Crisis

The pandemic has forced us to sit with ourselves, and that’s a scary place to be. So, yes, we’re not the best at being humane towards our own species and that’s another problem altogether. But right now, trying to live with a virus that has the power to wipe out humanity has left me in an existential crisis that maybe most of us don’t want to address.

And the only way to come out of this still standing strong is perhaps, take a moment and look at the lives that we’ve created and fostered and nurtured into something so terrible that I’ll bet the devil is even afraid to tempt us anymore.

Maybe pondering upon this thought will push us to do something a little more than pass the blame and live perpetually smacking our heads and gasping at headlines.

It’s not about grand gestures, but small steps towards being kinder, more aware, and maybe just a little less human in all the ways that hurt us.

Just Figuring It Out

It all sounds so dreadful and I sure didn’t think this is how my first blog was gonna go. A Friday afternoon, sitting in the sun, thinking about a cat that birthed humans and writing this almost depressing post about what it is like to be human in 2020.

The post PANDEMIC WOES first appeared on SUNGJEM AIER.