Why You Should Tell Your Story More Than Once
Write until you’ve unpacked all the boxes
Imagine a truck pulls up in your driveway one morning and delivers a shipping container full of boxes to your house. Just drops it in your front yard. No notice, no explanation.
“What’s happening?” you ask the truck driver. “I didn’t order this. What am I meant to do with it?”
He shrugs. “Don’t ask me. I’m just the delivery guy.”
That’s how big events in our lives feel much of the time. Unwelcome boxes dumped at our doorstep.
Josh* felt that way in his early 20s when he leapt over a fence one night on his way back from a party, fell into a large hole, and broke his back. He eventually learned to walk again, but the process was long and much of the damage was permanent.
Melissa* had a little more warning, but her life unpacked in a completely different way than she expected. She married young and fast, ending up in an abusive relationship. Three kids and a decade later she found the strength to leave and start all over again.
Now they’ve both written their “big” story and it’s time to move on to something else, right? Except the big story nags at them, wanting to be told again and again. Nothing else seems anywhere near as important.
