Get Fascinated with Your Backstory
Get Fascinated with Your Backstory
Moments that test us deliver the most valuable lessons on our journey.
“Be careful of thinking you know a person so well. Like comic books, everyone has an origin story…and oftentimes it ain’t pretty.”
—H.L. Sudlert
A word of caution…some of the ideas shared in this post may feel a bit confronting and uncomfortable. Please know I am not sharing this path to minimize the reality of the way we process or deal with life’s most difficult moments. Nor am I offering professional advice regarding how to navigate your journey to understanding traumatic life changing experiences. I am merely encouraging those who are ready to consider the value of the lessons they earned in their most difficult moments in the hope it enables them to live a more aligned and fulfilled life as I have been able to since I did the work myself.
I have long been fascinated by the backstory. I love the way writers masterfully map moments from the heroine’s past to reveal what led her to be in that moment. I marvel at the way directors drop breadcrumbs into the movie then deliver the payoff at just the right time. The magic within the magic intrigues me and pulls me in every time (even when I see it coming).
A recent Facebook post reminded me how powerfully we are drawn to discovering the story behind the story. The post shared the backstory of Simon and Garfunkel’s song Hello, Darkness My Old Friend. It is a compelling, moving, and fascinating story. As you read it you are fulfilled by learning the origin of the opening line of the song, and you become curious about the backstory behind the inciting incident.
You also come to realize how little we know about others, and perhaps about ourselves.
The truth is most of us protect, defend, and carefully curate our backstories. We share different bits and pieces with different people. We hide other parts from everyone (including ourselves). We struggle to make sense of any or all of it and wonder if there is any meaning to be found.
That is exactly what I did after experiencing sexual trauma as a child. I told no one and hid it from myself for over two decades. Today I see that there were lessons earned from the experience that have equipped me to help others unlock the lessons earned from their most difficult moments.
That is why the backstory is now the primary driver of my work.
As I became more captivated by the backstories of my life’s journey, the clearer it became just how important they are to how our lives turn out. They lead us to make choices about who we are, how we will walk the planet, and ultimately determine the mark we will make.
Based on my work with people seeking to unlock the lessons earned from their life’s journey, I’d argue our willingness to examine our backstories is the key to our satisfaction and fulfillment in life. It is the major driver of any impact we create, and the most important work we will do in our lifetimes.
What if the reality is this…
Everything that has happened to you in your lifetime,
the best, the worst, and the ugliest,
allows you to teach others what you now know.
Think about that for a moment.
Then go deeper and answer these three questions:
What lessons have you earned from your best moments, your worst moments, and your ugliest moments?
When did you realize those lessons and how have you used them to navigate your life since then?
Who might benefit from learning those lessons from you?
Those are not easy questions, but they may be the most important ones you will ever ponder. Because they will force you to examine your backstory and enable you view it through a different lens. For some it will be a healing process, for others the process will feel confronting and uncomfortable, and for others it may not be the right time to even begin the process, yet.
Any of those reactions are okay.
Because unlocking the lessons from within our backstories is never easy and it takes time. We need to be ready to confront the feelings that arise as we explore our experiences. We need to be honest with ourselves about what we actually experienced and see it through our own eyes. We need to trust that there we can make it to the other side and that we will be better off when we get there.
When we shift our perspective to consider what we learned from the moments that challenged us most using the questions above, something interesting happens. We discover whether the outcomes were positive or negative doesn’t matter because we endured them and continued our journey.
When we realize the true value those moments lies in the lesson they delivered, and we are liberated because we open the door to helping someone else avoid the pain and discomfort we experienced. We gain the chance to help someone who is much like we were to be better equipped to deal with life’s most challenging moments.
That enables us to shift our focus from inside to outside. We are no longer stuck in wondering why something happened to us and we are open to consider why it happened for us. What did it teach us? How did it alter our path? Who needs to know what we now know?
The most interesting discovery for me is that once we unlock the lessons earned in our life’s journey, something fascinating happens—the people who most need them begin to appear in our lives. We know because we are drawn to them, we immediately see ourselves in them, and we feel instantly connected to them, and they to us.
I know that sounds a little out there, and it has happened to many times in my life across the past five years to be coincidence. It rarely if ever happened until I did the work to unlock the lessons earned from my most challenging experiences. Now it is a regular occurrence that feeds my soul.
That is why I want to help others (aka you) do the same.
Because nothing feels better than knowing you were able to equip someone—essentially a proxy for younger you—to better navigate a moment in their life. That you were able to make their journey a bit more gratifying and fulfilling sooner than they would have been able to do had they not met you.
That is what happens when you are at peace with your backstory and comfortable sharing it in service to others. It starts with viewing your backstory as being about the lessons that have been revealed to you on your journey. Next, answer the questions above to gain clarity on your path forward.
Armed with a new vision of how your backstory can serve others, step into the role of the guide who is here to support others on their journey. Your mission becomes unlocking your lessons and sharing them. Your impact in the moment gives way to impact when the time is right. You become the teacher who is ready, and the students begin to appear.
Here’s to your success. Let me know how I can help you.
P.S. If you’re finding value in these posts, please take a moment to share them with someone you know who needs to be inspired to think differently and become the person they are capable of becoming. You might help them take the most important step — the first one.