We’re all living two stories at once.

The one we're in the middle of, experiencing life as it unfolds, and the one we tell later, when we look back with a different understanding.
The strange thing is, they're rarely the same story.

This blog is about that gap. The beliefs and expectations we carry without always recognising them, and the meaning we make of our lives as we go. It’s also about how the stories we tell ourselves can change when we look back from a different point in our lives.

The expectations we grow up with

Long before we start making conscious decisions about our future, we're absorbing messages about what life should look like.

From our families, communities and wider culture, we learn what is considered successful, desirable or acceptable. Some of those messages are obvious. Others come through in what gets celebrated, what gets questioned and what gets ignored without anyone saying anything out loud.

We might grow up believing that by a certain age we should have an established career, a partner, a home or a family. Often, we don't stop to ask where those expectations came from, or whether they're things we actually want.

In Transactional Analysis there’s the concept of a life script: a largely unconscious pattern of beliefs, expectations and early decisions about ourselves, other people and how life is likely to unfold.

We develop these through our early experiences, the messages we receive and the conclusions we draw, often before we're old enough to question any of it.

The tricky thing about a life script is that it doesn't feel like a script. It feels like the truth.

It can influence what we reach for, what we settle for and what we decide isn't for us, sometimes without us realising how much those early beliefs are shaping our choices.

The story we tell as we go

What I find genuinely interesting is how we're not just living our lives, but making sense of them in real time, moment to moment. Every interpretation we make is influenced by what we already know and believe about ourselves.

Imagine sending someone a message and not hearing back. One person might assume they've said something wrong. Another might feel disappointed but recognise that the other person could just be busy. Someone else might not give it much thought at all.

The event is the same. The meaning attached to it is different because the lens is different.

The way we see ourselves and the world is shaped by our experiences, relationships and the cultural context we live in. We carry those perspectives into new situations, often without being particularly aware of the assumptions we're making.

They can influence how we interpret someone's reaction, the decisions we make and even the opportunities we consider possible for ourselves.

And sometimes, we find ourselves looking for evidence that confirms what we already believe. In psychology, this is known as confirmation bias, the tendency to notice, interpret and remember information that supports our existing beliefs.

If we've developed a belief that we're not good enough, for example, we might dwell on a critical comment while quickly dismissing several compliments. Or we might interpret someone's distracted behaviour as evidence that we've done something wrong, without considering what else might be happening for them.

Over time, this can reinforce the beliefs we already hold. The more we see the world through a particular lens, the more evidence we may find to support it, even when there's another way of understanding what's happening.

How the story changes when we look back

And then there's the other story. The one we tell in hindsight.

This is where the psychological concept of narrative identity comes in. Part of our sense of who we are develops through the stories we construct about our lives, selecting, connecting and interpreting experiences in ways that help us make sense of ourselves across time.

But that story isn't fixed. It changes as we do.

An experience that once felt like a defining failure might, years later, become one difficult period within a much larger life. A relationship we blamed ourselves for losing can take on a different meaning when we recognise patterns that weren't apparent at the time.

Even something we once considered a success can lose its significance as our priorities change.

The events themselves haven't changed, but the way we understand them has.

At the time, we interpreted those experiences through the knowledge, beliefs and perspectives available to us. Looking back, we bring everything we've learnt since, including things we couldn't have known or recognised then.

Looking back from somewhere different

There was a period in my own life when very little was going the way I'd hoped.

I felt stuck professionally, uncertain about the future and going through some difficult things personally. I remember feeling lost, without a clear sense of what came next.

I applied for a job I really wanted at the time and didn't get it. The role required counselling training, which prompted me to apply for a course. At the time, I just hoped it would help me get the job. Becoming a therapist hadn't even crossed my mind.

When I began the training, I was surprised by how right it felt. It was like coming home, although I hadn't realised I'd been looking for that feeling.

I didn't suddenly decide to become a therapist. I just knew I wanted to keep going. Looking back, I think I was recognising something about myself that had always been there, but I hadn't quite understood until then.

I can see how a series of events that felt disconnected at the time came together in ways I couldn't have anticipated. What began as an attempt to move forward professionally became something far more personally meaningful.

It's tempting, from where I stand now, to see those events as though they were always leading me here.

That doesn't mean those difficulties happened for a reason, or that I needed to go through them to get here. Some of it was hard, and some of it was unfair. Those things remain true, even though the meaning I give that period of my life has changed.

Exploring the meanings we carry

In therapy, there can be space to explore both the meanings we're making now and those we've carried forward from earlier experiences.

We might notice how an early belief is still shaping the way we interpret a situation today or begin to question an expectation we never consciously agreed to.

Sometimes we come to understand a painful experience with more compassion for the person we were at the time, recognising how our understanding and choices were influenced by circumstances we couldn't fully appreciate then.

There isn't always a clear resolution. We don't need to arrive at a positive interpretation of everything that's happened.

Sometimes, recognising that the story we've been telling ourselves is only one way of understanding our experiences can open up other possibilities. It doesn't change what happened, but it may change how we relate to it.

The story keeps going

We're always somewhere in the middle. Our understanding of ourselves continues to develop as we live, encounter different perspectives and make sense of new experiences.

The story we're telling about our lives today may not be the one we tell in five or ten years. The story isn't finished and neither is our understanding of it.

If any of this resonates, I offer in-person counselling in Worthing and online across the UK. You're welcome to get in touch.