What if the story you’ve been living isn’t the only story available to you?
We all have stories about ourselves.
Stories about who we are, how we should behave, what we can expect from other people and what is possible for us.
Some of these stories support us.
Others may have been shaped by childhood experiences, family relationships, expectations, difficult experiences or messages we received along the way.
Over time, these stories can become so familiar that we may not realise we are still living by them.
Fairy tales and script narrative offer a creative and surprisingly powerful way of exploring those stories.
Your life has a story
Fairy tales have been part of human storytelling for centuries. Beneath the familiar characters and magical worlds, they often contain themes that are remarkably close to our own lives — belonging, rejection, courage, love, loss, loyalty, power, transformation and finding our way in the world.
Using a fairy tale can sometimes create enough distance to explore something deeply personal without having to talk about it directly at first.
You might recognise something of yourself in a character, a relationship or a particular part of the story.
You might begin to notice:
“That’s a bit like me.”Or perhaps:
“I’ve never thought about it that way before.”
That distance can create space for curiosity, insight and new possibilities.
Research into therapeutic narrative approaches has found promising indications that working creatively with fairy tales and personal narratives can support areas such as personal growth, self-acceptance, awareness of personal strengths and meaning-making.
Exploring your life script
Within this work, we can also explore the script or story you may have developed about your life.
A life script isn’t a rigid prediction of your future. Rather, it can be understood as patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving that may have developed through your early experiences and relationships.
Sometimes we continue to follow an old story long after it has stopped serving us.
Perhaps your story has been:
Be Perfect
Please Others
Try Hard
Hurry Up
Be Strong
The interesting question isn’t “What’s wrong with me?”
It’s:
“Where did this story come from — and is it still the story I want to live?”
From old story to new possibilities
Our work isn’t about deciding that your old story was wrong.
It is about understanding it.
Where did it begin?
What purpose did it once serve?
What did you learn you needed to do in order to belong, feel safe, receive approval or navigate your relationships?
And perhaps most importantly:
Does that story still fit who you are today?
Through exploring your narrative, we can begin to identify the beliefs, roles and patterns that may be keeping you stuck — and consider what you might want to change.
This can create space for a different way of seeing yourself and your possibilities.
Not rewriting your past.
But perhaps changing the way you carry it into your future.
How we might work together
There is no prescribed formula.
Your work might involve exploring a fairy tale that resonates with you, looking at a particular character or relationship, identifying themes within your own life story, or creating a new narrative that reflects where you are now and where you want to go.
We might explore:
- The roles you have learned to play
- Messages and beliefs you received growing up
- Patterns that keep repeating
- Relationships and expectations
- The parts of yourself you have had to hide or suppress
- Your strengths and resources
- What you have learned from your experiences
- What you want to leave behind
- What you want to take forward
- The possibilities that become available when your story begins to change
You don’t have to be creative or know anything about fairy tales.
You simply need to be curious about your own story.
Perhaps your story is ready for a new chapter
Sometimes we become so familiar with our story that we forget we are also its author.
You may not be able to change everything that has happened to you.
But you can begin to explore what those experiences mean to you now, which parts of the story still belong to you, and what you want the next chapter to look like.
What might become possible if you were no longer bound by an old story?
Is this work for you?
This approach may appeal to you if you:
- feel that you keep repeating the same patterns
- understand intellectually what you want to change but struggle to make the change
- are curious about why you respond to situations in particular ways
- feel you’ve spent much of your life being the person others needed you to be
- want to understand yourself more deeply
- are at a point of transition or change
- want to explore your experiences in a creative and different way
- feel ready to consider that there might be another way forward
You don’t need to arrive knowing what your story is.
We can discover it together.
Start your conversation
If something in this page has made you pause and think, “That’s me” — perhaps that’s worth exploring.
I offer a free Initial Consultation of up to 45 minutes, giving us an opportunity to talk about what’s bringing you here, what you’d like to change or understand, and whether working together feels right for you.