By Natasha Josefowitz
LA JOLLA, California — Tell me the story of your life, and I will tell you how healthy you are most likely to be in the next few years.
No, it’s not a joke. There are two ways to tell your story: one is with a positive spin—emphasizing the good things that happened and minimizing the bad things by talking about your resilience or the way they helped you grow stronger; the other way is with a negative spin—talking mostly about how much you suffered, the unfairness of life, and the traumas and glossing over the good times.
How you tell—and perceive—your life story is important to your health according to Jonathan Adler, Assistant Professor of psychology at Olin college and lead researcher of a study that looked at the way people told stories about their lives. Some participants could find positive outcomes even in negative experiences, while others believed that even good things eventually turned bad. What is interesting is that years down the line, the people who told their stories in a positive way had better health while those who dwelled on the negative tended to have worse health or die earlier.
You could argue here that it is not the way the story is told, but the events that happened. Some people’s lives are easier, and others go through terrible times. Still, everyone has both positive and negative experiences, and the tendency to emphasize one or the other has an impact. People with good lives who don’t perceive the good do worse than people with bad lives who mitigate the bad and emphasize what little good they encountered.
So can you do something about this? Yes, you can, in fact. By changing your narrative, you can improve your chances of a healthier and longer life.
If you suspect your narrative is negative, tell your life story to a friend and ask him or her to take note of the way you talk about both the negative and positive events, what you dwell on, and what you skip over. Or you can record yourself and then listen to the way you describe your life and make notes. Then if you feel you have overly described negative events, retell the same story putting a more positive spin on it.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- Could this “bad” event be perceived differently by someone else? If so, is that a valid way of looking at it?
- What are the possible consequences of seeing this event differently?
- Is this a pattern in your life? If yes, what might be the cause of it, do you bear some responsibility, and can it be changed?
- Are there any benefits to viewing these events negatively? How would you feel if you changed your narrative?
- Are you so entrenched in seeing the world in negative terms that it feels like you would lose something if you reframed your story? If yes, what might you gain?
When my husband died, I saw myself as just half a couple, an old, lone widow. It took the better part of a year to reframe my perception of myself into an OK single woman who can manage her life, find support in friends, engage in interesting activities, be there for others in distress, and find a new strength in going it alone.
By reframing your story and trying it out several times until it becomes easy to do, you may consciously change the outcome of your life by improving your chances of better health and possibly living longer. We have all heard about self-fulfilling prophecies, this is one example, talk about your strength in the face of adversity and your gratefulness for all the good that has come your way. It is certainly worth a try.
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Josefowitz is an author and freelance writer. This copyrighted story appeared initially in La Jolla Village News. You may comment to natasha.josefowitz@sdjewishworld.com, or post your comment on this website provided that the rules below are observed.
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