As our country slowly moves out of pandemic restrictions, it’s a good time to update your life narrative.
What is a life narrative?
A life narrative is a story that we tell ourselves and others about our life. The story binds together important life events and, thus, influences personality and identity.
It provides continuity by integrating past, present, and future into a coherent form.
There’s personal truth to one’s life narrative. Courage is necessary to share a life story and to represent the beauty and difficulty of experiences. It’s not like a Facebook post that presents only our best self.
Telling one’s life story provides coherence to how we see ourselves. It provides a crucible for healing and personal growth.
COVID Narrative
COVID was life-changing. Nearly every aspect of the world was transformed. Our friends, family and communities changed.
It’s no small wonder that our life narrative changed in response to how we experienced the pandemic. Every life is different now.
The COVID narrative will include all aspects of the experience of the pandemic. Was it a blessing in disguise? How did you feel when wave after wave hit the population causing shut-down after shut-down? Did your anxiety increase? Were you fearful? What activities were important? What activities were you happy to leave behind?
Were you or someone close to you infected with the virus? How was the recovery? Did you have losses through death in your family/network?
Many people experienced deep life changes during the pandemic. We learned new things. We examined deeply held values.
COVID acted on us. We found new strength and determination. Writing our stories will harness the power of what happened.
Write your COVID Story
Writing is a powerful tool to help us learn things about ourselves. Just as we learn from fiction, we learn from telling personal stories. Writing our narrative about COVID is a tool that allows each of us to create and develop a description of personal development during the pandemic. For some, it will be therapeutic; for others, it will be an explanation.
The experiences of living in isolation for almost 18 months have changed us. This is the perfect time to capture those memories of living through the pandemic. As we re-join society, our personal and family narratives will change again as other people influence our perceptions.
When we tell our story we create our personal history. Writing our story allows us to heal and frees us to move confidently into the future. As we write about what happened and how it affected our lives, we affirm ourselves by analyzing COVID memories. Nuggets of wisdom will be uncovered. New insights will emerge.
I have not thought about writing my life narrative as it relates to Covid. Right now, it’s enough already – at for me. However, you make an excellent point. Down the road, it could behoove us to look upon our reflections, the thoughts we have right now, as we move from Covid to normal.
I was inspired to write about my COVID journey by a news commentator. Living through the shut-downs of the pandemic, gave me time to think deeply about life goals and changes to make once ‘freedom’ came back. My COVID life story is full of experiences I never imagined. For example, whoever thought we would wear masks to go grocery shopping or to the hair salon? I want to forget some of the experiences, but, even these are worth noting because of how I’ve changed.