I recently came across a true beautiful story of this sort of reconstructed narrative, where a middle aged man tracked down a baby sitter from his youth, and the healing effect their conversation had on them both. This was part of a radio show that aired March 7th, 2008, called This American Life. This episode of TAL is called Return to Childhood, and the segment I so enjoyed is part two of this episode. TAL graciously provides this episode as a free podcast dowlnoad if you click here. Enjoy!

Related to this is the idea that we all have multiple narratives, or plots, to the story of our life, but usually have one dominant narrative. At times this dominant story we tell ourselves, and others, about our life turns out to restrict us, to hold us back. In such a situation (which actually happens to all of us at times) it is useful to look at the other seemingly minor narratives in our lives, the alternative narratives, fresh new and possibly healthier ways of looking at ourselves which are often difficult for us to piece together on our own.

One way of coming to know these alternative narratives about ourselves is to connect with other people, characters if you will, from our past who knew us well when we were younger. This can be a very powerful exercise, and does not always require actual contact with people from our past; sometimes it is just a matter of reconstructing what our relationship with them was like for us, and what is was like for them.