Our earliest experiences—roughly the first five to seven years of our life—have a profound effect on us because they are our first experiences. It’s like we’re born with a blank slate, and these experiences form our understanding of how things work. That’s essentially what narratives are: They’re core stories about ourselves and others—and how everything works!—and they become the basis of our life-long beliefs.

Because narratives are based on childhood experiences, and because young children often don’t understand what is happening or why, these narratives can be inaccurate, untrue, and ultimately unhealthy.

For example, here are some common unhealthy narratives:

Narratives can also carry positive messages such as “I’m loveable”; “I’ll probably succeed if I work at it”; and “The world is a tough place, but I can deal with it.”

The amazing and somewhat terrifying thing about narratives is that they tend to be invisible to us. Because they form when we are so young, we simply accept them as the way things are.

These core, childhood narratives stay with us our........

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