What Is Storywork? Why Your Story Shapes Your Life More Than You Think

PART 1: Seeing the World Through a Storied Lens

Why Your Symptoms Are Trying to Tell You Something

Most of us move through life assuming that what we see on the surface is the whole story.

We talk about behaviors.
We manage symptoms.
We try harder. We cope better. We power through.

But story has a way of breaking through—whether we acknowledge it or not.

Story is not something we occasionally tell.
Story is how our brains organize memory.
Story is how meaning is formed.
Story is how we locate ourselves in the world.

And when story is ignored, it doesn’t disappear. It leaks.

Why Story Is Everywhere (Even When You Avoid It)

Think about how often story shows up in ordinary life:

“How was your day?”

“Tell me about yourself.”

“What happened?”

We are constantly asking for story, even when we pretend we’re just exchanging information.

Our brains don’t store life as isolated facts. They encode experience—what happened, how it felt, what it meant, and who we needed to be in that moment. This is why memory is narrative by nature. It’s why two people can live through similar events and carry entirely different stories forward.

It’s also why anxiety, depression, conflict, addiction, or emotional numbness rarely come out of nowhere.

They are often the surface language of a deeper story asking to be heard.

Beneath the Surface

Many of us avoid story not because we’re dishonest, but because story carries risk.

To slow down and ask why something feels charged, familiar, or stuck means we might encounter pain. Or longing. Or parts of ourselves we learned to leave behind.

But avoidance doesn’t protect us as much as we hope. It simply keeps the story unnamed.

And unnamed stories continue to shape our choices, relationships, and reactions—quietly, persistently, faithfully.

Storywork begins with a simple but profound shift in posture:

Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with me?”
We ask, “What story might be underneath this?”

And sometimes, we discover there is more than one story at play.

If that lands close to home, you’re not alone.

This way of seeing—through a storied lens—is the foundation of The ReStory© Primer Course. It’s not about fixing behavior. It’s about learning to read what your life has been saying all along.

Want to learn more? Check out the primer course to start your journey into Storywork.