Everyone knows that a good story comes down to it’s characters.  A story is no fun if there isn’t a villain, right?  We love the juxtaposition of good and bad.  It’s part of the architecture of a good story.  But sometimes the roles we cast ourselves as in our story, create a story we’re not happy with.

The Brain Is Wired for Stories

We experience our own life as a narrative.  They brain is wired for it.  It’s how we store information and how we think.  It allows us to process and retain more information than if we processed things individually like a computer does.  Instead narrative allows many separate pieces of data to be wound into one narrative.  

We Cast Ourselves in Roles in Our Stories

In our own narratives, we cast ourselves in many different roles—usually without meaning to.  Sometimes we are the villain, other times the victim or the hero.  Sometimes the damsel in distress—so to speak—who is waiting to be rescued.  Other times we’re just the side kick.  The roles we choose in each story impact how our own story about the experience unfold.  

Looking at the role we are playing in a particular situation can be a powerful tool for examining our own story and if it’s helping us.   Roles can be flexible.  

Roles Can Shift

I love the movie Malificent because it shows this principle so beautifully.  She starts out the movie as a charming girl who is the sweetheart of the land.  She then becomes a victim when her wings are cut off by the boy she thought loved her, then she becomes a villain as she seeks revenge and ultimately a hero as she chooses love over-all and rescues Aurora. 

Likewise, sometimes we can shift roles.  If we become caught in any one role too long (even ones that may see positive such as the hero for example, our stories can create an outcome we don’t like.)  

Let me give you an example of how shifting the roles we cast on ourselves and others might help us change a story that isn’t working. 

The Doctor and the Villain

One of my clients is a medical doctor.  She works with high risk patients and has to make decisions for them regarding medication and other medical decisions.  It’s challenging emotionally and sometimes the burden of responsibility feels overwhelming and exhausting to my client. She was considering leaving her job because of the stress.  

As we broke down her story, it became apparent that she viewed her clients as possible victims and she was afraid of being the villain.  We can all relate to fear that we might hurt someone.  The problem was that all her fear wasn’t helping protect any clients. In fact, it was exhausting her and making her less accurate and attentive with her patients.  It also meant she wasn’t enjoying her job.  In some ways, she was becoming a victim as well—a victim to the heavy burden of her clients.  As we were able to identify the way she was casting her role and her patient’s role it became apparent that her characterizations might not be the most helpful in this situation.  

I suggested perhaps a re-casting was in order.  Was there any other role she could see herself in?  I suggested she think about if it was possible that she could be a hero in this story? 

The Doctor as the Hero

I said, “What if instead of thinking about yourself as a potential villain, you think of yourself as a potential hero?  You are helping someone who is already at high risk to have a chance of feeling better and improving.  You are willing to accept some risk in order to do it.  Not everyone is willing to do that.  What if what you are is a hero, not a villain.”  

This might be a little hyperbolic, she wasn’t thinking of herself in terms of villains and heroes each day, but the shift in the approach was able to change her experience as a doctor—so much so that she decided to stay in medicine.

Re-Write Your Story By Re-Casting

Changing our own role in a story can be a powerful tool to help you re-write a story that isn’t working. And re-casting others’ roles in our own stories can help us change our own stories too.

Change Your Casting

1.Recognize how you’ve cast yourself in your own story.

2.  If you don’t like the outcome of the story, explore yourself in different roles. Explore others as different roles as well.

3.  Sometimes a simple shift of a role can change the whole story.