
For much of my adult life, I’ve had a guarded relationship with the past. Looking back at my teens and twenties felt like stepping into a room where I knew a tongue-lashing awaited. Many memories were best kept behind bolted doors. It took years for me to recognise that the harsh voice in those rooms was, in fact, my own.
And now, I’m discovering that there are other ways of remembering. Other ways of narrating the past. There must be. After all, if “truth” insisted on being cold and hard, is it really the whole truth?
Stirred by this question, I began the project of rewriting my past — not with omissions and half-truths, but in pursuit of a fuller truth that expands the story. This rewriting has, thus far, unfolded in three movements, each one opening a new window I didn’t know was there.
1. Rewrite with gentleness
Years of therapy taught me that I have two inner voices — a condemning voice and a compassionate voice. The condemning voice is loud, brash, and unrelenting. And because I had given it authority for far too long, it has no qualms about shouting over all other thoughts. The compassionate voice, on the other hand, is quiet and unassuming. It is easily overpowered and requires a lot more effort to discern from the noise. My therapist helped bring this quiet voice into the light each time she responded to my tears by asking, “What are your tears trying to tell you?” These simple invitations taught me to pause and listen.
And when I did, I saw that the regrettable choices of my younger self — the ones I judged so harshly — were often made in fear, loneliness, or simple ignorance. Sometimes I was wounded. Other times I was under-resourced, without the support I now know I needed. And quite simply, I was young — doing the best with the little I knew.
This gentler way of seeing didn’t erase the mistakes I made or the pain I caused. But it allowed me to hold two truths that once felt incompatible, and to meet pain not with censure but with care.
2. Rewrite with acceptance
While gentleness softened the way I saw my past, I still longed to show up immaculately in the present — to offer a version of myself that is trimmed of anything fragile and inconvenient. I worked hard to be someone easy to hold, often hiding parts of myself to the point of burnout.
But then came the man who is now my husband. Having seen me come undone more times than I would have liked, he could nonetheless say, “I love every version of you.” He recognised who I was in that moment, who I had been, and who I might become. It was the first time someone saw both my essence and my potential — without flinching at the gap.
He showed me that real love doesn’t wait for the final draft. His acceptance makes room for my ebbs and flows — the safety to crumble when I need to, and the faith to step into courage I never knew I had, even to shine in ways I once dimmed.
Slowly, it’s teaching me to honour my story with that same loving acceptance. The memories that once hurt don’t sting as sharply now. Looked at with tenderness, they even offer quiet gifts — for my own healing, and sometimes for others who see threads of their own story in mine.
3. Rewrite with humility
To keep rewriting my story, I had to face a deeper reality: that I could not rewrite it on my own. I couldn’t be fully receptive to therapy, and neither could I accept unearned love, when my soul was clenched tight — not just with pain, but with pride. It’s the quiet kind that insists I must be my own source of worth and strength. That I alone must manage myself, fix myself, and earn every good thing.
I had to let go of the need to be a perfect manuscript, and unlearn the instinct to scrap the whole draft each time shame resurfaced. God taught me that the surest antidote to despair was humility — to loosen my grip of the pen and allow my story to be co-authored by Him.
My task wasn’t to edit every line, but to trust that the story was still unfolding. To stay, even in the unfinished chapters, and faithfully discover treasures hidden in the unexpected turns.
There is mercy in rewriting the past with gentleness, acceptance, and humility — not that the events change, but that we learn to see the story more honestly.
And in that deepening truth, we are the ones who change. We become people who can walk forward unafraid of the unwritten pages, free to discover that the story can grow in ways our younger selves never imagined.

















