The Stories We Loved as Children Still Shape Us
The stories that moved you as a child may still hold clues about what you value, fear, and hope for now. This essay explores stories as a source of identification and guidance, then offers questions to help you revisit the characters and lessons that once stayed with you.
The Power of Stories
I also want to walk you through some inquiries to help you reflect on your beloved childhood stories and explore some of the messages and meaning these stories may have for you, even today…
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Stories are an entry point to the soul.
Stories , whether in film, book, audio or oral form , have been, since time immemorial, one of the primary ways we as humans have learned how to be, how to live, how we’ve received guidance about what life is, and how we can skillfully navigate it.
Stories have this incredible way of bypassing our rational, logical, ego-driven minds and speaking straight to the soul.
Stories are, in my opinion, psyche medicine and life guidance of the highest order.
While it’s rare for communities and families to sit around campfires today and pass on oral instructional stories, we can see that this kind of storytelling/soul instruction persists around the veritable campfire of movie screens and in our collective Netflix queues.
For instance, I’m guessing you , like I , maybe once or twice have gone to the movies and, for a few hours, really identified with that superhero or that post-Apocalyptic badass heroine on screen, so much so that when we left the theatre we felt filled with some of the nerve and grit and steely determination of Katniss Everdeen, or Hermione Granger, or Tris Prior or [fill in the blank]. Am I right?
That experience of fully identifying with a character, of getting swept up in a story is powerful and also deeply nourishing and instructional for our souls, particularly for those of us who grew up in homes where they wasn’t exactly an abundance of loving or helpful guidance from the adults in the our lives.
“Stories are wonderful vehicles for images, feelings, atmosphere, and depth because they lead the readers or the audience to identify with and learn from the characters.”
Jean Shinoda Bolen, MD
Narrative identification is the process of becoming emotionally engaged with a character’s experience, values, or journey. The essay describes how stories can bypass purely rational thinking and offer images, feelings, and instruction that stay with us.
In plain terms: A story can give you language for something you have not yet lived or said aloud. The character you return to may be showing you a quality you long to claim in yourself.
Childhood Touchstones
While stories are powerful and important for us at all ages, it’s the stories we passionately loved as children that I think can be particularly helpful to explore when we’re feeling stuck, overwhelmed, and filled with despair in life.
Whether it was a book, a movie, a TV episode or series, or even a fairytale you learned about from a friend or teacher, they are, I believe, certain stories that just *stick* with us as kids. Stories that just seem to strongly impact us for no logical, rational reason.
These are the childhood stories we want to explore to support us when life feels particularly tough.
On the surface these stories had virtually nothing in common: a onetime globetrotting, now-partially disabled eccentric old woman who walked the Maine coast flinging about lupine seeds; a mother bunny of 18 who worked her (cotton) tail off to become one of the kingdom’s elite Easter Bunnies; and a Harvard/Yale MBA corporate “Tiger Lady” who becomes guardian to an orphaned niece and opts out of the NYC Rat Rat to move to the New England countryside and discovers she’s a whiz at making baby applesauce.
But there are key threads and lessons woven throughout these three stories that then , as now , touch my soul deeply and which provide guidance for me even today.
These stories showed me that:
It is more than possible for a woman to do and achieve more than “only” being a mother;
If she is very creative and persistent, a woman can craft a flourishing life on her own terms , irregardless of the opinions of others;
Self-confidence and following intuition to create said life is key;
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“Fairy tales are more than true , not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.”
Neil Gaiman, author
Personal meaning-making is the way people interpret experiences, images, and stories in relation to their own values and identities. The essay invites readers to revisit the stories that stayed with them and notice the lessons they may still carry.
In plain terms: The point is not to find the one correct meaning of an old favorite. It is to notice what it gave you then and what it may be offering you now.
Finding Your Own Diamonds in the Mud
Now it’s your turn. I want to invite you to reflect on the following inquiries to explore the childhood stories you passionately loved and to examine whether or not the messages they contained still have clues for you today.
What books, films, fairy-tales or stories did you passionately attach to as a child (between ages 5-15)?
What was the meaning of each of those stories for you? What are some of the lessons (whether implicit or explicit) that those stories taught you?
Did you see yourself in one or more of the characters? What qualities and characteristics of those figures did you most admire? Can you see those qualities in yourself today?
How did these stories shape or give hope to you as a kid? Are there any lessons in them that are still helpful to you even today?
If you didn’t like the ending of any of those stories or movies, can you imagine rewriting it? How would you like to author the ending with the power of a do-over?
Onwards
And so, as we wrap up today, I invite you to consider what you would like to author in the next chapter or volume or episode of your life and also to consider how and what the clues and messages of your very favorite childhood stories might influence, guide, support, nourish and soothe you.
“Though fairy tales end after ten pages, our lives do not. We are multi-volume sets. In our lives, even though one episode amounts to a crash and burn, there is always another episode awaiting us and then another. There are always more opportunities to get it right, to fashion our lives in the ways we deserve to have them. Don’t waste your time hating a failure. Failure is a greater teacher than success.”
Clarissa Pinkola Estés, PhD
Q: Why do childhood stories stay with us for so long?
A: The essay suggests that stories can reach us through images, feelings, and identification. A story that mattered deeply may have offered hope, instruction, or a sense of possibility when you needed it.
Q: How do I choose which childhood stories to revisit?
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A: Start with the ones you passionately attached to between roughly ages five and fifteen. They might be books, films, television episodes, fairy tales, or stories a friend or teacher shared.
Q: What should I ask myself about a childhood favorite?
A: Consider what it meant to you, which characters you identified with, which qualities you admired, and what lessons the story offered. Then ask whether any of those lessons still support you now.
Q: What if I did not like the ending of a story?
A: The essay invites you to imagine rewriting it. That exercise can help you consider the ending you would author now, with the perspective and power you have today.
Q: Can stories help when I feel stuck or discouraged?
A: They can offer a route back to hope, values, and possibility. The essay does not ask you to escape reality, but to notice whether a familiar story contains a clue that helps you meet the next chapter of your own life.
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Annie Wright, LMFT
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist · Relational Trauma Specialist · W.W. Norton Author
“Helping driven women finally feel as good as their résumé looks.”
Annie Wright is a licensed psychotherapist with 15,000+ clinical hours since 2013 and an EMDRIA Certified Therapist. She’s the founder and former CEO of Evergreen Counseling, a multimillion-dollar trauma-informed therapy center she successfully exited. She’s currently writing her first book, The Everything Years: Navigating the Pressure and Promise of Your Thirties, with W.W. Norton (2027). Her expert commentary has appeared in Psychology Today, Forbes, Business Insider, NBC News, and The Information.
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Annie Wright, LMFT
LMFT · Relational Trauma Specialist · W.W. Norton Author
Helping driven women finally feel as good as their résumé looks.
Annie Wright is an EMDR-certified licensed psychotherapist and relational trauma specialist with over 15,000 clinical hours, and she's been in practice since 2013. Trained in EMDR, psychodynamic, and somatic modalities, she is licensed in 14 U.S. jurisdictions and registered to provide telehealth in Florida (California, Colorado (telehealth only), Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington). Annie works with driven and ambitious women from relational trauma backgrounds, and everything she writes about is field-tested across thousands of clinical sessions. She is the founder and former CEO of Evergreen Counseling, a multimillion-dollar trauma-informed therapy center she built, scaled, and successfully exited, and is currently writing her first book, The Everything Years: Navigating the Pressure and Promise of Your Thirties, with W.W. Norton (2027). A regular contributor to Psychology Today, her expert commentary has appeared in USA Today, Forbes, Business Insider, Inc., NBC, and The Information.
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