“Change your story, change your life” they say.
It sounds simple. Seductive. Empowering. And its shadow side neglects that for many, the story was not a choice.
It was a code for survival inside systems that were never meant for them, for us.
In coaching and leadership spaces, we hear a familiar refrain: that what holds us back is not the world, but the narrative we hold about ourselves. That transformation begins when we challenge our limiting beliefs. That fear is just a story, and all stories can be rewritten.
This is not entirely untrue. It is powerful and transformational. But, it is deeply incomplete.
Not all people live in the same narrative terrain.
Some forced to navigate through structures of: race, gender, class, ability, that actively constrict what’s possible, no matter how empowered their mindset.
To tell someone to “change their story” without addressing the conditions that made the old story necessary is not just naïve, it’s a kind of spiritual gaslighting. It asks people to self-actualize while still being systemically erased. It individualizes what is, at its core, structural.
The belief that all change begins from within is a hallmark of neoliberal ideology. It teaches us to see the self as a project to be optimised, a brand to be managed, a source of both problem and solution. It tells us that success or failure depends solely on mindset, and in doing so, it lets systems off the hook.
This is not transformation.
This is outsourcing responsibility to the most burdened.
I apologise in advance for the simplification of this example.
Take, an unprivileged woman navigating a corporate environment. She may be told that her hesitancy to speak up is “a fear-based story.” But that “story” may have been learned in rooms where her assertiveness was framed as aggression, her competence questioned, her presence policed. Telling her to change her story, without transforming the system that punished her voice, only reinforces harm.
This is where many empowerment programs fail. They seek to help individuals thrive without transforming the context in which those individuals are struggling. They train people to be “resilient” in unjust conditions, rather than shifting the conditions themselves.
True transformation is not about overriding fear. It is about asking what fear has been trying to protect us from. It is about honouring the intelligence of our adaptations, and the violence of the environments that demanded them.
It is also about redistribution, not just of mindset, but of power, space, safety, and truth.
We cannot coach someone out of oppression. We cannot visualize our way past systemic bias. And we cannot afford a version of healing that bypasses history.
The work ahead is not either inner or outer. It is both, and deeply intertwined. It means holding space for the nervous system and for the political one.
It means attending to personal growth and collective justice.
It means refusing the seduction of neat narratives, and instead committing to the complexity of truth.
For those with privilege, who move through the world without having their identity routinely weaponised, it is easy to believe that fear is just a story. But for many, fear is a map of learned protection. To ignore this is not empowerment. It is erasure.
So we must ask: what are we really transforming?
Are we transforming people to better endure unjust systems?
Or are we transforming the systems themselves?
Healing divorced from justice is a luxury.
Liberation without accountability is an illusion.
And stories, when isolated from the conditions that shape them, can become instruments of harm.
What we need is not more tools for mindset mastery.
We need more courage to sit with discomfort, to interrogate power, to make space for voices that were never centred. We need practices of care that do not extract, strategies that do not scapegoat, and leadership that does not hide behind inspiration.
This is not about abandoning the inner work.
It is about deepening it, rooting it in reality, not bypassing it with belief.
Because the transformation we long for does not live in curated mantras or rebranded confidence.
It lives in the quiet undoing of what was never ours to carry.
It lives in collective remembering. In grief. In truth.
And ultimately, in a shared willingness to create a world where stories of survival are no longer needed.
Some practices to dismantle the harm of “Change Your Story” narratives
Ask: Whose story is this? And why was it needed?
Before inviting anyone (included yourself) to rewrite a personal story, ask:
• Who imposed this story?
• What system or structure made this story necessary for survival?
• What happens if they stop telling it? Will they be safe? Heard? Employed?
I invite all of us to hold space for people’s protective stories as wisdom, not limitation. It is important to remember that some of these stories were protection against oppression, erasure, etc. We should all ask, before even thinking to propose someone to change their stories, what truth do they carry?
I am thinking of hosting collective salons to make space for the truth of the stories we all carry, before we collectively support one another not only to re-write them, but, especially to do our parts to change the systems that made those stories necessary. If you’d like to know more, support, or host one please write to info@rnewb.com
If you’re interested in learning more about my services and would like to discuss any consultancy, workshops, talks, please reach out.
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