The First Step to Untangling Your Past

The past is not a straight line. We think it is when we look back from a distance. We see a path of cause and effect. But when you are living in it, and when you are trying to understand it now, it feels more like a tangled knot of string.

There are threads of grief, joy, confusion, and pain all twisted together. Pull on one thread and you find it tightens another. Try to ignore the knot and you find it gets in the way of everything you do today. So what is the first step to untangling it? Most people think the answer is complicated. They think they need to find a therapist, read a dozen books, or have a sudden epiphany. Those things can help. But the first step is much simpler.

It is to tell the story.

The Weight of Unspoken Stories

We carry our past inside us. These are not just memories. They are stories. Stories about who we are, why things happened, and what we deserve. Many of these stories are unfinished, unheard, or misunderstood even by ourselves. They live in our heads as a jumble of images and feelings.

Keeping them inside is hard work. It takes a constant, low level of energy to hold them down. This is why we often feel tired or stuck for reasons we cannot name. The unspoken stories are heavy. They silently shape our reactions, our fears, and our hopes. They have power over us precisely because they remain undefined. A vague fear is more potent than a specific one. A chaotic memory is more disruptive than an organized one.

We think that by not speaking about the past, we are controlling it. But the opposite is true. Silence gives it control over us.

The Power of Simply Speaking

The first step toward untangling the knot is to externalize it. You must get the story out of your head and into the world. The simplest way to do this is to speak it aloud.

This sounds too easy to be effective, but its power lies in its simplicity. The act of translating thoughts and feelings into spoken words forces a kind of order. Thoughts can race and circle back on themselves endlessly. But speech is linear. You have to say one word, then the next, then the next. You have to form sentences. You have to build a narrative.

This process itself begins the untangling. It takes the chaotic knot of feeling and memory and lays out one thread at a time. The story may still be messy. It may be full of contradictions and gaps. That does not matter. The goal is not to tell a perfect story. The goal is to start telling any story at all.

Why Your Own Voice is the Key

You do not need an audience. In fact, an audience can get in the way at the beginning. The pressure to perform, to make sense, to tell a story that is acceptable to others can cause you to reshape it. To leave out the parts you think are shameful or boring.

But when you speak just for yourself, something different happens. You become both the storyteller and the listener. Hearing your own voice say the words is a profoundly different experience from thinking them. A thought is ephemeral. A spoken word is an event. It has a physical presence.

When you hear your own story, you can observe it. You can notice where your voice cracks. You can notice the words you choose. You can notice the parts that are hard to say. This creates a small but crucial space between you and the story. In that space, healing can begin. It is the beginning of seeing the experience as something that happened to you, not something that is you.

How to Begin Telling Your Story

Do not try to tell the whole story of your life at once. That is like trying to untangle the whole knot with one pull. You will only make it tighter.

Start with something small. A single memory. A specific feeling. A question that haunts you. Start with what feels most present right now.

Find a quiet place where you will not be interrupted. You can speak to the empty room. Or you can record yourself. The recording is just a tool to encourage you to speak.

Begin with simple phrases. "I remember when…" or "I feel sad about…" or "I don't understand why…"

Then just talk. Do not edit yourself. Do not judge what comes out. If you cry, you cry. If you get angry, you get angry. If you feel nothing, you say that. The aim is honesty, not eloquence. Follow the thread of the story wherever it leads. If it leads to a dead end, that is fine. You can start a new thread tomorrow.

The goal is not to solve anything in one session. The goal is to make a start. The first step to untangling a knot is to simply pick it up, look at it, and find a single, loose end to pull. Speaking your story is how you find that first thread.

Give it a try by answering the prompt below.