Narratives Are Not Created Equally

Stepping into the Bigger Story

In keeping with what has become the theme of the week, a final post about narrative identity and mental health.

As I described in yesterday's post, faith gifts us our story. In The Shape of Joy I share how the research of Pamela King illuminates this idea. Specifically, while we all have narrative identities, faith gives us what King calls a "transcendent narrative identity." A transcendent narrative identity connects the mundane aspects of life, along with our daily life goals, to an overarching, sacred story. This story imbues life with deep significance and moral purpose. Even the smallest and most trivial aspects of my day become suffused with meaning. 

Here is King, from a 2020 article, describing how a transcendent narrative identity works:

[A]lthough all persons have varying degrees of coherently integrated narrative identity that serve to inform the meaning and significance of their characteristic adaptations, not all persons have an identity that is informed by a conceptualization of transcendence, source of ultimacy, or the sacred that shapes one’s worldview and emerging identity...

From this perspective, not all narratives are created equally. Existing research demonstrates that transcendence shapes meaning-making processes that galvanize one’s sense of self and worldview. Ultimate concerns serve to organize individual’s entire goal systems and orient life aims. In addition, life purposes are more likely to be incorporated into one’s narrative identity when they include transcendent, spiritual, or sacred content. Mundane goals given sacred meaning are pursued with greater effort, provide more meaning, and receive more social support than unsanctified goals. Thus, a transcendent narrative identity has organizing power and serves to instantiate meaning and motivation that promote fidelity, and sustains engaging one’s moral convictions. In other words, whereas narrative identity informs the meaning of characteristic adaptations, a transcendent narrative identity conveys that the moral aspect of the narrative is sacred and suggests that rather than only a moral orientation, one has a spiritual motivation to live out one’s beliefs. In this way, even narratives that are not embedded within a religious context, can serve to ‘sanctify’ prosocial beliefs, attitudes, and actions.

Simply put, how you tell your story matters. Narratives are not created equally. As I describe in The Shape of Joy, stories that connect your identity to the sacred--a transcendent narrative identity--imbue life with meaning-making powers that fill our days with spiritual and sacred significance. Faith gifts you a bigger story, and that story comes to organize your life goals, gives mundane, daily tasks sacred weight, and motivates and sustains moral action and exertion. 

This is the path toward a joyful and meaningful life. A transcendent narrative identity. Stepping into the bigger story.