The Past Does Not Define Us

"Most of us are carrying moments we are proud of alongside moments we would rather forget. The difficulty is not that both exist. The difficulty is learning how to hold them together without allowing either one to become the whole story."

There is a saying that our past does not define us. I think that is true. But perhaps it is also incomplete.

Our past may not define us, but it does belong to us.

If we live long enough, most of us will experience something we deeply regret. We will make decisions we wish we could undo. We will hurt people we love. We will behave in ways that sit uncomfortably beside the person we believe ourselves to be. Sometimes the harm will be unintended. Sometimes, if we are honest with ourselves, we knew - at least somewhere within us - that what we were doing wasn't aligned with our values.

Human beings are complicated like that.

We are capable of extraordinary kindness and profound hurt. We can love someone deeply and still betray them. We can value honesty and still lie. We can be compassionate and yet behave selfishly. We can be courageous in one part of our lives and deeply frightened in another.

These contradictions are uncomfortable because we long for coherence. It's natural to want our story to make sense. To want the person we are today to align neatly with the person we were yesterday. We want to believe that good people do good things, and that people who do bad things must somehow be bad.

Life is rarely that simple.

Most of us are carrying moments we are proud of alongside moments we would rather forget. The difficulty is not that both exist. The difficulty is learning how to hold them together without allowing either one to become the whole story.

Character Reveals Itself

In Charlie Mackesy's The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, the mole asks the boy what he wants to be when he grows up.

"Kind," replies the boy.

There is something profoundly beautiful in the simplicity of that answer. He doesn't say successful. Wealthy. Influential. Admired.

He says, kind.

Perhaps one of the most meaningful questions we can ask ourselves, then, is not Who have I been?

It is, Who do I choose to be, today?

Because identity is not communicated solely through the story we tell about ourselves. It is communicated through the way we move through the world.

It is reflected in whether we show up when it matters. Whether we tell the truth when it is uncomfortable. Whether we repair when we have caused harm. Whether we can hold another person's pain without becoming defensive. Whether we continue to treat someone with dignity, even when we are angry or disappointed. Whether our actions align with the values we profess to hold.

The Latin phrase Factis non verbis means deeds, not words.

I have always loved its simplicity because it reminds us that character is not something we announce. It reveals itself through the way we live.

The way we communicate; verbally and non-verbally, becomes the way others experience us. If we repeatedly behave with cruelty, people will experience us as cruel. If we consistently behave with kindness, courage and integrity, those qualities too become visible.

Not because we have claimed them.

Because we have lived them.

Perhaps that is why the boy's answer is so profound. Kindness is not simply something we feel; it is something we choose, again and again. And it is through those repeated choices that our character reveals itself - not only to others, but to ourselves.

When Shame Becomes Identity

Holding both becomes considerably more difficult when the chapter we are trying to integrate is one we carry deep shame about.

It may be infidelity. Addiction. A criminal conviction. Abandoning someone we love. Hurting our children. Destroying a relationship. Losing control of our lives. Behaving in ways that violated not only somebody else's values, but our own.

There are some experiences that society allows us to recover from relatively easily. Others seem to acquire an identity of their own. We are no longer simply someone who once did something. We become the person who did it. And sometimes, long after everybody else has stopped defining us by that chapter, we continue defining ourselves by it.

This is where shame becomes particularly destructive.

Guilt says, I did something that violated my values.

Shame says, This is who I am because this is how the world now sees me.”

The distinction matters because guilt and shame move us in very different directions. Guilt has the capacity to be transformative. It invites accountability. It asks us to acknowledge the harm we have caused, to understand how we came to make those choices, to repair where we can, and to live differently moving forward.

Shame rarely does.

Instead, it quietly collapses an entire human being into a single chapter of their life.

The person who had an affair becomes a cheater. The person who struggled with addiction becomes an addict. The person who committed a crime becomes a criminal. The person who failed becomes a failure. Before long, the behaviour is no longer something we did; it becomes who we believe ourselves to be.

Perhaps this is one of the mind's cruellest tricks; mistaking a chapter for the whole story.

I remember watching Schapelle Corby on Dancing with the Stars and having a philosophical discussion with Mum about the media's chatter around this person who was now simply being introduced as "the criminal" dancing. Even then, I remember feeling that she deserved to be stripped of that old label. At the time, I couldn't fully explain why. It just felt fundamentally unfair.

Only later, through the work of Michael White and David Epston, did I discover the narrative approach and finally have the theoretical framework to support what I had instinctively believed all along.

I've never liked sayings such as "Once a cheater, always a cheater," or "A leopard never changes its spots." Not because I believe people shouldn't be held accountable, but because I believe human beings are capable of transformation. We are constantly evolving. Who we were yesterday, whether that version of us was beautiful or deeply flawed, is not necessarily who we are today, nor who we will be tomorrow.

But that shift doesn't happen simply because time passes. It happens through healing and integration and is perhaps something that only those who have walked that path can truly understand.

In The Art of Communicating, Thich Nhat Hanh offers a beautifully simple practice whenever somebody attributes a label to us, whether with praise or criticism. Rather than accepting or rejecting it outright, he suggests quietly responding, "That is partly true." There is profound wisdom in those four words.

"You are an addict."

"That is partly true."

"I am an addict."

"That is partly true."

"You are a cheater."

"That is partly true."

"I am a cheater."

"That is partly true."

"You are a survivor."

"That is partly true."

"I am a survivor."

"That is partly true."

"You are kind."

"That is partly true."

"I am kind."

"That is partly true."

Each of these statements contains truth. None of them, on its own, contains the whole truth.

Perhaps this is the invitation that integration offers us. Not to deny what we have done. Not to minimise the consequences of our choices. And not to pretend that the painful chapters never happened. Rather, it asks us to recognise that no single chapter, however painful, however beautiful, however defining it once seemed, has the authority to tell the entire story of a human life.

Holding Both

Healing does not require us to erase the earlier chapters of our lives, nor does it require us to excuse them. There is an important difference between understanding behaviour and absolving it.

We are often very good at judging behaviour, yet much slower to become curious about what gave rise to it. We can recognise that somebody was traumatised, frightened, addicted, emotionally immature, desperate, dysregulated, or simply making terrible decisions, without pretending that the consequences did not matter. Context helps us understand behaviour. It does not necessarily excuse it.

Without curiosity, we risk responding only to the behaviour while overlooking the pain that created it.

There is something quite extraordinary about human beings. Faced with emotional pain that feels unbearable, we will often find a way to survive it. Sometimes that way is healthy. Sometimes it isn't. But survival has always been the objective.

Very few people take their first hit of meth believing it will one day consume their life. Equally, very few people begin an affair believing it will destroy the relationship they treasure most. More often than not, they are trying to escape something within themselves rather than hurt somebody else. They are searching for relief, not recognising that what offers relief today may create suffering tomorrow.

If we could truly see the pain our choices would eventually create - for ourselves and for the people we love - it is possible many of us would choose differently.

Pain has a way of narrowing our perspective. It convinces us that immediate relief is the same as healing, even when the relief comes at an enormous cost.

Recognising that the person who made those choices was attempting to survive something does not excuse the harm they caused. It simply acknowledges that human beings rarely destroy their own lives - or the lives of others - because they wake up one morning hoping to do so.

Perhaps this is what integration really asks of us: not to rewrite our story, but to become willing to read all of it.

To acknowledge the parts of ourselves that caused harm alongside the parts that learned from it. To make space for the versions of ourselves that failed, while also recognising the version that found the courage to stand back up. To understand the person we were without allowing that understanding to become permission, and to hold ourselves accountable without allowing that accountability to become lifelong condemnation.

The frightened version. The selfish version. The addicted version. The dishonest version. The lost version. They all belong to the same story. They cannot simply be discarded because they no longer fit the story we want to tell about ourselves, nor should they be handed the pen to write every chapter that follows.

That, to me, is integration.

It is not saying, "That wasn't me."

Nor is it saying, "That will always be me."

It is having the courage to say, "That was me." "And this is me too."

Learning to See the Whole Story

Perhaps one of the most difficult parts of healing is allowing ourselves to receive the goodness that other people already see in us.

Other people may begin to see qualities in us that we struggle to accept. They may describe us as kind, generous, strong, safe, loving or courageous. Yet instead of those words feeling comforting, they can almost hurt, because somewhere inside us is a quiet voice whispering, "If you really knew me, you wouldn't think that."

This is one of shame's quieter cruelties. It does not simply punish us for the past; it prevents us from fully inhabiting the present. Compliments bounce off. Love feels undeserved. Intimacy becomes threatening because being truly seen carries with it the possibility of being exposed. We minimise the good things we do, dismiss the kindness others experience in us, and wait for the moment they discover who we "really" are.

Perhaps this is where Thich Nhat Hanh's gentle practice of "That is partly true" offers something profoundly liberating. When someone tells us we are kind, we need not reject it because we remember the times we have been selfish. Nor do we need to deny the selfishness because someone experiences us as kind. Both can exist. Both are partly true.

The same is true of the identities we carry. I am an addict. I am a cheater. I am a survivor. I am kind. Each statement may contain truth, yet none of them, on its own, contains the whole truth. Human beings are rarely one thing. We are shaped by countless experiences, choices, failures and acts of courage across a lifetime. The difficulty begins when we allow any single truth, whether painful or beautiful, to become our entire identity.

Perhaps healing is not about convincing ourselves that we are good. Perhaps it is about becoming spacious enough to recognise that we have never been only one thing. The version of ourselves who caused harm belongs to us. So does the version who was harmed. The version who survived. The version who learned. And the version who continues, every day, to choose differently.

There is an understandable fear that self-forgiveness means letting ourselves off the hook. I’m not sure it does.

In fact, genuine self-forgiveness asks something far more difficult of us. It requires us to look directly at what happened, to acknowledge the harm we caused, to tolerate the discomfort of remorse, to make amends where we can, and to understand ourselves well enough to recognise what gave rise to those choices. Most importantly, it asks us to live differently.

Although we cannot change the evidence of our past, we can continue creating new evidence of who we are. Every honest conversation, every promise kept, every boundary respected, every repair, every moment we choose courage over avoidance, and every time our actions become more congruent with the values we hold quietly adds another chapter to our story. None of those moments erase what came before, but over time they begin to sit alongside it, until the story becomes larger than the chapter that once seemed to define us.

Human beings are not static. We are continually changing, learning and adapting. This does not mean everybody changes, nor does it mean that saying we have changed makes it so. Change has to become visible. Factis non verbis. Through deeds, not words.

If our behaviour can lead others to experience us as cruel, unreliable or unsafe, then surely sustained behaviour can also allow us to become, and be experienced as, kind, trustworthy and safe. Not overnight, and not through declaration, but through the quiet accumulation of ordinary choices that, over time, reveal our character.

Perhaps that is why the boy's answer in The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse feels so profound.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

"Kind."

Kindness is not something we announce. It is something we repeatedly choose.

It has taken me years to realise that this is, perhaps, one of the most important parts of my work as a therapist. People often arrive believing the goal is to get rid of the parts of themselves they dislike. To stop feeling shame. To erase the past. To become somebody new.

But that has never felt quite right to me.

More often than not, my role is simply to help people make room for the whole of themselves. The parts they are proud of alongside the parts they would rather forget. To help them hold accountability without condemnation, compassion without excuse, and to understand their story without becoming imprisoned by it.

And something remarkable happens when that integration begins.

The love they have struggled to receive becomes easier to believe. Compliments no longer bounce off. Healthy relationships feel safer. Success feels deserved. They stop waiting to be "found out" because the chapter they once feared would define them has finally found its rightful place within a much larger story.

Healing has never been about becoming someone else. It has always been about becoming able to hold the whole of who we are with honesty, accountability and compassion.

About the Author

Stefanie Evans is an Australian counsellor, couples therapist, clinical supervisor and writer, exploring the intersection of attachment, trauma, neurodivergence, identity, relational repair and psychological integration. Her work brings together contemporary psychology, narrative therapy, interpersonal neurobiology and contemplative philosophy to help individuals and couples navigate emotional injury, conflict, shame and the complexity of being human.

The content shared here is intended for reflection and psychoeducational purposes only and is not a substitute for personalised medical, psychological or therapeutic advice. If you require individual support, it is important to seek guidance appropriate to your personal circumstances.

Further Reading

This essay represents my own synthesis of ideas developed through years of clinical practice, alongside the work of thinkers whose contributions have profoundly shaped my understanding of identity, trauma, relationships and what it means to be human. I remain deeply grateful for their contributions, and for the countless clients who have continued to shape my understanding of what it means to heal, to love, and to be human.

• Michael White & David Epston — Narrative Therapy, identity and meaning-making

• June Tangney & Ronda Dearing — guilt, shame and moral emotion

• Daniel Siegel — Interpersonal Neurobiology and psychological integration

• Stephen Porges — Polyvagal Theory and nervous system regulation

• Bessel van der Kolk — trauma, adaptation and embodied memory

• Bruce Perry — developmental trauma, resilience and relational healing

• Gabor Maté — addiction, emotional pain and compassionate inquiry

• Charlie Mackesy — The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

• Thich Nhat Hanh — The Art of Communicating (mindful communication, identity, compassion and the practice of holding multiple truths)