The Stories We Tell to Survive
This might be the most un-Valentine’s way to begin February, but it feels honest.
February doesn’t feel like a month for performance. It doesn’t ask us to prove anything, romanticize anything, or rush toward resolution. It feels like a month for truth. Quiet truth. The kind that surfaces only after something has been rinsed, cleared, and seen without embellishment.
Much of our survival depends on the stories we tell ourselves—about people, about love, about authority, about safety. These stories don’t begin as lies. They begin as coping. As protection. As a way to make sense of what feels overwhelming, confusing, or too painful to hold all at once.
I used to believe what I was told—especially by people I thought had my best interests at heart. My openness made me trusting. My trust made me vulnerable. And that vulnerability, at times, made me an easy place for other people’s certainty to land.
Looking back, I can see how often I absorbed stories that weren’t mine to carry. Beliefs shaped by someone else’s fear, power, or unresolved wounds. Intimidation and a quiet sense of unworthiness made those stories easier to accept. They helped me survive moments I didn’t yet have language for. But survival stories, when left unquestioned, eventually become cages.
February, rooted in purification, offers a pause. Not to judge the stories we’ve told—but to notice them. To gently ask which ones were necessary once, and which ones are now keeping us from seeing clearly. And sometimes, the bravest thing we can do at a seasonal threshold like this is to admit: Some of what I believed helped me survive—but now it may no longer be true.
February as Purification
February carries a quieter medicine. Rooted in purification, this short month doesn’t ask for resolution—it asks for readiness. It asks for a washing away of what no longer belongs, a clearing of static so something truer can be felt. As the light slowly returns and the earth begins to stir beneath the surface, this is a season of refinement—not force. It’s about cleaning the lens through which we see, believe, and choose.
The Seduction of Belief
We live in an age where belief moves faster than discernment. Stories circulate endlessly—polished, repeated, amplified—until they feel true simply because they are everywhere. Social media, viral narratives, even artificial intelligence can replicate certainty so convincingly that we stop questioning it.
We are no longer encouraged to think critically —only to react quickly. Truth becomes something we consume rather than examine. And without realizing it, belief becomes hypnotic.
Where Power Quietly Changes Hands
So many of us hand over our personal power—in relationships, business, and spiritual spaces—because we want to feel safe. We confuse guidance with surrender, and authority with wisdom. We forget that we are meant to be our own liberators.
Sometimes belief comes with a hefty price tag. When the illusion runs its course, we’re left depleted—emotionally, spiritually, financially—wondering how something that once felt so promising led us further from ourselves.
A Pause for Self-Assessment: Take a breath and notice what resonates.
I tend to trust confidently delivered information.
I feel overwhelmed by the volume of opinions and narratives.
I struggle to tell the difference between intuition and influence.
I’ve hesitated to question someone I saw as an authority.
I’ve invested belief, time, or money in something that later felt misaligned.
I crave certainty when I’m tired, uncertain, or searching.
If any of this feels familiar, ask yourself gently: What part of me was seeking safety, clarity, or belonging?
Discernment Is a Body Skill
True discernment doesn’t live in the mind alone. It lives in sensation, in timing, in how your nervous system responds before language catches up. If something doesn’t feel right, it usually isn’t—no matter how beautiful, intelligent, or popular it appears.
Use your senses. Notice what tightens. Notice what quiets. The body rarely lies, but we are skilled at overriding it.
The Questions That Reveal
These are not questions to answer quickly. They are questions to sit with.
Is this something I know, or something I’ve been told often enough that it feels true?
Did this belief come from my own lived experience—or was it shaped by someone else’s fear, certainty, or authority?
What evidence actually supports this story? What evidence quietly contradicts it?
When I question this belief, does my body soften—or tighten?
Am I protecting myself with this story, or avoiding something I don’t yet want to see?
If this story were no longer true, what would change?
Who benefits if I continue believing this?
What part of me needed this story at one time to survive?
These questions reveal everything. When belief overrides truth, we stay longer than we should. In personal relationships, professional environments, and communities of meaning, we explain away discomfort, reinterpret red flags as loyalty tests, and tell ourselves that endurance equals commitment, and that love—or leadership—requires self-abandonment.
This isn’t weakness. It’s conditioning. And it’s more common than we admit.
Following the Wrong Path
Sometimes we follow paths that once felt safer than stopping. Not because we couldn’t see—but because survival required movement. Recognizing that doesn’t mean we failed. It means we’re ready to choose differently.
February reminds us that every season of growth begins with clearing. Before anything takes root, the soil has to be tended. The excess removed. The old growth composted. And so this month quietly asks us to look at the stories we tell ourselves to survive—and to decide which ones still deserve to be planted.
Not every story told by others or yourself is meant to become a lifelong truth. This is the work of purification. Not erasing the past, but making space for a truer story to grow.