Who Writes the Story Has the Power: How Subconscious Beliefs Control Your Life

This is going to reveal an embarrassing fact about me. Another proof that I am wired differently.

I enjoy watching TV, but I am also very aware that screens are one of the most powerful delivery mechanisms for other people's stories. Media has always been used for propaganda. And from my own experience, the visual representation of people on screen can quietly shape how we see ourselves.

In plain words: watching conventionally beautiful Hollywood actresses, women whose appearance is the product of millions of dollars, teams of professionals, and very good lighting, can make me suddenly aware of my own shortcomings. Even when I know all of that. Even when I could write you a clinical explanation of exactly what's happening in my nervous system.

So I'm deliberate about my exposure. And when I do watch mainstream films or shows made for mass audiences, I give myself reality checks, small reminders that the gentle trance a screen induces is doing something, and I don't have to let it stick.

What I do love watching right now is Britain's Most Historic Towns with Professor Alice Roberts. It is the opposite of Hollywood. The people she interviews are passionate about what they do, genuinely, unselfconsciously passionate, and there is something deeply refreshing about watching someone talk about a subject they've dedicated their life to, with no performance required.

And it was during an episode about the Corn Laws that an idea found me.

The riot that never was

In 1819, revolution was sweeping through Europe. In Manchester, the Industrial Revolution had made thousands of jobs redundant, democracy was failing working people. On the 16th of August, somewhere between 60,000 and 80,000 people gathered at St Peter's Field to peacefully protest for political reform. A speaker was making the case for every adult's right to vote. The government felt threatened by the sheer size of the crowd and sent in the yeomanry. Fifteen people were killed. Hundreds were injured. The local Manchester Observer called it the Peterloo Massacre. A dark, satirical nod to Waterloo, the great battle of the age. The authorities covered it up and reported it as a violent riot.

The idea that landed for me was this: whoever writes the story, has the power.

The story you didn't write

And this is exactly how it plays out in people's lives. Lives shaped by a narrative they had no hand in writing. Because that narrative was drafted when they were children, when their brains were like sponges, absorbing lessons that were forged by others and belonged to others.

Every one of us is walking around with a story. About who we are. What we're capable of. Whether we're the kind of person things work out for, or the kind of person who always ends up back here, stuck again, wondering why it never quite happens.

Most of us didn't write that story ourselves. We inherited it. From a parent who struggled to say "I'm proud of you." From a teacher who said "you're not really a maths person." From a childhood spent reading the room and deciding, quietly, that making yourself smaller kept everyone calmer. From a culture that handed women a very specific script about what ambition is supposed to look like, and how much of it is acceptable before you become too much.

The story got written for us. And like the people who read those 1819 newspaper reports and believed what they were told, we believed it too. Because it came from sources that felt authoritative. Because everyone around us seemed to accept it. Because the social pressure to accept the official version is immense.

If it feels true, it "is" true. According to your subconscious.

The subconscious mind doesn't deal in facts. If it did, phobias wouldn't exist. It deals in emotions, physical sensations, and stories that feel true. That feeling of truth starts with an imprint, one or a few early experiences that we decode as evidence about who we are and how the world works. From that point, the subconscious goes looking for confirmation. And it finds it. Every experience that fits the story gets filed as proof.

You don't think "I believe I'm not good enough." You just don't send the email. You just talk yourself out of the price increase before you even say it out loud. You just feel inexplicably exhausted on the days when something good is actually within reach.

The subconscious belief doesn't announce itself. It just drives.

This is why willpower alone doesn't shift it. You can know, consciously, that you are capable, that you deserve it, that the story you've been told is wrong, and still find yourself living by the old script. Because the story isn't in your conscious mind. It's deeper than that.

And this is also why, when I work with women in hypnotherapy, we don't start with positive affirmations or reframing exercises. We go looking for the original broadcast. The moment the story was written. The source.

Because you can't rewrite a story you can't find.

Your internal story isn't history. It's a living document.

The Peterloo protesters didn't get to correct the record in real time. The narrative was set before they had a chance to speak. That's what power looks like when it's working smoothly. The story gets written for you, and by the time you realise it, it feels like history.

But your internal story isn't history. It's a living document.

And unlike the Manchester crowds of 1819, you are not at the mercy of whoever got there first. You can find out what's actually in the file. You can read it. And then, with the right support, you can put your own name at the top and start writing from there.

That's the work.

Not performance. Not pretending the old story wasn't written. But finding it, understanding where it came from, and deciding, consciously, from the inside out, what gets to be true about you now.