What Happens When You Outgrow Your Own Mythology

There’s a strange kind of grief that arrives when the story you once told about yourself — your guiding myth — no longer fits. Especially when it wasn’t just any story, but the story. The one you poured into poems or blogs or old journal entries by the bucketful. The one that helped you survive, make sense of the chaos, and eventually form a self that felt real.

It starts the day you finally go back and revisit it, usually through old personal writing or artwork. You re-read the essay, re-open the journal, pull up the old blog post. And it hits you. You don’t live there anymore.

The Myths We Write Ourselves Into

Whether we think we do or not, we all have personal myths. They're the stories we cobble together to explain to others (and sometimes ourselves) who we are, why we are, and what we think we’re made of. And they can be based on memories, emotions, trauma, and whatever scraps of meaning we can find to sew the whole mess together. 

Although your mileage may vary, my personal myths always sounded a lot like:

• "I'm the forthright, loyal person who always puts others first."
• "I'm the survivor who's been through a lot and stubbornly survived."
• "I am the misunderstood artist no one ever truly sees."

Those myths can be empowering or limiting. Often, they’re both. Even painful myths can be strangely comforting when they give us structure, identity, or purpose in a world that so often leaves us feeling like we have none. They help us navigate the world. They help us feel known, at least to ourselves.

But what I didn't realize way back when I wrote my personal mythology in the first place is that myths are meant to evolve. And when they don’t, they start to limit us instead of holding us. 

When the Old Archetypes Stop Fitting

I recently re-read something I wrote about four years ago or so –– a Medium essay called All the Dead Darlings I Used to Be. I wrote it for a contest going on at the time, and although it never picked up traction (and certainly didn't win the contest), it remains one of my favorite pieces of writing I've ever shared online.

It was raw and emotional and beautifully true at the time. A kind of tribute to some of the past selves I’d shed over the years –– the Dead Darlings, as I called them. Each one named (after their ages at the time) and carefully laid to rest. Each one a little story I’d carried with me over the years, each one a chapter in the big, moth-eaten bible of me.

But as I read it again as a 49-year-old with four more years of perspective under her belt, something felt off. Not wrong, exactly. Just… incomplete.

I realized that some of those versions of me refused to stay dead and had eventually clawed their way back out of the graves I'd dug for them because they still had something to say. Others never really died in the first place. They just changed their clothes. Some softened, while others matured, but all of them eventually insisted on names that went beyond just numbers. 

That’s what happens when you start to outgrow your own mythology. You start to see it for what it really was –– not a final truth, but a single collection of moments in your long, long becoming. You realize that it wasn't the landscape after all, but merely a helpful lens through which to view it for a while.

The Identity Trap

It’s easy to confuse healing with complete resolution. To think that moving on from an old story means it wasn’t true or valuable. But the opposite is more likely. It was so true for you at the time that you wove it into your bones and used it to keep breathing.

And that matters.

But identity can become a trap if we’re not careful. Especially if we’ve been through trauma, or if our stories once gave us essential connection, community, or creative fire we didn't know how to find anywhere else. We might start to feel like we owe them our loyalty.

That’s when the myth starts demanding we stay broken or maybe just endlessly in process. You might start to wonder, "Who am I if not the person in the story?" And the scary part is, sometimes we don’t know. But that's all part of the process, too –– finding and navigating the gateway to whatever’s next.

The Myth Isn't the Magic

You are. Your capacity to reflect, create meaning, mythologize, and de-mythologize as needed is where the power truly is. You were never meant to become and remain a single version of yourself forever. You were meant to compost your past, walk into the next room of the temple, and leave the old robes behind.

This isn't about abandoning past selves but integrating them. It's giving them a seat at the table, but not letting them dictate the meal. It means revisiting the shrine with fresh eyes and saying, "Thank you for getting me this far. I’ve got it from here."

Signs You Might Be Outgrowing a Myth

Wondering whether you might be going through something similar? These are some pretty good signs:

• You re-read something you wrote and feel more compassion for the version of you who wrote it than identification. 
• The label you used to wear proudly now feels tight or maybe just a little crooked.
• You feel bored or trapped by your own narrative.
• You keep dreaming about old versions of yourself or feel called to reclaim things you once rejected.

As a self-proclaimed hobbit who spends most of her time at home and never purposefully goes way out on a limb, I never think of myself as someone who changes much over the years. I certainly didn't think of myself as having changed dramatically within the last four years.

But rereading that old essay made me realize... I have. Quite a lot, actually. I thought I was all done putting old, retired Darlings to bed, but as it turned out, I was really just beginning and will likely (hopefully) continue for the rest of my life.

So, If You're Ready to Shift Your Story...

... here are a few gentle ways to get the ball rolling in the right direction.

1. Name what feels "off" 

What part of the old story no longer feels true? Where does the narrative feel tight, constricted, or misaligned when you retell it?

2. Identify what still feels sacred 

Not every part of an old myth needs to be discarded. Some myths contain solid bricks of deeper wisdom you can work with to build the next castle you want to move into. Keep what nourishes you, discard what doesn't.

3. Write your story in a new voice

If you were to tell the same story from an updated place of healing or power, what would be different about it? The language, the setting, the plot... or something else entirely?

4. Make space for what's next

You don’t need a replacement story right away. In fact, I often find it's better not to intentionally tell myself stories at all. I've realized I actually like the way I grow when allowed to do it organically, without interference (even from myself), and at my own pace.

5. Trust your evolution

You don’t owe any version of your old identity eternal loyalty. Growth doesn't mean betraying someone you were once proud to be or leaving that version of yourself in the dust. It means integrating that identity as just one part of who you still are.

........

So, yeah. You’re not just allowed to admit you've spent your whole life writing myths about the person you considered yourself to be. You can (and should) rewrite them as often as you please.

If you’re in that space right now — halfway between fully formed narratives and unsure of what comes next — just know. That’s not a void, it’s a womb. It’s not the end of the story, either. It’s just the pause before the next version of your legend begins.

What myths are you still carrying that no longer fit quite right? What new ones might be waiting for you to grow into them?

* Another coin in the ongoing wishing well that is the Feast of the Wandering Pen, a freeform writing challenge that's about showing up exactly as you are and letting it be enough.