Make Sense of Your Story: Why Engaging Your Past with Kindness Changes Everything

by Adam Young, Dr. Dan Allender - foreword, Christian Audio (publisher)

Looking back at painful stories from the past seems counterproductive, especially when it appears unrelated to our present lives. But what if exploring our past stories can help us make sense of where we are now and begin to imagine who we would like to become? Rather than ignoring, suppressing, or running from our past hurts, looking at our stories of heartache and how they have shaped us helps make sense of who we are now and points the way to freedom and meaningful change.

In Make Sense of Your Story, trauma therapist and Licensed Clinical Social Worker Adam Young helps you explore your personal story so you can understand how your experiences have shaped your brain—which, in turn, allows you to understand why your present day-to-day life looks and feels the way it does. He shows you how to confront and process the story of your family of origin, your sexual story, the story your body is telling you, your cultural story, your story with God, and more with kindness rather than judgment so that you can experience healing, self-acceptance, and release.

The secret to making sense of your present life is understanding your past experiences. And if you want to change the narrative, you have to engage your story.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Christian, Theology, Christianity, Counselling, Christian Living

Audible Audio

Published March 4, 2025

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best Christian book of 2025

I read over 100 books per year, primarily Christian non-fiction, and I already know in May 2025 that this will be my top pick of them all. Why? Because it has permanently changed me for the better. Like the author, I have invested countless hours in counseling sessions, reading helpful books, and attending seminars for healing. This is the first time I have heard that engaging with my own stories is a key to healing. I have a lot of internal work to do after reading this book, yet I am grateful for the insight and practical help it has given me. Thank you, Adam Young, for the gift of healing you have given me through this book.

[Camden Morgante · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a challenging and thought-provoking read. Therapist and author Adam Young packed this book full of wisdom about understanding and exploring your "story" (your childhood experiences) and how it has shaped you. There are chapters that explain attachment styles, the "big six" needs of children, how your story affects your sexuality and body, and exploring your story with self-compassion, hope, and in connection with others. Young also encouraged exploring your collective story from your racial/ethnic group. He made several bold and controversial claims that gave me pause and allowed me to be curious about my reactions to them. Because this book goes deep, I would not recommend it to someone just starting out with healing or someone with a lot of unprocessed trauma. Since this book was focused on your own individual healing, the author discourages readers from examining their own parenting or how their story impacts them as parents, which I found to be a missing piece, but one likely meriting a separate book. Overall I gained a lot from this book to apply to my own personal work as well as my professional work as a therapist and would recommend this book to those farther along in their healing journey who are ready and resourced enough to take a deeper dive.

[Bethany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aah! Adam Young’s work (for me, a day-long conference and regular listens to his podcast The Place We Find Ourselves) came to me in a season where I was engaging my story to find healing from a series of too many traumas all bunched up together. This book—while largely a compilation of what you hear on his podcast, no matter—is filled with succinct truths I needed to be reminded of. My healing is worth my effort and the pain it takes to engage my story. Excellent book, made even better because it’s read by the author, a voice I trust.

[J. Alfred · Rating 2 out of 5]

Is my low rating because I'm too frightened to let my body tell me truths about myself and my past? Is it because I am not brave enough to find all the places in my past where my loved one's imperfections were actually cruelty and abuse directed intentionally against me?
("your story is not going to make sense until you are honest and truthful about the intentional harm you experienced in your family of origin"-- intentional harm, guy? How this squares with honoring your parents which is the first commandment with promise is a little beyond me.)
There's some good stuff in here, but it is obscured and confused by a really strange hunger to be the victim years and years after the event.

[jerm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Took my time (the name of the game these days), but I’d say it’s not exaggerative to say this book contains life-changing content. I think I’ve engaged with Adam Young enough now to know it’s less about the presentation of new ideas (as you clearly will note how much he cites the work of others) and more about his incredible gift for consolidating several ideas into one package and extricating relevance from complex neurobiological theory to make it digestible - even reflectional/contemplative.

I will say that if you listen to his podcast, The Place We Find Ourselves, little here will be new to you. But I found myself benefiting greatly from the written medium as opposed to audible, feeling free to move through the ideas, concepts, and challenges more slowly and meticulously. I also finally sat down and drew a triangle. (Inside joke, even though I hate those.)

I’d once again not be exaggerating to say Adam Young has exposed me to what I feel my soul grappling with as the first real permission for myself to hope in healing again.

[Schuyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal. Innovative, painful, healing, kind, true. It was so good I couldn't put it down and finished it in one day. Young intertwines faith and mental health incredibly well. I'm so grateful I got to listen to this and plan on purchasing a print copy to re-read multiple times.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve had stronger (and contradictory) reactions to Adam Young’s “Make Sense of Your Story” than any book I’ve read in a while. I’m the first half, Young does as good a job at laying out a well rounded and easily applicable lay level introduction to some basic therapeutic concepts including relational and attachment theory. It’s excellent and I thought Young’s book might be one that I regularly hand out to counselees and congregants. Then Young takes a sharp turn in the latter half of the book, taking on some anti-evangelical hobby horses that lacked biblical or theological nuance. Worse, they were flat out unhelpful. I might hand the book to a few and have them read the second half, but Young’s poor handling of the latter half will have me pause to do so.

[Ryan Wheeler · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book contained nuggets which were helpful in understanding how to change and how to think about my life, but I found his handling of Biblical texts suspicious and a habit of making claims without providing evidence.

Some of the helpful nuggets:
-Engaging specific memories from your past is important for healing. We are shaped by our experiences and we must address those specific experiences and tell the truth about them in order to heal. (Chapter 1)
-The big six from a caregiver which produce secure attachment in a child: attunement (a parent’s desire and ability to read a child’s emotional state), responsiveness (does a parent respond when their child is distressed), engagement (a genuine desire on the parents’ part to know their child), ability to regulate affect (helping a child find peace when he is dysregulated), ability to handle your big emotions (emotional strength/maturity from the parent to handle large emotions from the child in a healthy way), willingness to repair rupture (willingness to ask forgiveness and repair the damage done to the relationship when the parent sins against the child). (Chapter 4)
-It is important to name intentionality when looking back at times when we were harmed (by our parents or others). When we are harmed, particularly by those closest to us, we tend to struggle to assign negative intentionality and instead explain away why this person hurt us. We do this because we can’t handle the fact that someone who is supposed to love and care for us would intentionally hurt us. But we must face the truth in order to attain healing, through the coherent re-telling of our past story. (Chapter 6)
-Empathy can be used for good or evil. Meaning can understand what another person is thinking/feeling and use that against them. Empathy must be paired with compassion to be truly loving, meaning there is a genuine care for the suffering of the other person. (Chapter 6)
-Big emotional reactions in the present are almost certainly tied to past experiences stored in implicit memory. Implicit memory is what our brain picks up from our environment even if we don’t specifically notice it. (Chapter 6)
-It is important to notice how your body responds in a situation, because this can give you key information about how you are responding even if you aren’t consciously aware of it. (Chapter 8)
-When hope feels too risky we tend to either deaden our desires or resign ourselves to cynicism (“that will never happen”, “that will never work”). But as Christians our entire life is built on the impossible, Jesus was raised from the dead. This means there is never a situation that can’t be reversed or upended. (Chapter 12)

Critiques:
-Handling of Biblical texts was suspicious at times. For example, he said about Job 42:6-8 that “It means that it was right for Job to express his anger at God” (pg 205). But what about the chapters before where God put Job in his place? Was God really saying it was right for Job to express anger at God?
-Claims that seem to contradict the Bible: “How does healing happen? In the end it is not truth that changes people; it is kindness” (pg 224). What about John 8:31-32: “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
And John 17:17: “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”
-Large claims without strong supporting evidence such as on page 248 where he claims that when a wise, settled person engages your story with you, it increases connectivity between the left and right hemispheres and the prefrontal cortex and limbic portions of the brain. There is no footnote or supporting evidence for this large claim.
-All of chapter 9 is a series of huge claims about the guilt and shame of being a white person and “Whiteness” without supporting evidence. I found this chapter the low point of the book.

[Karla Osorno · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rating 5 stars.

This is a book about engaging your story with an empathic person willing to enter your pain. That sentence doesn’t begin to cover the value of this book. Thankfully the author Adam Young articulates and lays out the reasons why story work is important for healing and how neuroscience fits in.

Young has a very direct and conversational writing style, which I appreciate. His heart for people and grounded content blend together to teach information to the head and share truths that resonate with the soul. The organization of the content, the illustrations, appropriate scriptures, and the research combine to give us a helpful book (and an invitation to act because information alone does not heal).

I am a listener to Young’s podcast The Place We Find Ourselves. I preordered the book and anticipated it would be good but maybe just a review. Reading it exceeded my expectations. I can’t think of another book I have gotten so much out of in a long time. The timing of the reading colliding with my capacity to connect right now was divine. I am very grateful to Young - for his vulnerability and his hard work to get this book into the world.

[Tabitha Westbrook · Rating 5 out of 5]

In true Adam Young fashion, he walks us through why it's vitally important to engage our stories in order to find deep healing. An excellent book that outlines something I wish more therapists understood. While not every detail of every story must be told, having your story engaged with compassion is life-giving. Definitely worth taking the time to read this book.

[Tommy Keough · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is just really, really good. I’ve been a listener of The Place We Find Ourselves podcast for a few years and have had the chance to listen to Adam speak and teach a few times. I’m so glad he finally synthesized a lot of his material into this book. I think the mark of success for a book like this is that I couldn’t read for more than half a page without it triggering loads of memories and reflections on my own story. I know I will refer back to this one often!

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it! I think it was very counselor-y and definitely appreciated the chapters on exploring your story with your family of origin, with God and with kindness. All of it made sense there and definitely helpful to think about how we make sense of our story

[Bri Santos · Rating 5 out of 5]

I felt like I went to therapy as I read this book. The chapter on the six things needed for attunement as a child growing up was really illuminating. I feel more connected to myself and the important people around me having worked through these chapters.

[Kelsey Lofton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adam is an excellent, kind, and gentle guide in helping his readers on this long long journey of better understanding them selves. This was such an excellent read, I already bought 5 as gifts.

[Brittany Cox · Rating 5 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Debating buying this book as a Christmas present for everyone I know.

[Luke Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very thankful for this book

[Stephanie Wellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learned some stuff for sure— interesting to read about how your brain develops. Long winded though so more like 3.5/5

[Dan Morgan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has some good points, but his theology and use of scripture is questionable at best.

This book is based on the belief the God wants you to sit in your story. It cherry-picks verses here and there to this end. But it ignores that for Christians, scripture should always supersede feelings and emotions, and believers are indwelt with the Spirit of God when that seems like a far-off goal. I would not recommend this book to someone struggling, as it twists the Word of God, and is a “woe is me” greatest hits, with no step forward. The answer to learned helplessness from legitimate pain (or trauma) is not more helplessness and pity. It is made right by praying and fasting in community begging the God that heals the broken to do what only He can do.

[Panda Incognito · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise of this book deeply resonates with me. I agree that looking back at our pasts can help us make sense of our current difficulties, and that compassionate engagement with our most shameful, unpleasant memories can be a pathway towards healing. Sometimes, what we most want to suppress and ignore is what we must face in order to move forward. In this book, trauma therapist Adam Young explains why it's important to explore our stories, and responds to common objections to this. Then he focuses different chapters on different types of stories we carry, such as our family of origin story, our sexual story, and the story of our relationship with God.

This book is full of insights that Adam Young has developed over the years on his podcast, The Place We Find Ourselves. According to some other reviewers, this book is basically the podcast in book form. As a result, this book is mainly for people who are new to Young's work. Longtime followers won't find new material here, but may appreciate the ease of reference that the book offers.

I appreciate how the author synthesizes his Christian worldview with mainstream therapy concepts. One thing I found particularly helpful is that he calls sin what it is, instead of trying to explain it away. For example, he validates that people do horrible things to each other on purpose, not just because they lack empathy or emotional skills. He says that even though therapists will often say, "Oh, that person probably didn't realize how you felt," there are lots of times where people know how you feel and deliberately choose to hurt you.

However, something that bothered me is that the author makes sweeping negative claims about how the evangelical church gets people to disconnect from their feelings, to the point of telling people that if their feelings conflict with the Bible, then they should submit their feelings to that apparent interpretation of the text. He criticizes this as a way to silence people's intuition, and he writes about the dangers of people not trusting their feelings. I agree that we should take our feelings seriously, but that doesn't mean that they always reflect truth.

Young's take seems to enshrine someone's feelings as a pure guiding light, but nobody's intuition exists in a vacuum, and surrounding influences can shape someone's gut feelings for better or worse. He acknowledges this later in other contexts, but never really explains anything to justify the inconsistency. Also, in the very intense screed about racial issues towards the end of the book, it's clear that if you disagree with him on anything there, then he thinks your feelings and intuition are definitely wrong.

Also, even though the core idea of exploring your story applies to everyone, this book's focus is surprisingly narrow. This is mainly for people who are healing from seriously dysfunctional parental relationships. A lot of this book has to do with core attachment issues, such as whether or not your parents were able to recognize your feelings and needs, respond compassionately to you, and repair ruptures after a conflict. There are lots of questions in this book about basic things like whether or not your parents were able to tell when you were sad, mad, and afraid, and if they responded in a supportive way or not. A significant portion of the book also focuses on ways that some parents sexualize their relationship with their child, with or without overt sexual abuse.

This book's focus can be really helpful for people who grew up in abusive or neglectful homes, since it helps them identify and understand what was missing from their childhoods, or why aspects of their relationship with a parent seems weirdly sexual from an adult perspective. However, there are lots of people who have serious family wounds that don't fit into these boxes. There are plenty of parents out there who haven't ever treated their kids like surrogate spouses, and who have showed recognition and care for their children's feelings and needs, but who have still hurt their children in other ways.

Also, there are so many forms of trauma that don't involve parental relationships! It surprised me how much this book focused on family of origin issues. Even in the chapter about your sexual story, the predominant focus is on ways that parents harm their children through sexual abuse or triangulation. If someone's deepest wounds come from sexual abuse from a non-parental figure, they may not find this chapter relevant or helpful at all. Also, there was almost nothing in the book about traumas from peer relationships.

There are a couple of brief references to bullying in example stories, but the book almost exclusively focuses on parental relationships, and on very particular types of family dysfunction that relate to the author's experience. The author kept coming back to the same themes about how his mother sexualized her relationship with him, and he kept explaining this situation again in different chapters. Before I started reading this book, I felt like every time I opened it, I landed on a page with something about his mom. This emphasis is overly repetitive, and focuses so much on the author's experience that it eclipses other types of family difficulties.

This book involves some core ideas and themes that apply to everyone, but the bulk of the book is about very specific family problems that flow from the author's experience. Based on the success of the author's podcast, it is clear that his content resonates with a lot of people, and I would recommend this book to people who relate to the author's story. However, people who have experienced different forms of suffering or trauma in life should know that despite how general this book's description sounds, it takes a very narrow focus. I expected this book to equip anyone to explore their story around some common life themes, but this focuses on a very particular type of story, to the exclusion of almost everything else.

I received a free copy from the publisher, and am voluntarily leaving an honest review.

[Melanie Miles · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is 5 star content, but my book review is 3 stars because this book is quite literally a verbatim transcript of his podcast. If you have ever listened to the podcast and wished you could pull your car over and write it all down, you should definitely order this book. For me it was disappointing because I am very familiar with Adam’s podcast and I was really excited for what I hoped would be a deeper dive into the content. As it is, this is an excellent introduction to story work and the work of understanding our stories.

[Brayden Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is full of incredible insight and beautiful language that helped me name so much within my own story. The biblical exegesis at some points was weak but that’s not the point of the book. I’m walking away with a deep desire to engage my own story with kindness compassion and community. My only complaint is I found myself begging for a next step…a bridge between naming and healing that explains how the naming transforms us. Maybe that’s another book.

[Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

It would be impossible to overstate the impact that Young's podcast (The Place You Find Yourself) has had on me since 2019 and this book is the amalgamation of his best work. Just hang around me for a while and the topic of engaging our stories will for sure come up! While Young deals with tough topics, he does it in a winsome, easy-to-follow, practical way.

I will recommend this book to many, but will start with all ministry leaders because making sense of your own story with kindness and with others is the way to have true freedom which allows us to lead others to that freedom as well.

Here are my favorites after the 1st read through:
p. 43 "Repentance that does not involve emotional engagement with your story is anemic and insufficient. ... What have you been 'trying really hard' to change in your life? The answer to this question will help you name where you are stuck. Let the 'stuck places' in your life serve as diagnostic indicators of where your past story is influencing your present life."

p. 58 "The ultimate purpose of engaging your story is to discover who you are and what you are meant to do during your time on earth. Said another way, the purpose of engage your story is to discover your kingdom."
"...the harm you have experienced is not random. Evil has assaulted you precisely in the areas in which you most reflect the beauty and glory of God."
"Identify how you have been harmed, and you will be a step closer to knowing something specific about your kingdom."

p. 84 The Big Six Exercise section deserves revisiting often. "You cannot understand your story--you cannot understand how your brain has been shaped--without understanding the degree to which these 6 things were met for you in childhood."
1. Attunement: your parent's ability to read you, to seek to know what you are feeling and experiencing on the inside.
2. Responsiveness: your parent's willingness to respond to you when you were distressed (mad, sad, afraid)
3. Engagement: your parent's desire to truly know you, to pursue your heart.
4. Affect regulation: your parents' ability and willingness to soothe you when you were anxious or scared and stimulate you when you were shut down.
5. Strength to handle your big emotions: the degree to which your parents welcomed your anger, sadness and fear.
6. Willingness to repair rupture: your parents' willingness to own and rectify harm.

p. 133 "...if God intends for you to experience overflowing sexual pleasure and lavish sexual freedom, then exploring your sexual story is more than worth it."

p. 252 "Good books are full of good information. The dilemma is that information does not change the human heart. What changes the human heart is engaging your story--with kindness and with others."
"Engaging your story is not going to make all your pain go away. However, it will lead to genuine healing...and bring rest to your body. There is rest in finally understanding why you are the way you are. Why you behave the way you behave Why you feel the way you feel. There is profound rest that comes with finally understanding these things. At last, your life makes sense."

[Kimberlee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have tracked with Adam Young (social worker, not Owl City member) both through some of his podcasts, The Place We Find Ourselves, and through friends who listen to him much more routinely than I do. I love when social workers do good work and make it known, e.g., Brene Brown. All that to say, this book indeed offers the consumer the opportunity to "excavate and recover" more life through story work. I enjoyed all the book, but truly chapter 10 was my favorite as it challenged those living in relationship to God to bring Him their despairs and disappointments and to get in the ring with God. Young proposes that we can not surrender until we have fought. I have discussed this concept in a couple of different spaces, and one counter argument is that the weak and defenseless may surrender without a fight. I am still chewing on this idea in the context of what Young shares. I struggled with a concept in chapter 6 regarding mind mapping and the idea that parents do things on purpose just as I do. I am still noodling on much of this book. I am doing it with friends (kudos to you, chapter 13). I will re-read this transformative work slower as we together honor each other's stories in order to live more informed in the present.

[Joel Wentz · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars.

The first 10 chapters are outstanding, full 5 stars, solid gold. The writing is fluid and engrossing. The reflective material is extremely effective. The way Adam guides the reader into deep and sustained meditation on the past is simply extraordinary, and contains the potential to have lifelong impact. I adored those chapters, and slowly worked through the included worksheets, and am so grateful for that material in particular.

The reason I ended up giving only 4 stars is because the final 4 chapters or so feel a bit strange, like a scattershot collection of various other ideas that don't cohere nearly as well with the rest of the book. The chapter on "collective" stories, in particular, felt tacked on (though I agreed with the sentiments, it just felt like I was suddenly reading a different book). I don't know if the publisher forced Adam to add some extra content at the end to pad out the page count, or what the motive was, but those last chapters would have been better served as a collection of appendices to supplement the main material which, again, is solid-gold. I still highly recommend this book.

[Brittany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Make Sense of Your Story is an excellent resource for understanding how your past affects your present. This book is a wealth of knowledge and information on attachment styles, the Big Six, family of origin, and exploring your story with kindness. The chapter that stood out to me the most, was the later chapter on our war with hope and our avoidance of hope in our present.

I highly recommend this book if you are interested in why you do the things you do or even why you don't. I also highly recommend his podcast, The Place We Find Ourselves. There are over a 100 episodes and it goes even more deeply into what his book talks about it. If you have already listened to his podcast, while the book is a huge summary of his podcast, I would still recommend reading it. It's great to have a resource that you can can refer back to at anytime and reread over and over again.

[Mresch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Make Sense Of Your Story is a great one stop shop for beginning to understand yourself, a bit of the science behind why we are the way we are, and a kind path forward to move towards healing.

I thought Young did a good job of distilling information in an accessible and meaningful way. If you are new to attachment theory and story work you will be able to understand the teaching sections of this book. If you already swim in these waters, you will be encouraged by the warm and conversational tone that puts flesh on these truths.

I appreciated the homework type sections of the book that help the reader really the chapters deeper into their souls. I also really respected the stories Young tells from his own life and the vulnerability he shows in modeling what this stuff looks like both positively and negatively.

[Erin Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had the honor of interviewing Adam Young for my podcast Sparking Wholeness. As a trauma survivor and wife of a trauma therapist, I believe this book will change lives. I loved the chapter about the story your body gives you along with the chapter about examining your story with God. There are so many quotes that I highlighted, but I specifically love this one: “A wound that is unnamed is a wound that cannot heal.” That just about summarizes why I feel this book is a must-read for everyone. But if you’ve ever felt that your story has been minimized (especially in Christian circles) to the detriment of your emotional and physical well-being—this is for you.

[David McClure · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recently, my counselor and I began engaging in story work and she assigned “Why Your Story Matters.” While Adam Young does stretch some Biblical verses to make his points, overall it is an incredibly helpful book in digging through our historical memory and holding what can only be called a truth and reconciliation committee on ourselves, but we can only do it in relationship with others.

It dovetails other works I’ve recently read in Made for Friendship and Voice of The Heart. Highly recommend, but it is a book that should be worked out with a kind and loving friend or counselor to really see fruit bear out.

[Danny Hernandez · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5- In fairness, I have already had a working knowledge and read other sources on Story/Narrative Work so this book served as a bit of a recap for me and to have some of the information in a single source. It also helps that I listen to the Place We Find Ourselves Podcast. With all this said, this work has changed my life in ways that other things did not and this is coming from someone who is a licensed clinician who provides therapeutic service. The themes and concepts in this book provided me the framework to explore my own story and, ultimately, led me on my own healing journey. The lines and content in here will always feel like gold to me due to its impact on my life.

[Nikki Lavarias · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been a listener of Adam Young’s “The Place We Find Ourselves” podcast for years. This book is essentially the hundreds of hours of content he has overviewed in a more concise and strategic way in book format. I think I’ll re-listen to this as the years go by. I’m encouraged to continue the journey of engaging my story with kindness and with others, and to open myself to hope that is not merely optimistic but holds the weight of devastation and the beauty of what could be with much anticipation and longing. Thank you Adam!!!