Healing the Narrative: How the Stories We Tell Shape the Body

10-11-2025

By Dr. Howard Friedman MD | Veteran | U.S. Army Medical Corps | Internal Medicine | HHOM LLC

Two people sit in quiet conversation, sunlight soft across their faces — a moment where story meets understanding, and healing begins through being heard.

We live inside our stories.

They pulse beneath the ribs,

Whispering who we were,

Who we think we are, and who we still might be.

A story can wound. A story can heal.

The body listens to every word we tell.

---Dr. Howard Friedman, M.D.

Introduction — The Body Remembers the Story

Every patient carries two histories: the medical record and the human record. The first lists diagnoses, labs, and procedures. The second is made of memories — the unseen notes written in muscle tension, sleepless nights, or chronic pain that no test can quantify. When a person says, “I’ve learned to live with it,” I hear both acceptance and resignation. Often, what they’ve learned to live with is not only illness, but an unhealed story — one that keeps the body on alert long after the danger has passed. The truth is simple: the body doesn’t forget until the story finds peace.

The Neuroscience of Narrative

The brain is built for story. When we recall a painful memory, the amygdala — our alarm system — reignites as if the event were happening now. Heart rate rises, cortisol surges, inflammation stirs. But when we retell the story differently — adding context, compassion, or meaning — the prefrontal cortex steps in. This region quiets the alarm, restores regulation, and rewires the emotional signature of the memory.

Functional MRI studies confirm it: narrative reframing literally changes blood flow patterns in the brain. A new interpretation can deactivate old neural circuits of threat. This is not psychology alone; it is neurology in action. Storytelling, when honest, is neuroplastic medicine.

When Story Overpowers Science

We live in an age when story often outruns fact. Social media thrives on narrative — not evidence. A single post can spark conviction, outrage, or belief faster than any scientific study ever could. That’s because the brain doesn’t crave data; it craves meaning. But when story becomes detached from science, it loses its healing power. It can distort reality, inflame division, and make suffering contagious. In medicine, I’ve seen both sides — patients who heal because they reframed their story truthfully, and others who remain sick because they followed the wrong narrative, one shaped by misinformation or fear.

Science gives story its structure — the scaffolding that keeps compassion from drifting into illusion. A balanced mind needs both: the story that connects and the science that corrects. Without one, you have chaos. Without the other, you have coldness. Healing requires both.

The Biology of an Unhealed Story

Unresolved trauma operates like a chronic infection — invisible but inflammatory. Patients often come with diffuse symptoms: fatigue, pain, migraines, irritable bowel, and insomnia. We run the tests, and everything looks “normal.” But inside, the immune system is still defending against ghosts.

When the internal monologue says “I’m unsafe,” the HPA axis never rests. Cortisol remains elevated, digestion slows, repair halts. The story keeps the body fighting a war that ended years ago.

Rewriting the Script

Healing doesn’t require erasing the past; it demands reclaiming authorship. In therapy, journaling, or simple reflection, the goal isn’t to forget — it’s to reinterpret. To move from “This happened to me” toward “This shaped me, but it no longer defines me.”

This shift changes biology. Studies show expressive writing reduces doctor visits, lowers blood pressure, and improves immune markers. In my view, the act of telling your story without apology is as therapeutic as any medication in the cabinet.

A Physician’s Reflection

In Internal Medicine, I was trained to listen for murmurs, rales, and lab values. Over the years, I’ve learned to listen for narratives. When a veteran tells me about the battle that still wakes him, or a widow speaks of a silence that won’t end, I recognize inflammation of a different kind. Sometimes the most potent treatment is to say: Tell me the story again — but this time, let’s find where it begins to heal.

Conclusion — A New Prescription

You are not the sum of your symptoms or the worst chapters of your past. You are the author, and the story can change.

When we retell our lives through a lens of understanding, the body takes notice. The pulse steadies. The breath deepens. The inflammation softens. This isn’t metaphor — it’s medicine at its most elemental. The cells themselves respond when truth replaces shame, when meaning replaces confusion.

Healing the narrative is not denial of what was, but devotion to what can still become. Each time you rewrite your story with compassion, you alter its chemistry. You calm the vigilant brain and remind the body that it can stand down — that the war is over.

At HHOM LLC, that’s the foundation of my work: helping people remember that their biology and biography are not separate books. They are chapters of the same healing story.

Rewrite with mercy.

Speak with truth.

The body is listening.

When the story turns,

The body exhales.

Muscle unwinds, memory softens its grip.

No cell forgets —

But each can forgive.

Healing begins where the voice returns.

-------Dr. Howard Friedman, M.D.

—Dr. Howard Friedman, M.D.

Board-Certified | Internal Medicine | Veteran | U.S. Army Medical Corps

Founder of Howard’s House of Medicine (HHOM LLC)

https://www.hhomllc.com

Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: How can storytelling influence physical healing?

A: The act of retelling a personal story can shift brain activity from the amygdala — the alarm center — to the prefrontal cortex, which restores regulation and calms the stress response. This neurobiological shift lowers cortisol, reduces inflammation, and promotes physiological healing. Storytelling, when honest and reframed with compassion, becomes medicine for both the mind and body.

Q: Why do some people remain sick even when their tests are normal?

A: Many chronic symptoms — fatigue, pain, insomnia — are rooted in an “unhealed story.” When trauma remains unresolved, the brain keeps signaling danger, activating the body’s fight-or-flight chemistry long after the threat has passed. Healing requires not just treating the body, but helping the person rewrite the narrative that keeps the alarm system turned on.

Q: What does it mean to ‘rewrite your story with mercy’?

A: It means reclaiming authorship — shifting from “This happened to me”  to “This shaped me, but it no longer defines me.” That change reframes biology itself. The pulse steadies, inflammation quiets, and the body finally learns that the war is over. True healing begins when truth replaces shame, and the story becomes one of strength instead of survival.