Telling Harsh Stories to Yourself About Yourself? How To Rewrite the Narrative. | Allison Sweet Grant

10% Happier with Dan Harris

10% Media, LLC

Dan Harris, Health & Fitness, Mindfulness, Dharma, Mental Health, Meditation

4.6 • 12.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 October 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Nobody makes it out of childhood unscathed. Here's a guide to letting go of the past.

Allison Sweet Grant, graduate with dual master’s degrees from the University of Michigan, is a psychiatric nurse practitioner, turned author. She has been published in The New York Times and The Atlantic. She is the author of two children’s picture books, The Gift Inside the Box and Leif and the Fall, co-authored with her husband Adam Grant. I Am the Cage is her debut novel.

In this episode we talk about:

The impact of your childhood trauma on your adult relationships
The concept of the “junk drawer” (a metaphor for all the pain, self-doubt, and anxiety you might try to compartmentalize)
Writing as a tool for self-acceptance and self-compassion
How to re-write your own story and where to start
Practical meditation tools to quiet the mind
The role of cathartic visualization
Dealing with imposter syndrome
And more

Join Dan’s online community here

Follow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTok

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

Get ready for another Meditation Party at Omega Institute! This in-person workshop brings together Dan with his friends and meditation teachers, Sebene Selassie, Jeff Warren, and for the first time, Ofosu Jones-Quartey. The event runs October 24th-26th. Sign up and learn more here!

Tickets are now on sale for a special live taping of the 10% Happier Podcast with guest Pete Holmes! Join us on November 18th in NYC for this benefit show, with all proceeds supporting the New York Insight Meditation Center. Grab your tickets here!

To advertise on the show, contact [email protected] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris.

Thanks to our sponsors:
Bumble: Thinking about dating again? Take this as your sign and start your love story on Bumble.

Airbnb: Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com/host.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris.
0:07.8	Hello everybody. How we doing? I suspect we all have brutal stories that we tell about ourselves to ourselves.
0:27.7	Mine has often been that I'm incredibly selfish, maybe even irredeemably rotten, but for you, the story might be that you're a fraud, an imposter, a failure, unworthy, not smart enough,
0:38.5	not outgoing enough, unlovable. Maybe you're haunted by shame or by addiction. I could go on.
0:44.7	The menu is vast. Today I'm going to talk to a living example of the possibility of rewriting
0:51.0	your narrative. Allison Sweet Grant is a psychiatric nurse practitioner turned author.
0:56.7	Her newish novel is called I Am the Cage.
0:59.3	It's loosely based on her own childhood experiences, which were quite brutal and which
1:03.6	she will describe for you.
1:05.2	In this conversation, we talk about the impact of your childhood trauma on your adult
1:08.7	relationships, the concept of a junk drawer. That's a
1:12.2	metaphor for all of the pain and self-doubt and anxiety that you might try to compartmentalize
1:16.7	in a junk drawer. We talk about writing as a tool for self-acceptance, how to rewrite your own
1:22.3	story and where to start, practical meditation tools to quiet the mind, the role of cathartic visualization,
1:30.3	dealing with imposter syndrome, and much more. Just a quick mention before we dive in that our
1:36.0	next live meditation and Q&A session will be this Tuesday, October 21st, at 4 Eastern. We do
1:42.5	these every Tuesday at the same time.
1:44.8	Sign up at Dan Harris.com.
1:47.3	And if you want to meditate with me in person, I am co-leading a weekend retreat very soon, October 24th through 26th at the Omega Institute in Upstate New York.
1:57.3	It's going to be me, Sabine-Slasse, Jeff Warren, and Afosu Jones Cortay. It'll be super fun.
2:02.5	We do a session Friday night, two sessions on Saturday, and then a final one on Sunday morning.
2:06.6	In between lots of free time to hike, play tennis, get a massage, do yoga, whatever. The sessions
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from 10% Media, LLC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of 10% Media, LLC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.