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Leadership Identity Narrative

Andi Hess

OGL 482

Miriam Lohrmann

June 4, 2022

Arizona State University

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Many people will say, “It’s in the past, just leave it there. What’s the use of revisiting it?”

The truth is that you cannot and will not experience deep, true, and lasting change until you

engage your story. Our brains form what’s called neurological pathways based on past

experiences and relationships that inform, guide, and make or break all future experiences and

relationships. The good news is that our brains have the ability to reshape these past experiences

due to neuroplasticity, which is the brain’s ability to change, and one of the ways this can happen

is through engaging with your story and changing the narrative. Even with experiences that

weren’t negative, engaging with your past and acknowledging your experiences and relationships

can affirm these positive pathways for your future.

The first experience most of us have with relationship is with our primary caregivers and

they have a massive role is shaping how we see and feel about ourselves, how we form bonds

with other people, how we regulate emotions and much more. Unfortunately, an early memory I

have with my father is not a happy one for me and as a woman in her late 20s I see how deeply

that impacted my belief in myself as a young girl. Math happened to be a subject with which I

struggled immensely when I was young, and I gave up quickly when I didn’t understand a

concept. One night my dad and I sat at the dining room table as he attempted to explain to me

how to find the answer to the specific problem. We were both tired and frustrated and I already

felt incredibly defeated by my inability to catch on. My father’s frustrations intensified until he

finally yelled at me and said, “what are you stupid?” My stomach sank and confirmed what I

already had begun to believe about myself every time I sat down to do math or anything else that

I wasn’t immediately good at. I ran from the table crying and shut myself in my room. Being the

youngest and the only girl in my family I already had heaped pressure on myself to perform for

the love and affirmation of my parents. I saw that my brothers received this when they did well
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in school so I attempted the same, but the voice in the back of my head would return to remind

me that I couldn’t even when I tried. I didn’t speak to my dad for two days until he came home

from work with a bouquet of roses and asked for my forgiveness. I did forgive him, but

unfortunately the damage had been done and wouldn’t be undone for many years.

As I went through middle school I continued to struggle with a hatred of my body and

how it didn’t look like the other girls and the sustaining belief that I wasn’t intelligent and

therefore couldn’t succeed in school and in life. I absolutely dreaded my future and the thought

that one day I’d have to “make it on my own” because I genuinely believed that would be

impossible. The fear that gripped me was crippling and I even had thoughts of ending my life

because of it. The other face of this fear came from the poverty in which my family and I lived.

This was the world I knew, and I had an almost impossible time believing it could change. Some

of the beliefs about myself began to shift as I grew taller, joined sports leagues, and discovered

that I could make people laugh. If I couldn’t do well in school, I thought to myself that I would

always have friends if I was the funny one. The actual funny thing was that I received excellent

marks in English, Rhetoric, Logic, Writing, Public Speaking, Latin, Spanish, and essentially

anything that wasn’t math. Even with that being true, I still had the pathway in my brain

informing me that I wasn’t capable of achieving anything.

A major shift came one night when I attended a conference that my parents forced me to

join and my angsty 16-year-old self was not happy to be there. For context, I was raised in the

Christian church, heard all the stories, went to all the events, and even believed in God, but had

no interest in maintaining that lifestyle. At this conference however, I heard about a Jesus that I

had never encountered in my 16 years of learning about this man. The experience I had that night

is difficult to put into words, but what I can say is that I was met with a tangible love and
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compassion that was otherworldly to say the least. I had never before encountered who I believe

today to be the real Jesus and he sat with me, expecting nothing in return, relishing the

opportunity to be with me and deeply desiring closeness with my heart. A constant warmth and

profound feeling of love washed over me as I sat in this moment and I almost didn’t want it to

end. I left that room confused, overwhelmed with emotions that I didn’t know existed and

questioning everything I thought I knew and that was just the beginning.

The first person in my life that opened the door to what I call “being awake for the first

time” was one of my older brothers. He and I were best friends growing up and I wanted to do

everything he did, and he cared for me in every way. He was never the brother that didn’t want

his little sister around and in fact made his friends play with me whenever I tagged along. I knew

this guy like the back of my hand and people even jokingly called us ‘the twins.’ While the 16-

year-old me was the last at home and having the aforementioned encounters that shook her

world, my brother Justin was at a school of ministry in California having a few life changing

moments himself. When he came back to visit, he was different. He always loved me and treated

me with kindness but this time, he loved me, spoke to me, championed me, encourage me and

treated me with the purest love I had ever experienced before. I was a little uncomfortable

because this man that I had known inside and out was different and I didn’t like change. I had

never encountered a person that would love and sacrifice their own comfort for me like he

would. It began to shape in me different beliefs in myself as he would tell me every day, “you

are so incredible…you are going to do amazing and bigger things than I’ll ever do…I am so

proud of the woman you’re becoming.” Looking back, I just know my neurological pathways

began to change as someone who I trust and looked up to was shifting the narrative I had

prepopulated about myself as a young girl.

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As I finished high school, I knew I needed to go to the same school my brother had

attended. If they could do that with him, what could they help me achieve I thought. At 18-years-

old, I moved to Northern California with my childhood best friend, and we embarked on one of

the greatest adventures of my life. In my first year, I had a mentor from Australia named Katrina

that had great impact on my personal growth and progression. Our first meeting was not

something I was ready for and now am so glad it happened. She asked me about my relationship

with my parents and when we got to my mother, I hit an obvious wall. She dug a little deeper and

asked if we could play a word association game and I agreed. She began slowly, “cow” and

quickly I replied, “milk”, “postman” she said, “mail” I replied and finally the gut punch came,

“women”, “weak” I replied. My stomach dropped, a wave of heat and embarrassment washed

over me, and I sat in the cushioned seat motionless, confused, and angry at myself that I would

let that slip out of my mouth. She said she wanted to stop the game there and dive into what had

just being opened. As we discussed, she came to understand that I was raised in a house with a

father and three older brothers who were strong, vocal leaders and in my heart I wanted to be a

leader as well. I lacked a picture of what a strong, vocal, female leader looked like and therefore

deemed it impossible for myself. Growing up I struggled believing that my mom was able to

emulate that for me and I held deep resentment towards her that I didn’t even realize. Katrina

asked me to say 3 nice things about my mom and I sat in silence for what seemed like an

eternity. To be honest, I don’t remember how that interaction ended, but I do know I walked to

my car and cried, knowing I was a different person in that moment and held an awareness about

my beliefs that I didn’t know existed.

At the end of that same school year, I took a trip with a team of 20 others to Thailand for

missions work in a few different areas of the country. We flew into Bangkok and took a van to a
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village called Mae Sot. There we met with a woman who ran an orphanage and the stories of

these children forever marked me. One young girl quickly attached herself to me and a few

others and was desperate for love and affection. If my memory serves me, she wasn’t more than

12 years old and had a deep cut on one side of her face. One day we found out that her parents

had sold her for a bag of rice to feed the rest of their family and that the cut had come from her

father and a broken bottle when she tried to stay with her mother. Another young girl at the age

of 15 had been rescued from a temple where she had been the sex slave of the Buddhist monks.

She had endured what I can only equate as daily torture and it broke our hearts. The second

week, we traveled to Chiang Mai which hosts one of the largest sex trade industries in the world.

Our hope was to work in the red-light district and bring help and hope in any way we could. My

heart was crushed seeing little girls as young as 5 years old be purchased for the night by men

old enough to be their grandfathers. I wanted to fight them or scream or do something. I felt so

helpless. My leaders pulled me to the side and gave me a perspective that has changed me

forever. They said, “Miriam, think of how broken and alone these men are that they would stoop

so low and seek intimacy in such a depraved and evil way.” I can’t say that it made me feel

differently in the moment, all I felt was seething hatred. But today that statement has shaped in

me a reminder that we’re all broken, we’ve all been hurt and rejected, and everyone is seeking

love and acceptance any way we can get it.

Back in the school once again, one of the leaders of the institution quickly became my

favorite and helped me understand some of my early distaste for the Christianity in which I grew

up. People are flawed and often shaped their understanding and doctrine regarding Christianity

around their predisposed prejudice or bias, and I experienced much of this as a young woman

especially around the topic of womanhood. This leader however, changed that for me and helped
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shape my understanding of this topic. His funny quip was often that Jesus was the first feminist

in history during a time where women were seen as property. As you look at his life however

you discover how passionate he was about including them in his life, his ministry and teachings

and how he took every opportunity to connect with them. During that period, it was illegal for

women to learn the Torah or sit under the teaching of a Rabbi. Jesus however openly opposed

this tradition and made sure they learned alongside men and understood their place in the

kingdom of heaven not as a servant or second class citizen but as a beloved and cherished

daughter of God. A woman was once brought to him accused of being a prostitute with aa angry

mob readying themselves to stone her and hopefully entrap Jesus in the process. His famous

words followed, “whoever here has never sinned, you can throw the first stone.” One by one the

crowd dropped their stones and left. As he knelt to pick up the woman, she thanked him

profusely saying he had saved her life. He replied to her, “there is no one here to accuse or judge

you.” This school leader opened an understanding for me of the calling on my life to lead as a

woman and that those who would oppose that mission openly oppose God’s desire for every

woman on earth. He felt so passionately about this that he wrote a book to explain the way

women have been robbed of their rightful place and the ways in which men have disempowered

them for too long. I found a belief in myself that I had never felt because my identity no longer

rested on what others thought or expected of me, but on what the one who created me said.

In my final year in the school, I interned for a man named James who quickly became a

father to me. His constant question became almost irritating had it not been so profoundly

helpful. As we would discuss my future plans, current problems I faced or past pain he would

first ask, “what does it look like practically to bring a solution or healing to that area?” I would

give basic or generic responses and I would get back, “what does that look like practically?” He
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wore me down so to speak until I looked at the issue as if I was standing outside of the house and

could see the entire thing. I was so concerned with the little details and he would often say,

“those are branches on the tree, I want us to look at the root system that built them.” I still use

those tools today and think about the ways in which my brain was reshaped to gain perspective

when I was too close to a situation.

In my time still in California, I became a manager of a café, and it was a difficult

transition for me since I had been a coworker with those I was now in charge of. I have always

been someone who values relationship and wants to be liked by those around me. I slowly began

to grow in my ability to walk the line of being kind, respectful, and honest with what I was

requesting of those around me. Often times I felt mean, but I pressed on and when I left they had

only good things to say about my time there and the style of training and management I

implemented.

My next major stepping off point was when my time came to move away from California

at 24 years old. I had spent my entire adult life there at that point and while I knew it was the

right decision, it was also incredibly difficult. I felt like I was jumping off a ledge with no end in

sight. I left behind work, my home, friends who had become family and the place where I had

received the most radical healing, love, healthy community, and fun that I had ever experienced.

I knew I was leaving a changed woman but didn’t feel ready at the same time. I found my next

home in Arizona with my oldest brother and sister-in-law, and little did I know the ride I would

take with them.

Soon into my time in Arizona, my grandmother passed away and I was devastated. She

was more than a grandmother that you see every once in a while, and barely speak to. She was to

this day, the most incredible woman I have ever met, the matriarch of our big family, and most
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importantly my friend. Soon after I lost her, the pandemic hit, and the world was turned on its

head for everyone. It was scary, unsettling and I was living in a city in which I knew 4 people. I

felt isolated as I’m sure many did and unsafe wherever I went. A few months into the pandemic,

my sister-in-law went into labor with my niece Elizabeth who lost her life on their way to the

hospital. This was an experience unlike anything I’d ever encountered before, and I sat at home

with their three older children who still believed that their parents would be home soon with their

new baby sister. My brother wore grief like a heavy cloak as he came home to tell his kids what

happened. His face had changed as he had not only looked death in the face, but it bore his

daughter’s small body. I got to hold her before her cremation as tell her all the things I had hoped

and dreamed for her as I looked at her tiny fingers and toes. How could I miss someone so much

who I had never known? That year marked me in ways that I don’t think words could form. Grief

and loss are powerful in the best and worst ways. They inform your worldview and give you a

perspective on life that nothing else can. After all the devastation that my siblings and I had gone

through in the two years I spent in Arizona, it felt like it was time to open a new chapter. They

decided to move to a town in Tennessee called Chattanooga and asked if I would go with them.

They’d been there once before and fell in love the moment they saw it. I agreed to go as well

because I loved being with them and was also ready for a change. A year ago, we moved to the

city and life looked as though it would be bright once again.

Relationships influence the brain more than anything else in our lives and experiences

have a similar effect. Our brain experiences emotional pain in the same region that it experiences

physical pain. Many will look at an experience and or a feeling they’ve had think it’s

insignificant or simply silly to give any attention to, but there’s no such thing as leaving

something in the past without healing from it first. If we refuse to acknowledge our relationships
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and past experiences, every experience we have in the future will be dictated by them. When we

encounter an experience or relationship in our present or future that is similar in any way to your

past, the brain’s natural defense is to tell you, “This is how this will end because it has happened

before.” We will never be able to live in the present and move on into a healthy future without

first revisiting and healing our past. It gives us context for our lives, understanding of the person

we are and often a reminder of the kind of strength we have. The most major theme I saw as I

revisited my story was the consistency of God to show up in my life in my worst moments. I

know many believe that having faith like mine is ridiculous or entirely wrong but if I reach the

end of my life and somehow it turns out to have been all in my head, I will count it as the

greatest adventure I ever had and be thankful for every step of the way. It is so empowering, and

hope filled to imagine yourself not alone and that there is a deity that deeply cares for and values

your life. To think that they have a road mapped out that is designed to prosper you and not harm

you, and to give you a hope and a future. I’m excited for the journey.
 Losing
Grandma,
pandemic
&losing
Elizabeth
Moving to
Arizona
Mentor James
School Leader
AKA KV
Trip to Thailand
Meeting with
Katrina
First encounter
with God
Math with Dad
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