The Birth of The Story Shift™: How Choose Your Own Adventure Books Taught Me to Rewrite My Life
Nov 07, 2025
Okay, real talk. I've mentioned The Story Shift™ process more than a few times. You've probably heard me talk about reframing your narrative, releasing what isn't yours to carry, all that good stuff. But I haven't actually told you the origin story. And honestly? It's kind of perfect that it involves books where you literally get to rewrite the ending.
So buckle up, friend. This one's personal.
There's a specific feeling I remember from childhood—sitting cross-legged on my bedroom floor, a worn Choose Your Own Adventure book open in my lap, my finger pressed firmly on page 86. Just holding my place. Just in case the path ahead led somewhere I didn't want to go.
If you decide to enter the cave, turn to page 120.
My heart would race as I turned forward, finger still glued to that safety net page, already preparing my defense: "Just kidding!" Two magic words that meant I could go back, choose differently, avoid whatever terrible fate awaited in those printed pages.
If only real life had a "just kidding" button, am I right?
The Stories We're Born Into
Here's the thing: I was born into a story I definitely did not choose. A family drowning in abuse and addiction—the kind of chaos that brands itself onto your soul before you can even spell "therapy."
By the time my grandparents swooped in and adopted me at almost five years old, I had already accumulated more trauma than should fit into such a tiny human. But here we are.
And you know what? Even after being rescued from that environment, the damage had already set up shop. The first seven years of life, they say, are the most formative. Spoiler alert: It's not just a theory—it's the actual blueprint your entire being gets constructed from. And mine? Well, mine had been built on a foundation of instability, fear, and patterns I didn't even know I was downloading like bad software.
So color me completely unsurprised when, years later, I found myself married into a dynamic that felt eerily, uncomfortably familiar. I had unconsciously dog-eared the same toxic pages I'd spent my whole life trying to escape.
Because apparently, that's what unhealed trauma does. Fun times.
The Fantasy of Going Back
Those Choose Your Own Adventure books became my obsession. And not just because they were entertaining—they represented something I desperately wanted: a do-over button for life.
I devoured those books like they held the secrets to the universe. Sometimes I'd read the same one multiple times, mapping out every possible pathway like a tiny, traumatized cartographer. I became a master at the finger-bookmark technique—one finger holding my safe place, the other sneaking ahead to scope out potential disasters.
It gave me something I never had in real life: control. In those pages, mistakes weren't permanent. Bad choices weren't tattooed on your soul. Doom could be dodged with a simple flip backward and a whispered "nope, trying that again."
But here's the kicker: Real life doesn't come with page numbers. There's no finger bookmark you can press on the exact moment before everything went sideways.
...Or is there?
(See what I did there? Very Choose Your Own Adventure of me.)
The Shift That Changes Everything
Okay, so here's what I figured out after years of doing my own inner work and helping a whole bunch of other people do theirs: While we can't literally go back and change our past (trust me, I've tried), we can reframe what happened to us. We can shift the story we're telling ourselves about it.
I know how that sounds. A little woo-woo. A little too "just think positive!" to actually work.
But hear me out.
The Story Shift™ isn't about pretending the trauma was actually a blessing in disguise or painting a happy face on something that genuinely sucked. Nope. It's about recognizing that you're still lugging around baggage that was never even yours to begin with. It's about seeing that the patterns keeping you stuck are just that—patterns. Habits. Automatic responses.
And here's the beautiful thing about patterns: They can be interrupted. Changed. Rewritten.
You're not broken. You're just running outdated programming.
Your Finger Is Still on the Page (Metaphorically Speaking)
Let's go back to those Choose Your Own Adventure books for a sec. The power wasn't just in having the ability to go back when you royally screwed up a choice. The real magic? Understanding that multiple paths existed in the first place. That at any given moment in the story, there were options you couldn't even see until you got brave enough to explore them.
Plot twist: Your life works exactly the same way.
You might not be able to flip back to page 86—to that precise moment before you made the choice that led you here. Fair enough. But you can get curious about your own story. You can look at it like you're reading about someone else, someone you actually care about and want to help (revolutionary concept, I know).
You can start asking yourself the good questions:
- Where am I on autopilot, just repeating the same patterns over and over?
- What am I avoiding because I'm convinced it'll lead to disaster (but might actually be the thing that sets me free)?
- What heavy stuff am I carrying around that belongs to someone else's story, not mine?
Think of it as detective work. But like, detective work on your own life. With snacks.
The Adventure That Awaits (It's Better Than the Cave Scene)
The Story Shift™ is all about teaching you to become the explorer of your own narrative. To approach your life with curiosity instead of judgment. To understand that even though you can't grab an eraser and go to town on the chapters already written, you can find the page that gets you back on track with the story that's actually meant for you.
And here's the part that still blows my mind: This shift can happen fast. Like, sometimes within days. Because once you actually see the pattern, once you identify what you've been carrying that doesn't belong to you, once you give yourself permission to choose differently—everything shifts.
Your entire story can transform with a change in perspective.
No time machine required.
Just Kidding (But Actually Not)
Look, I can't go back and remove myself from the family I was born into. I can't un-see what I saw or un-live what I lived. I can't magically erase the years of trauma or hit undo on the patterns I unconsciously copy-pasted into my adult life. My finger isn't pressed on some magical page where I can just flip back and choose differently.
But I can choose differently right now. Today. This minute.
And so can you.
The Story Shift™ exists because I flat-out refused to accept that the story I was born into had to be the story I was stuck with forever. It exists because those Choose Your Own Adventure books taught me something profound: There are always more paths than the one you're currently trudging down. You just have to be willing to explore. To get curious. To stop white-knuckling the same page and actually turn to something new.
So yeah. Get curious. Start exploring.
The adventure that awaits might just be the one that finally leads you home to yourself.
Ready to shift your story? Let's go exploring together: https://mandy-schulis.mykajabi.com/joinus-63c77ed1-71e0-46dd-bfbf-622b4004aec9
(Finger-bookmark technique optional but encouraged.)
Stay connected with news and updates!
Join our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from our team.
Don't worry, your information will not be shared.
We hate SPAM. We will never sell your information, for any reason.
