The Stories We Tell

When we deny our stories, they define us. When we own our stories, we get to write the ending.

-Brené Brown, Rising Strong

I’m about to tell you something you may not have considered about yourself; perhaps something you are completely unaware of.  Despite being introverted, extroverted, highly entertaining, or completely terrified of public speaking, this truth remains. You ready for this?

You are an excellent storyteller.

That’s right. You are an excellent storyteller!  Now, this may look a little different from the quintessential, Garrison Keillor archetype you envision; but it’s true. You make up stories all day long every day and tell those stories to yourself, albeit subconsciously and involuntarily.  These stories directly affect the decisions you make, the relationships you build, the behavioral patterns you lock into, and the emotions you experience.

Lessons from a four-way stop

Consider this: when was the last time someone rubbed you the wrong way? This can be someone you know well or merely a frustrating experience with a total stranger. For example, Monday I was headed to the office and pulled up to a four way stop in my neighborhood. Mind you, I was off to a great start: Coffee in hand, morning workout behind me, NPR rocking, I even had time to blow dry my hair which is rare. It tends to be shove down some breakfast or blow dry my hair, you know? Breakfast always wins. I love breakfast. Anyway, life was good and the morning gods smiled upon me…

I did not have the right of way. The SUV that did was stopped at the stop sign, about to proceed normally through the intersection as I waited to go next. All good.  Well, an older gentleman in a fancy silver sedan pulled up to the stop sign on my right, in line to go after me. While the SUV made its way through the intersection, I noticed the guy to my right  violently flailing his hands about and passionately yelling with an angry edge and plenty of volume, all while looking directly at me across the way as if I had just insulted his mother in really bad taste.

What the ?? Who is this guy and why on earth is he pissed at me? I immediately began telling myself a story that went something like this: Here I am minding my own business and obeying traffic laws while this angry person wakes up on the wrong side of the bed,  apparently feeling the need to go postal on me and ruin my morning. What’s the deal? What have I done? Is he CRAZY?!? Am I CRAZY?!?

Despite total bewilderment due to this unfounded attack, I sped off in a huff and had a bad attitude for the next hour. Whoa.  Not only am I a storyteller, I am apparently a pretty competent one!

Power Play

Okay, so what’s the point? How is this newfound identity as storyteller a crucial piece of awareness in our daily experience?  There is incredible power and creative license that accompanies the role of storyteller.  While we have minimal control over other people, world events, changing paradigms; what happens to us, we have total control over the meaning we appropriate and apply to them.

The story I tell myself about what is happening around me is the color I choose to paint life’s canvas with.
My road-raging friend from Monday may have been on speaker phone with his wife (God, I hope not) or perhaps just received some devastating news and saw me as a worthy, temporary, and safe emotional punching bag.  I will never know.

What I do know is we create narratives in the absence of information in order to complete a circle of certainty. As humans, we are hard wired this way. Our brains need to connect the dots in order to file away some semblance of meaning.  Its pure biology…survival.
In Brene Brown’s Rising Strong, we learn about a neurologist and writer called Robert Burton who explains that “our brains reward us with dopamine when we recognize and complete patterns.  Stories are patters.  The brain recognizes the familiar beginning-middle-end structure of a story and rewards us for clearing up the ambiguity.  Unfortunately, we don’t need to be accurate, just certain.”

Narrative Therapy

I believe this innate hardwiring we have as storytellers explains our ongoing cultural fascination with narrative; the most epic of enactments: good vs. evil. (Insert your favorite trilogy here; or Star Wars, duh.) Stories are sustenance promoting physiological, ideological, artistic, and civic viability.
As a writer and therapist I truly love facilitating this process in my work through narrative therapy.
In narrative therapy, we create stories about ourselves that redeem, empower, and promote healing. Despite our broken and disjointed past, the narrative approach enables a new co-authored story to set the stage for a hopeful reality. When we live out of a worthy self-concept, the story of our life takes on significance and abundance.

The Edit

What stories are you telling yourself today?  Chances are, there are some really compelling ones that you like to listen to a lot.  What kind of experience do these stories promote? This week, I challenge you to observe, write down, and edit them if they do not serve your process well. This is where the fun begins, my friends. This is where we get to drive that storytelling ship into hauntingly beautiful and uncharted waters. Pick up your pencil; your time is now.

The Power of Ritual (Desire)

The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.

-Orson Welles

What is it that drives you?  What gets you out of bed each morning?  Perhaps it is a steaming hot cup of coffee, or the inevitable 8am commute to that blessed place called work, or training for a 10k, or… love? I am talking about that thing you love and desire more than anything else.  It’s the thing that makes us depressed and edgy when we ignore it, yet freaked out and energized when we embrace it.

I am still trying to fully define this for myself, so if you are clueless, don’t worry…you’re not alone.  More and more though, I think what drives me on many levels is healing and beauty.  As broad as those may seem, it’s what I keep coming back to.  It seems once we hone in on an area of interest, or the general concepts behind it, we can experiment and tease out the specifics over time.

For example, despite the fact that beauty and healing are pretty nebulous, I have learned that they really do show up in most of my daily focus.  This can look like working with clients in a counseling setting or communicating through writing and/or song, or maybe even creating a space for others to enjoy it while connecting over a dinner table (assuming my cooking turns out beautifully).  Thankfully, I havelearned that our drive, calling, passion, whatever you call it, doesn’t have to look a certain way.  We can get rid of the boxes.  Calling is birthed in desire and nurtured through ritual.  It’s far less complicated than we make it.

A songwriter friend of mine once told me about an interview she saw with John Mayer. Despite his less than glowing publicity throughout the years, he has been a long-time favorite guitar player and singer/songwriter of mine. I am also inspired by his steely will that paved the road to his oozing, effortless talent and style.   In this interview, Mayer shared how he  “locked himself up” for an entire year to focus solely on one thing: learning and loving everything about the guitar. In the interview, he also challenged others to examine their schedules and passions, and to be super serious about committing to their craft.  Now, I don’t know all the details of his ritual and what exactly “locking himself up” looked like (nor am I encouraging anyone to follow his extreme lead), but the concept is worth examining:

What practices do I have in place to further my deep desire for __________________?  

I am always a bit jolted into action when I hear someone challenge me this way: “Well, if you don’t embrace and pursue your passion, someone else will run with it!”  Ouch.  Talk about serious blow to the old ego!  However, it seems to get right down to the point and gaugelevels of committment.  Sometimes fear can be a powerful catalyst if we are clever about it.  By this I mean fear can be an excellent indicator of calling.  There is always resistance around places of truth and destiny; fear tends to be the preliminary symptom of courage leading the way.   We have the opportunity to discover and commit to something excellent, yet in my experience, when the desire or goal loses its sparkle and the honeymoon phase is over, we abandon our work; what was once ablazing pursuit becomes a dim and lonely path.  Have you ever experienced this? 

 These final blazing days of summer  may be the perfect time to examine some  habits.  I believe Ritual is a heavy hitter in the realm of progress, thus I am breaking this entry up into two segments for the sake of being annoyingly wordy.  BUT, what would be awesome is to get your feedback. Take a few minutes and email me your experience as it relates to this stuff.  How have you tackled, accomplished, bombed, and even re-invented your greatest loves: those things that get you moving each day?  What are your daily and weekly rituals? How do you get the most from them and even make them…fun?! I can’t wait to hear from you…

xoxo

katie