LIVING STORY

This is Your Brain on Story

2012-01-15T09:46:00.011-05:00

This is the first article in a series on story and the brain.

There is nothing more powerful than story. Those who tell stories literally create the world -- for better or worse. It's sometimes said that an enemy is someone whose story you don't yet know. But we can just as easily say that war starts with a story of threat. The stories we tell about our lives shape the way we interpret information streaming through our senses to our conscious mind. More than that, story shapes the brain itself.

Increasingly, neuroscientists understand the brain as a "plastic" structure that changes and adapts over a lifetime rather than one that is "finished" at a certain early point in life. Storytelling, in its healing use, intrigues brain researchers because of its observed ability to actually reduce symptoms of physical and mental illness, calm stress, and create deep emotional connection between teller and listeners.

In archetypal story, the claiming of the Grail is a metaphor for the integration of ego (the personality or smaller self) with Self (the part of us that connects with all of life, the collective unconscious, our soul). In these stories, the hero is often an ordinary person who takes an extraordinary journey that kills the old limiting and self-absorbed ego, and releases Self into their life. They return with the ability to "see whole" -- that is, to see the whole picture of life from the perspective of soul. Understanding at last the deep need beneath suffering and conflict, they are able to take the right action to restore life to a dead situation.

~ “Once upon a time…” opens the gates to a vast but unconscious realm of information stored in the right half of your brain. Sensory images, landscapes, characters, and dramatic situations activate powerful memories, fantasies, and emotional states.

~ Story structure, including beginning, middle, and end; the sequence of scenes or chapters; suspense and dramatic arc -- these are the hooks that keep the left brain entertained, attentive, and satisfied.

~ Story channels the intuitive, emotional, and inspired power of your right brain through the rational, structuring, and strategic power of the left brain. Aligned, the two hemispheres of your brain exert an enormous power, very likely beyond anything you've experienced.

You may have heard the phrase: "Change your thoughts; change your life." Well, now that phrase is evolving into "Change the brain; change the world."

You are so much more powerful than you know!

Two articles on story and the brain will follow. The next one is "Divided Brain, Broken World, and the Urgent Need for Healing Stories." The last article in this series is "The Hero's Journey: Quest for Wholeness."

by Juliet Bruce. All rights reserved.

The Call to Adventure

2012-01-12T14:56:00.003-05:00

We don’t tell the stories we live: we live the stories we tell ourselves. In other words, to a large extent, our outer lives reflect our inner realities, and we have more power than we think to shape our lives – whatever the outer circumstances.

We are born into this world as creatures of infinite possibility. From our first days, we connect dots of random experience that pour in through our senses. These connections become our foundational stories -- templates of expectation about who we are and how our life will be, deeply embedded in our unconscious and our senses, and generally inaccessible to the rational part of the mind.

Sadly, many of us become trapped in limiting stories about ourselves and our lives. These stories usually have nothing to do with our inherent gifts and everything to do with negative early experience or familial, gender-based, and cultural expectations. For the rest of our lives, or until we become fully conscious of these core stories and begin to intentionally express and transform them, they replay over and over again, in school, work, relationships, and self-sabotaging behaviors -- creating painful situations in our outer lives that mirror the inner pain from which we're hiding.

Often it takes outer crisis to drive us inward to really take a look around at what we’re projecting onto experience and how that may be contributing to our difficulties.

From a story perspective, the moment when life falls apart -- whether we are shattered by external events or bursting with inner yearning -- that moment is the call to life-changing adventure.

The good news is that no matter how harsh a story you have to tell, it is your strength, because it is your truth. You can honor this story and tell it as it is, or you can choose to rewrite it. Either way, you are a living story.

How Does Story Transform Life?

1. Story provides structure for safely expressing pain and negative beliefs that hamper development. Telling the story of difficult experience makes you its master rather than its victim.

2. At the heart of every creative or life block is an untold story that obscures who you really are and what wants to emerge. Once that story is fully told, energy can flow into the new realities you want to create.

3. Story and other arts activate your inherent powers of resilience and self-esteem, especially the generative, playful, and balancing energies of your body, mind, and spirit.

4. Story is a spiritual practice that makes you more present in your daily life, in touch with your senses, awake to your larger world, and alive to deeper dynamics and possibilities.

5. When shared with receptive others, telling your story releases you from loneliness and isolation, bringing you into community with others. I call these communities "story sanctuaries" and the storytelling process "healing as gift exchange."

Living story isn't about forcing change. It's about knowing you're exactly where you need to be, fully embracing and expressing every aspect of the Now through a story perspective, and allowing the natural emergence of a new inner story and outer reality.

Tools for Creative Practice: The "Five Elements" of Your Story

My arena of emergence is the page, with words, images, weather, landscapes and interiors, characters, needs, conflicts, and actions unfolding as they need to. They show me the way forward in life. Poetry, dance, visual arts, dramatic enactment, drumming, and song tell stories too. Express your story in your own language.

1. Time. Time gives story its basic structure and dynamic quality. Time has two dimensions. First, it bestows beginning, middle, and end. Second, time refers to a specific narrative moment -- a day, a season, a year, or stage of life. What is the time frame of the story you want to find and tell? Is there a moment in your life that's ripe for exploration?

2. Environment, atmosphere, mood. Atmosphere is the context or foundational quality that underlies everything else. It's the ground from which arise images, language, characters, and situations. What's the context of your life at the moment? Turmoil? Stuckness? Probably not contentment, or you wouldn't be reading this blog!

External settings often mirror the inner environments and landscapes of the characters who live there. What stands out? What are the features, qualities, and colors of your world? What do they reflect in your inner life?

3. Character. The passions and needs of characters propel stories. Often we draw people into our lives who mirror unconscious aspects of ourselves. Who populates your story -- both in the outer world and in yourself? What's their most striking feature? Tricksters, mentors, destroyers, warriors, caregivers, lovers, rulers, and sages -- they're all there. Look for them.

4. Situation. What's going on that brings you to this process? Where's the lack? What needs to happen? The conflict between a character's needs and external obstacles creates action. This dance between need, situation, and action is your roadmap, otherwise known as plot.

5. The Storyteller. This is your place of power and the voice of freedom from circumstances. To whom are you telling this? What do you want to give them with this story? Tell a story and it no longer controls you. Tell your story and you step out of isolation into a larger life. Tell your story and you give hope or companionship to another.

Once you've seeded your story with the above elements, give it a title. Then write. What wants to emerge from this raw material? Feel the deliciousness of letting go. Let the words lead you. If something arises that disturbs you, dialogue with it. Find out more. If another medium appeals, draw, dance, act it out, drum it, sing it. Compassionately or exhuberantly, tell it! We're listening.

Living story is the path of unfolding adventure. When things get murky and you can't see a foot in front of yourself, remember this quote from the poet David Whyte:

"If the path ahead of you is clear, chances are it's someone else's path."

by Juliet Bruce. All rights reserved.

IMAGINE. . .

2011-12-01T16:45:00.010-05:00

"Most people equate the imagination with unreality. Nothing could be further from the truth. What we consider imagination is a reality beyond the normal world." So wrote author Ted Andrews in his book, Animal Speak.

Every truly creative breakthrough -- in art, science, and life -- involves an imaginative leap -- often through apparently unrelated metaphor. Jonas Salk, developer of the polio vaccine, held imaginary dialogues with the polio virus that helped him crack the genetic code of this virus. Thanks to Salk's playing around with character and story, polio has been virtually wiped out in the world.

Einstein doodled and came up with the theory of relativity. Early in his career, Bob Dylan found songs in montages of Civil War headlines that he poured over in the periodicals room of the New York Public Library.

Your work and life can be transformed in the same way. Metaphor -- whether poetic, narrative, visual, melodic, dramatic, or dance-inspired -- is the language of the Threshold. This is the space between the known and the possible, the half-lit place where sudden and profound change can happen, the ground of transformation.

What we call miracles are actually breakthroughs into this larger reality in which we live and rarely see. Except through our imagination.

So be not afraid to imagine the life, the work of art, the job, the mate you want. Doodle everywhere all the time, be open to the stories unfolding everywhere around you, write fairy tales, dance your dreams. (Same goes for disappointments: pain quiets, perspective changes when given safe, structured, creative expression.) Sing the song of your deepest self.

HOW TO LIVE CREATIVELY, DA VINCI STYLE

Here's the master's -- Leonardo da Vinci's -- recipe for breakthrough thinking and living. For this list, I gratefully acknowledge Michael Gelb's lively book, How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci, (Thorsons, 1998).

Curiosita
Keep an insatiably curious approach to life.

Dimonstrazione
Persist; be willing to learn from mistakes.

Sensazione
Practice continual refinement of your senses through art and nature.

Sfumato
Embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty.

Arte/Scienza
Maintain a balance between logic and imagination.

Corporalita
Cultivate grace, flexibility, fitness, and poise.

Connessione
Recognize and appreciate the interconnectedness of all things.

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Which attitude listed above most resonates today? Your intuition may be guiding you to what wants to emerge in your life now. This is your fertile ground for growth and change. Turn the English words into a first sentence and start writing...!

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And buy the book. It's a great read and a terrific holiday gift!

by Juliet Bruce. All rights reserved.

Rites of Return: Helping Our Warriors Come Home

2011-11-01T10:30:00.052-04:00

This is a special post in honor of our warriors -- those who have returned, those who still serve, those who will never return.

No one has described the challenge of homecoming for combat veterans better than U.S. Army chaplain, Fr. Sean Levine (OCA). Speaking at a conference on integrative therapies for vets suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, Fr. Sean poignantly described the loneliness of return and the need for transitional programs to help veterans tell their stories of war, grieve their losses, and begin the arduous process of rebuilding a true warrior identity.

Ironically, veterans' alienation is exacerbated by the speed of their return. One moment a soldier is packing up in their barracks in Baghdad or Kabul and nine hours later they're sitting on the couch in their living room. That's the beginning of the new war for a veteran -- arriving home with a knowledge of things about which home doesn't want to know. Just a few decades ago, soldiers coming home from war traveled on ships, a voyage that took a couple of weeks. During that time they shared their stories, cried together, and began the healing process.

Fr. Sean described the first 36 hours at home as ecstatic. Back in the familiar embrace of family, the veteran can barely believe he or she made it. Then comes the crash. Bodies have rejoined; stories have not. The veteran is no longer the same husband and father, wife and mother that they were before deployment. War has changed them -- forever. The family has changed too, learning to cope without the deployed member, with the spouse who stayed and even the children taking over many of the roles and authority of the absent one.

Within the barracks, the family had become safe and reassuring figures on a computer screen -- anchors, familiar and loving. But now in their midst, without the military structures of war, filled with a jumble of emotions, grief, memories, and a growing anxiety, a veteran may even wish at times to be back in combat. Instead, they repress the storm and try to get on with life.

Desperation grows, until one night a 6-year-old tugs at a pants leg once too often, and the veteran throws a plate. Breakdown begins.

WAR -- A MYTHIC EXPERIENCE
"They have arrived from hell, old before their time, initiates among innocents," writes the late James Hillman in his book, A Terrible Love of War. (Hillman, a Jungian psychotherapist and scholar, and founder of archetypal psychology, died last Thursday, October 27.)

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a misnomer, writes Hillman. In fact, the trauma of war is not "post" -- but present; an indelible condition in the soul; a living ghost in the bedroom, at the lunch counter, on the highway. The "disorder" is the remnants of war carried home to a society where there's no place for expression, release, or witness; no platform on which to rebuild; only a culture whose language and psychology are inadequate to the ordeal from which they have returned.

One of the reasons for so much of the ongoing maladaptive behavior of Vietnam vets, writes trauma psychiatrist Jonathan Shay, MD, in his books Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character, and Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming, was just this: a lack of communalized witness. With no one to whom they could tell their stories, help them grieve their lost innocence, or witness their rehumanization, Vietnam vets -- as have so many veterans before them -- became the archetypal orphans of our culture.

Yet Hillman also writes about the ambiguous nature of war. Alongside the horror and death, the aliveness; the transcendent, almost religious experience of what is best in human beings: courage, self-sacrifice, altruism, and being part of something greater than self. He quotes a World War II veteran: “My combat experience was the most meaningful part of my life. I have never felt so alive, before or since.”

How can people who have been through experience at the furthest -- even mythic -- edge of life begin to fit back into an ordinary world? How do they find their way back into families, jobs, communities that knew them as a person they once were, but that no longer exists?

Not possible, says Hillman. "A veteran cannot complete an intact return from combat until he or she undergoes some kind of detoxification as long and thorough as the ritual of boot camp training -- a rite of return."

There's not room here to describe the work of Soldier's Heart, developed by Edward Tick, Ph.D. and Kate Dahlstedt, MACP. This program provides a unique model to address the emotional, moral, and spiritual wounds of veterans and their families. Tick's excellent book, War and the Soul, explores ancient and cross-cultural warrior traditions that facilitate successful warrior return. The Soldier’s Heart Model applies these traditions to heal the effects of war.

by Juliet Bruce. All rights reserved.

A MINDFULNESS-BASED DECOMPRESSION CAMP
by Eva Usadi, MA, BCD

This program from Trauma and Resiliency Resources is one of the many innovative and holistic programs designed to embrace our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and reservists without further wounding them. We know that the way in which a trauma survivor is responded to and cared for in the aftermath of the trauma is, at times, more significant to their healing than the original event or events. Trauma rarely happens in isolation. With combat soldiers in particular, trauma happens in the context of a highly disciplined, cohesive, interdependent group. For this reason, healing needs to involve the acceptance of a group, not only of fellow soldiers, but also of civilians who are able to listen without judgment, bear witness, and ultimately shoulder some of the guilt and blame so that the warrior does not need to carry it alone.

The mission of Warrior Camp is to create an environment in which the trauma of war can be addressed. The camps are week-long retreats located in serene and secluded locations that foster the development of a close-knit community within which healing can occur. They include a healthy balance of trauma therapy, relaxation and leisure activities.

Group activities consist of modified debriefings or meetings, team building activities, writing workshops, equine assisted psychotherapy, yoga, and hikes or other sports. Participation in individual treatment, while strongly recommended, is always on a voluntary basis. Individual treatments include EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) sessions, massage therapy, private yoga instruction, and private equine assisted psychotherapy.

WHAT IS TRAUMA-SENSITIVE EQUINE-ASSISTED PSYCHOTHERAPY?

The application of equine assisted psychotherapy to the treatment of traumatized individuals, including and especially combat veterans, is a new and important development. Exposure to traumatic events produces a massive upheaval in the arousal system. Many trauma symptoms express themselves as either hyper or hypo nervous system response. A few of these are irritability and anger, sleep disruption, hypervigilance, and an exaggerated startle response.

The other system that is disrupted with multiple traumas, trauma of extended duration or that which is interpersonally inflicted is the attachment system. This gives rise to many of the symptoms now considered to be complex trauma, some of which are impaired relationships with family and friends, a generalized social withdrawal, and a loss of previously sustaining beliefs, among others. Working in close proximity to horses seems to be of extraordinary help in addressing these issues. There are a few reasons this is so:

1. Horses live in the present moment. They respond to what is and to intention. Interacting with them teaches mindfulness, which can be a window into reclaiming life as it is lived in the here and now.

2. Horses are active. Working with them necessitates movement and grounding, which decreases arousal and dissociation. Mindfulness, grounding, movement and working in the present moment all increase the individual's capacity to experience the present rather than responding to the traumatic past.

3. Horses are social animals. Their natural curiosity and playfulness is, at times, so powerful as to supersede their interest in food. Being invited to interact with them overcomes isolation and supports people's interest in novelty. This helps to re-engage the frontal lobes, increasing the capacity to think.

Many of the veterans we have worked with have noticed that the horses are acutely attentive to and aware of them, and have found this profoundly comforting.

The pilot decompression camp will be held in February 2012 at the Minnewaska Lodge in Gardiner, NY (about 75 miles N of NYC) -- the equine sessions at the camp will be held at Gardnertown Farms in Newburgh, NY -- a few miles from the Lodge.

If you are a warrior in need of support or know of someone who might benefit from this experience, please contact Trauma and Resiliency Resources for dates and application process.

TRR is currently seeking funding for the February Warrior Camp. If you would like to be a benefactor for this program, please contact us through our web site. Thank you so very much for your support.

(close-up horse photo by Susan Bloom, Bloom Studio, www.bloomstudioonline.com)

Finding Your Tribe

2011-09-28T16:15:00.047-04:00

The Second Question: “Can I take care of myself or am I dependent on others for my survival?”

A couple of months ago, I wrote about the first question of life, "Am I safe?" on my blog. It was the first in a series of posts on using the developmental stages of life as defined by the psychologist Erik Erickson to understand the story you are living and to help you find your tribe -- those who support and uplift you and who need your unique qualities to support and uplift them. Tribe -- your grid of aligned and empathic others. Tribe, as in the African word "Ubuntu": "I am through you."

I knew for some time that the struggles I was having with money had less to do with my attitudes about money itself, or even my sense of self-esteem, than with some deeper story that was replaying throughout my life. If I were to draw a portrait of my life, it would be an endless series of mountains and valleys, high peaks and deep abysses -- boring and sad in its predictability. Soaring, often unexpected success followed by a painful crash into the bushes -- usually financial -- that broke the continuity of my life, requiring me to scramble around picking up the pieces and blocking timely completion of whatever writing or business project I was working on at the moment. Over and over, I had to start over -- never really getting traction, never really moving, never able to establish solid ground from which to grow.

It was when I began to realize that this continuous pattern was in fact a deeply buried narrative playing and replaying in a vulnerable area of my life, and work with it as a story, that I was able to dissolve that pattern from the deepest inside out. What did working with it as a story mean? This:
1. Looking for the solution beyond childhood wounds and applying the classic hero's journey, which lays out in story terms the dramatic arc of growing up, to my own life;
2. Writing, as an adult, personal stories based on the questions a child must resolve for him/herself to arrive whole at the threshold of adulthood;
3. Writing my own fairy tales (metaphorical journeys through crisis, struggle, and transformation) inspired by the conflict between autonomy and dependence;
4. Translating the metaphorical story into concrete world actions.

What I saw clearly lacking in my childhood through the lens of story was not love, but the ability to mentor, that is, to:
1. Provide a positive holding environment where the word "failure" didn't exist, and the words, "You did it!" acknowledged the smallest accomplishments and the courage for trying;
2. Model skills in a way that child body and brain could imitate them;
3. Show how to take small, incremental steps toward autonomy and celebrate each one;
4. Believe in my capacity to do it;
5. And most importantly, the ability to recognize the creative swan in the troublesome duckling -- to see and nurture my inherent gifts rather than chop away at them so I would fit into a preexisting mold of what a girl should be.

Traditional storytellers use metaphorical tales that speak directly to the unconscious mind to diagnose the root of a problem in a suffering person and then tell curative stories to heal it. My curative tales seemed always to concern someone who possessed a dangerous knowledge and had to find a way out of a tower or castle where they had been imprisoned. The how was where the suspense of the story and the clues to my own needs were buried. I would write these tales and hold them in my mind. Eventually, from within, my entire life changed, taking on a different quality altogether. I found myself making different choices, new opportunities were offered, and new kinds of clients started arriving in my office. The question itself dissolved rather than being answered.

Core stories represent the neural pathways laid down in our brains at the beginning of life, which filter perception and create experience until pathways become trenches and it's hard to even imagine another way. But we can change the actual architecture of the brain and change the story of our life.

The Little Warrior and the Power of “No”

The conflict between autonomy and dependence is rooted in the second phase of life, which generally begins at 18 months and lasts until the age of three -- that time known as the "terrible two's." By a year and a half, a distinct child is beginning to emerge from the helpless infant totally dependent on others for his/her survival. The great dramatic question of this stage of life, which will be echoed each time that child (and later, the adult) steps into a new and unfamiliar environment, is: “Can I take care of myself or am I dependent on others?” Positive outcomes of this stage are self-control, courage, and will -- qualities that will be needed for the next preschool stage, the age of play, as well as for success in adulthood.

One task in this second phase of life is to learn how to become little warriors for ourselves -- to take care of and protect our emerging self. Toddler rebellion may be pain for parents, but it develops important skills of the will, courage, and personal boundaries. In a nourishing holding environment made safe by the atmosphere of unconditional love and joy in the child's mere existence, no matter what, a child learns not only to talk, feed him/herself, finer motor development including toilet training, but also self-reliance and resilience. In short, during this stage, a child is learning how to learn and how to take strategic risks.

In an unloving, neglectful, or dysfunctional family, if a child is ridiculed or humiliated in the process of toilet training or in learning other important self-care skills, he or she may feel great shame and doubt their capabilities to go forward. Low self-esteem, confusion, paralysis, and the inability to learn can result. Highly restrictive parents may fill the child with a reluctance to attempt new challenges. On the other hand, if caregivers demand too much too soon, a child may develop a core story that they're helpless to handle problems.

So resilient are children, however, that one positive adult somewhere in that child’s world can be the lifeline that child needs to make it to the next stage. This is where the existence of healthy mentors -– in or out of the immediate family -– can be so influential on a child’s development.

What's your story?

1. You probably don't remember anything from that time, but you may be able to remember the house in which you lived, your parents and extended family. Memories are stored in the senses. List 10 sensory memories you have from early childhood. Pick one or two that stand out for you and free-write for 10 minutes. Let your imagination roam free; don't even limit your writing to your own life. Don't worry about writing the "truth." Let the words on the page lead you beyond conscious memory to a deeper kind of truth.

2. Every parent, teacher, and adult who works with children is a mentor -- for good or ill. How many musicians and painters, for example, were tutored early in life by someone who recognized a possible gift in the 4-year-old? And how many violent criminals were "coached" in skills of preemptive strikes by a father, older brother, or other family member? Can you name the most important mentors in your life? When did they show up in your life? What challenge were you grappling with at that time? How did they help you? What was the gift you gained from them? What do you think they would say that you gave them? Thinking in terms of story structure – beginning, middle, and end; environment; characters’ and their desires; and situation, write a short tale about a mentoring relationship. Begin with "Once there was a ...." and let the words lead you, always keeping in the back of your mind the basic road map of story: Crisis, Struggle, and Transformational Realization.

3. Finally, are you a mentor? If you're a parent, teacher, therapist, or coach, you definitely fall within the mentor archetype. Can you give what you've got and then let go? Write a short piece about someone whom you're mentoring, what you hope for them, what gifts you see in them, what you feel them asking of you.

(Note: My October newsletter has the complete list of Erickson's developmental stages.)

© 2011, Juliet Bruce, Ph.D. All rights reserved. This post is from my forthcoming book, A Write of Passage: How to Recreate Your Life through Telling Your Story. This is the companion book to my Write of Passage course.

Chaos and Creation

2011-08-29T16:53:00.046-04:00

Forging Wholeness from Crisis through Story

Hurricanes come in many forms. A breast cancer patient whose sexuality was attached to her beautiful face and figure. A newly single woman broken free from her umpteenth relationship with an unavailable man. A talented writer, shamed by his creativity as a child, anguished in his job as an arts non-profit administrator. A single mother tries to build a business while caring for her infant; another is torn between keeping her life going in one city while caring for an elderly parent in another.

What these people need is more than "reinvention." They need rebirth. Almost every counseling client who comes to me, no matter what their particular issue, has a similar need: they want, or are being forced by life, to change their deepest concept about who they are and what life holds for them. Change not just their beliefs and attitudes, but their assumptions about life, patterns of thought and behavior, habitual relationships, and their core identity -- to create a new story. Not so easy. No longer the person they were but not yet the person they will be, they must cross that painful threshold between worlds and lives, and endure the conflicts, grief, confusion, and fear at being unmoored in the void.

Increasingly, mainstream psychologists understand wellness not as "happiness" or conformity with an established norm, but as the ability to tell a coherent narrative about one's life. Telling your story as the storyteller and witness, not only as the victim, can help you integrate negative experience, find the ways you survived and prevailed, and discover more about what happened, who you were, and who you became.

As Hurricane Irene raged outside my windows, I read Pema Chodron's book, The Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Lovingkindness. She writes, "There's a common misunderstanding among all humans who have ever been born on earth that the best way to live is to try to avoid pain and just get comfortable. A much more interesting, kind, adventurous, and joyful approach is to develop our curiosity, not caring whether the object of our inquisitiveness is bitter or sweet."

In other words, no chaos; no creation. In my September newsletter, I offer a Sufi tale, "Fatima the Spinner and the Tent," which is the long and arduous journey to ultimate happiness of a woman whose life is continually thrown off course by shipwrecks, kidnappings, every possible kind of disaster and loss. I also offer suggested narrative and other expressive exercises for working with this story. In addition, I feature an article on Qigong -- the ancient practice of dance stories that is the basis of Chinese healing and martial arts -- and that can help to relieve the stress of change and loss that manifests in bodily symptoms.

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Creating Coherence in Modern Life Through the Lens of Ancient Myth

In providing a container for us to work out our conflicts, release our fears, express our best and worst selves and the best and worst of our loved ones in metaphor, story assures us that we can find a path to our inner, most essential life and return refreshed, re-formed, to reality. We won't get lost because story structure doesn't get lost: it takes us into the depths of the forbidden forest or enables us to look at the ancient drawings on the walls of the deepest cave and returns us safely home again. Through the fantasy of story we gain an intimacy with inner life that reality blocks and emerge more able to handle reality as a result.

Here's a story lens for taking a fresh and redemptive look at the sometimes harsh journey we must take in life:

1. Story has a beginning -- a “Once Upon a Time” that sets the scene, but more importantly, opens the door to an adventure.

What was your "normal"? What was life like "before"? Think in terms of story elements: environment and atmosphere, characters, situations, conflicts, desires.

2. A misfortune or surprising event throws everything into confusion and sets people wandering around lost and in need of help.

These big shatterings can be happy too! Falling in love, winning a prize, getting a coveted job, publishing a book. What was the effect on you and your world?

3. A character steps up to the task of solving the problem.

What action did you or another take to set things right or to follow up on a stroke of good luck?

4. Another character, group, situation or natural obstacle that opposes the new resolution, that wants to keep things the way they are for their own interests.

Who or what opposed you? An obstacle can be an illness, a habit, addiction, cultural standard, or a corrupt system, just as it can be a person.

5. A journey or a task the main character undertakes to solve the problem. Usually it takes three attempts. The first two fail, but with each failure the character grows in strength, wit, tenacity, and intelligence.

This is the long transformational struggle to fix the problem, oneself, become a dancer, or write the book. What was the time frame of your struggle. Where were the peaks and valleys, the places of breakthrough and growth? In story and life, there's often a point of surrender. Nothing has worked. This is when we finally become receptive to the wise help that's likely been there all along, but that we were unable to see through the veil of will. Did you have such a moment? Are you now experiencing surrender? Who or what did you turn to?

6. The climax – where the main character defeats the enemy and claims the grail, medicine, greater knowledge that doesn’t just fix but transforms the situation.

What was the inner grail -- the gift of this experience? How did you change and grow as a person? What was the outer grail?

7. The hero/heroine returns with the grail along an equally arduous road, and if they succeed in being accepted (not a given, part of the heroic journey) end this adventure with a celebration in which healing is restored to the kingdom and the land and its creatures begin to thrive once again.

Ultimately, the gifts we gain are not ours to keep. We're meant to share the wisdom or power gained on the hero's or heroine's journey with our families, communities, and world at large. Who and how can you now serve?

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We unconsciously create outer lives that reflect the inner stories we tell ourselves about who we are and what we can expect. These stories were planted within us as children and early experience. When life is shaken out and we're left with the essentials, we learn what we really value and who we really are. In that sense, chaos is one face of an angel, the frightening one. In the darkest times, ask whatever higher power you believe in for help. You've seen the dark face of the angel, now ask to be shown the light.

by Juliet Bruce. All rights reserved.

Watering Holes: Where Story Began and Why It Heals

2011-07-11T16:06:00.059-04:00

“I feel different,” said one of the women at the end of a recent story group. "I’m relaxed and refreshed, in a totally different state of mind than I was when I came in tonight.“ At another group, the same words, almost verbatim: "I came in exhausted from work and didn’t know how I was going to get through this evening. Now, I’m completely energized. This is so powerful.” We each agreed: amazing how refreshing this story circle has been for all of us, me included. The mood was up as we each made our way into the hot Manhattan night.

No matter where I have brought story circles, this same quality of relaxation, refreshment, and renewal -- transcendence is a good word -- has flowed. Whether it’s been in a midtown Manhattan office building, a prison day room, a homeless shelter, a hospital cancer unit, a clinic for teens with HIV/AIDS, a post-9/11 first responder treatment center -– environments filled with trauma, stress, fear, depression, and isolation within crowds -- people relax; their voices become stronger; strangers bond intimately; life force flows; and profound healing occurs.

Storytelling is the oldest and most healing form of human interaction. When we tell and listen to certain kinds of stories, we literally step out of our ordinary selves and into a larger, non-ordinary consciousness. It's here that the healing, breakthroughs, epiphanies, and the unexpected events we call "miracles" happen first before they manifest in our outer lives.

These stories open pathways to our primitive limbic brain -- beneath and surrounding our thinking brain -- which holds our ability to feel and to attach with others. It's sometimes called shamanic or right-brain consciousness or Source intelligence. Describing the sophistication of alleged primitive consciousness, the environmental philosopher David Abram, in The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More Than Human World, writes that early humans lived directly in the natural world, engaging intimately with the larger community of beings upon which villages depended for nourishment and sustenance. "It is only as a result of her continual engagement with the ancient powers that dwell beyond human community that the traditional magician is able to alleviate many individual illnesses that arise within that community....His magic is precisely this heightened receptivity to the meaningful solicitations -- songs, cries, gestures -- of the larger, more-than-human field."

In the same way, storytelling teaches us how to collaborate and co-create with our experience rather than try to control it. Over and over, in my 16 years' experience, an image, character, or situation in a fairy tale or myth makes a connection or opens a blockage at a level of a listener's psyche that is inaccessible to their rational mind and ordinary language. Sometimes unimaginable transformations in mood, behavior, and life flow from this opening that happens between a story and a listener.

My observation is supported by science. Harvard researcher Gregg Jacobs writes in his book, Ancestral Mind: Reclaim the Power, that experiences of beauty –- in nature, art, music, and images in poetry and story -– actually trigger genetic memories of places of refuge and nourishment in the ancient world in which we evolved. These deep limbic memories induce calm and a feeling of well-being, when the world was full of information, fresh, unbounded, magical, and alive. Call it beginner's mind or child's mind. Jacobs calls this transcendent state Ancestral Mind.

BIRDS – the First Storytellers
An ancient dawn. The sky is streaked a soft pink announcing the arrival of the sun at the horizon. A lush landscape of trees, bushes, flowers surrounding a watering hole or small lake. Animals of every variety lap its waters.

From the branches, birds call out to their fellows in repetitive rhythmic and melodic patterns. Across miles and generations, birds call each other to places of refuge, where they can build their nests and continue their species.

Into a morning like this some 40,000 to 50,000 years ago, a parched human being wandered, drawn by these bird calls. He bent down at the edge of the cool water, drank, and listened…

Over centuries of listening to these avian melodies, long before humans became verbal creatures, they learned how to communicate with each other by carving flutes from the bones of dead animals and imitating the songs of birds. Over thousands of years, as our ancestors gained the ability to form words, these melodies evolved into songs.

As humans strove to make meaning of existence, songs evolved into the oral narratives we know as stories. Gathered around fires under the stars in the vast night of early life, storytellers sang stories to explain the mysteries of birth, suffering, and death. These story-songs offered refuge and nourishment, light and hope, and guidance for survival.

So story began in song: songs of creation; songs of praise to appease the unseen powers that sent storms and droughts; songs to the sun so it would rise the next day; songs that taught and mourned; songs that delighted and entertained. Images, characters, and plot lines emerged out of the chaos of experience, as human beings imagined and created civilizations.

Modern story circles help us access this vast repository of human intelligence so intimately connected to the natural world.

Story as Medicine

“There is something about seeing, hearing, and smelling the ocean that has bypassed the ego, and straightened out many things that were in disarray within the psyche. Story has that same kind of influence. It flows where it is needed, and applies itself there -– like an antibiotic that finds the source of infection and concentrates there. The story helps make that part of the psyche clear and strong again.” -- Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

My approach to story is modeled on ancestral tradition. I developed it originally in a prison maximum security unit for mentally ill men to distinguish my groups from clinical therapy, moralizing spiritual fellowships, and teaching. I wanted to create an environment where the imagination could flow, where every member was equal, and where "power" meant only the power to tell about their life in their own voice.

The process is simple: I define a story space through meditative music and light a storytellers’ fire -– a candle serves. Once the group is settled into a circle, I tell an "old story" -- a fairy tale or myth -- to set a safe container and a thematic launchpad for brainstorming, writing, and sharing. Then I step back and let Ancestral Mind do its work. Even when I’m working privately with a client, I situate myself in this story place, and hold it as they step in with me to view their lives through a greater, older, and wiser lens.

Like water, story is timeless, flowing across cultures, centuries, and continents to serve its purpose of healing, transforming, refreshing, and raising human consciousness. Whether we gather around an ancient fire on the African plain or in a crowded Manhattan office within a maze of air shafts, steam pipes, and exhaust ducts, "Once upon a time..." opens the path to archetypal places where we can drink, rest, and refresh ourselves for the journey ahead.

Here’s a story exercise that you can do alone or with others.
1. What are the watering holes in your life -- natural environments, relationships, activities that nourish you? What are places that have served as sanctuaries in your life? What were their colors, features, shapes. What emotions did they elicit? Who nourishes and expands you? Who gives you energy and courage? Make a map of watering holes.

2. Jot down four or five words about one of them that stands out. What word has the most energy or mystery for you? Make that your first word and then follow the words for five minutes.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

3. Did you see any patterns in the places and people you choose for refuge and well-being? What do you need now for renewal?

References
David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World. New York: Vintage Books, 1997.

Gregg D. Jacobs, Ancestral Mind: Reclaim the Power, New York: Viking, 2003.

http://www.soundstrue.com/articles/A_Life_Made_by_Hand_with_Clarissa_Pinkola_Estes/.

Copyright 2011. All rights reserved by Juliet Bruce, Ph.D. You may use material from this blog but please quote me when you use my words.

The First Question: "Am I Safe?"

2011-05-26T16:51:00.051-04:00

This is the first in a series of posts titled, "Finding Your Tribe: The Hero's Journey from Childhood to Adulthood."

I've been thinking about how to live with some sense of safety in a world that offers very little, and how to give it to clients who come to my office in search of a place where they feel safe enough to give birth to a new story. "It takes courage to become who you really are," wrote the poet e.e. cummings. And never more so than in times when being safe can feel more important than being true -- even if that means staying in an unhappy relationship or job, or hunkering down away from your dreams.

What I keep coming back to is resilience. The capacity to transform devastating experience into something positive. The self-healing mechanism that causes someone to carry on, no matter what. An inner safety that enables you to step out into the unsafe unknown to keep giving birth to yourself. Resilient people have a self-confidence and self-esteem based not on circumstances but on their own capacity to deal with the worst life throws at them. However, living as we do in a culture that tells us pain is bad, and that the solution to our problems is out there or in the medicine cabinet, many of us have lost touch with our natural resilience.

The First Question Holds the First Story
Each human being arrives in life as a unique being, with potentials, gifts, predilections, and contributions to make. Jung called this potential our Star, a Self that exists beyond our families, our environment, and our culture. It is a self that holds the code to our destiny if we can discern and follow its path.

The most basic needs that must be met for a person to thrive (that is, to manifest their star) are 1) safety, 2) belonging, and 3) dignity. And the very first question we ask is "Am I safe?" Our first developmental task is to answer it. This answer becomes our first and foundational story.

In their book, Ghosts in the Nursery: A Search for the Roots of Violence, Robin Karr-Morse and Meredith Wiley (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997), describe the first two years of life as the critical period for setting the neurochemistry of the brain and building a template of expectations for life -- the core story. They write, “From our first breath on our first day of life we are learning who we are. We are building a model of what to expect, who will be there, how we will be received, how safe it is out there, how we can make ourselves known and comforted. We won’t remember these early experiences, but our limbic brain remembers and our body remembers.”

If our first caregivers are consistent sources of food, comfort, and affection, we learn that others are dependable and reliable. Like flowers turning toward the sun, we turn toward people. We leave infancy with a basic sense of well-being, a core resilience no matter what life holds for us, and a foundational trust in relationships. Karr-Morse and Wiley observe that children raised in nurturing families demonstrate compassion and altruism as early as four years of age.

For all too many of us, though, the first story is a different one. For whatever reason, our parents fail to provide a secure environment and to meet our basic needs for safety, belonging, and respect. The core story is that the world is undependable, unpredictable, and possibly dangerous. No matter how earnestly we go after our goals, we may be steeling ourselves against a deep-seated feeling of worthlessness and a mistrust of the world in general. We become spiritual if not actual orphans. The pace of life and the distance created by the very technology that is meant to connect us help us to hide the orphan from others and from ourselves.

Until one day, we can’t anymore: The life we’ve known falls apart. Or the inner yearning breaks through the walls we’ve erected around it. All too many adults come into my practice with an emptiness in their life that nothing can fill – not material success, pleasure, busy-ness, alcohol, drugs, traditional therapy, nothing. What I sense that they’re looking for is their Star – the missing piece of themselves that got left at the gate, back at the beginning of life -- that wasn’t loved into being.

Art and Resilience
My role as a creative healer is to create a sanctuary where adults can drop the mask for an hour or two and find their way through the hidden bi-ways of the right brain to who they really are. Free-writing, poetry, fairy tale, drawing, collaging, dancing, playing -– in these activities both my clients and I connect with a primal innocence that has nothing to do with naivete and everything to do with being fully awake to reality, within and without, and seeing the truth of existence from a light-hearted place. The Islamic poet Kabir wrote, “I wish I could show you the astonishing light of your own being.” Artmaking is the healing mirror.

In his book, Art as Medicine, the well-known expressive arts teacher Shaun McNiff wrote: “The immersion in the materials and process of art-making frees a person from their ordinary self, the familiar, rules, the system, the conscious, controlling side of their personalities. Hidden characteristics of the self shine forth. In this special space, the person experiences themselves -– beyond label, self-concept, problem. It is in this place that the person can shape new ways of being, create new life, find new direction.” Creativity reframes the question, “Am I safe?” into “What can I make?"

Researchers who have studied people who have overcome the odds, such as those coming from high-risk environments characterized by alcoholism, abuse, mental illness, violence, and poverty, have found that these people share many of the following qualities:
~ Empathy;
~ A sense of humor;
~ Resourcefulness;
~ Autonomy, internal locus of control;
~ Imagination;
~ Sense of purpose and spiritual connectedness.

For thousands of years, human beings have survived storms, earthquakes, droughts, wars, trauma, heartache, and long, dark nights of the soul by gathering together, telling stories, and making art and music. Someone -- I forget who -- said the stars are always shining. We just can't always see them.

by Juliet Bruce. All rights reserved.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, experience, and suggestions on healing story, creativity, or resilience. And so would others, I'm sure. Just add your comment below.

Imagining Iago

2011-04-27T14:04:00.018-04:00

How an Actor Turned Performance Anxiety into a Brilliant Performance through the Use of Metaphor

The actor Liev Schreiber received wonderful reviews for his portrayal of the evil trickster Iago in the NY Public Theatre’s 2001 production of Othello.

"...audiences couldn't ask for a more captivating creator of chaos than the Iago of Liev Schreiber…."

"...awful and fascinating...thanks to the lucid complexity of Schreiber's performance, disturbingly real."

"...the ability to animate or embody an idea, as opposed to emblemizing it…"

"I found myself thinking, 'This guy would fool me, too.'"

The following year, Schreiber described how he created his Iago in a PBS "Great Performances" documentary. At first he found it nearly impossible to fully engage with the other actors. No matter how much direction he received, he kept finding himself circling the scene rather than dominating it from center stage, as the role is usually played. The root of this problem, Schreiber discovered, was his anxiety that he wouldn’t be able to remember all of his lines. (Iago has more lines than any other character in all of Shakespeare’s plays.)

Rather than work to “fix” or remove his anxiety, he and the director Keith David began to work with it – especially its physical manifestation of circling the scene. Together, they looked for metaphors that would combine Schreiber’s circling behavior with that of a character intent on destruction.

They came up with the image of a shark, a predator by nature that circles a group of prey until it senses vulnerability, and then strikes. Schreiber worked to embody the gliding, purposeful, predatory nature of a shark into his Iago. In the process, he lost his fear and was able to not only remember the lines, but to endow Iago with a depth and complexity uniquely his own.

He changed the story.

How to Harness the Power of Metaphor for Yourself

“Every dragon is a prince or princess yearning to be kissed,” wrote Rilke.

Is there a quality, emotion, habit in you that appears to be sabotaging your best efforts? Instead of fighting it and getting caught up in a losing battle to control, defeat, or fix it, do the opposite: work with it. Externalize it by turning it into a metaphor. Let it tell you its story through non-rational expression.

Ask yourself: What animal, god, demon, landscape, or weather expresses this quality? What would it feel like to let it inhabit your body, your voice, your words and intent?

Fully and safely express it through having an imaginary dialogue with it, movement, or visual art. Release its unique energy into whatever it's blocking. Watch it transform into something brilliant.

Change your story by fully encompassing, exploring, and embodying its depths.

by Juliet Bruce. All rights reserved.

To put metaphor to work in your life, career, or relationship, contact me through my web site to set up a free introductory phone consultation.

Creativity, Compassion, and the Resilient Brain

2011-04-09T14:16:00.038-04:00

As someone who has witnessed the amazing power of storytelling and other expressive modalities to support healing in many hundreds of people coping with the impact of childhood abuse, adult trauma, grief, severe mental illness, and depression, I'm interested in neuroplasticity, which is the term for the brain's ability to repair and rebuild itself throughout life.

(The graphic comes from http://www.knutsford-scibar.co.uk.)

Recently I listened to a series of web conferences on this topic sponsored by the The National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine. http://www.nicabm.com.

On Wednesday, April 6, 2011, Dr. Dan Siegel, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist who's well known for writing a number of books on the developing brain and the mindful brain, spoke about how early relationships shape the development of the brain, and how later experience can change it. (His web site: http://drdansiegel.com/.) I'm going to share with you a summary of the notes I took during the call, with my later reflections in italics. Basically, Dr. Siegel's talk scientifically affirmed everything I've experienced in egalitarian, non-clinical, expressive arts groups.

Dr. Siegel noted that the right brain is the seat of compassion, sense of context, oneness, refreshment, and it can be accessed through creativity, exercise, and meditation. It holds the consciousness of the Ground, context, symbolic meaning, interior life, and the ability to rejuvenate and heal. The left brain -- dominant in our culture -- connects to exterior life, strategic thinking, and literal meaning. A balance of both halves of the brain is necessary for optimal functioning. In some of its aspects, healing can be understood as a journey of patient and caregivers to strengthen right brain functioning:

1. Empathy -- connecting to the inner life of another person -- has been shown to improve every physical system in the body: immune, cardiovascular, and organ systems. The more interest a doctor expresses in the inner life of a patient, i.e., how that patient experiences their illness rather than symptomology, the more likely a positive outcome. According to Dr. Siegel, THE KEY TO OPTIMAL HEALING IS THE CONNECTING INNER LIFE TO INNER LIFE [my emphasis]. This means that doctors, teachers, therapists, parents, clergy must be in touch with their own inner lives. He called it practicing medicine, parenting, marrying, etc. from the inside out.

Storytelling is the most ancient and powerful way of reciprocal sharing inner life with another. Any of the non-verbal expressive media serve the same purpose. But we're narrative creatures, seeking meaning in our experience. This is the realm of story.

2. Scientists now accept health as wholeness, integration -- a natural drive, rather than conforming to an external standard of "fitness" or "normal," as it had previously. Neural integration means the linking of fragmented parts through brain fibers that connect different neurological parts and functions. In people who suffered early neglect or abuse, these integrative fibers have been damaged and the brain is not functioning as a harmonious system. Consequently, the body's systems are not functioning harmoniously and trauma or neglect often shows up somatically.

Story making, in its very nature, creates wholeness and integration. It holds conflict in the form of characters and situations in a larger container, and allows these conflicts to play out and resolve themselves naturally as a new story emerges. As storyteller of our lives, we are also the integrating consciousness.

3. The brain regulates the movement of energy throughout the nervous system and healthy, harmonious outer relationships strengthen this function. Chaotic, draining, turbulent relationships significantly impact neurological functioning.

The healing community that forms in story groups, or any other healing relationship based on a right-brain modality (not therapy necessarily, unless it has these qualities of creativity and inner life to inner life), be it authentic movement, expressive dance, free form visual arts, music making and listening, yoga, reiki, qigong (my spiritual practice), mindfulness meditation, equine therapy, shamanic chant, etc. becomes the container that holds a person and gives their brain an integrative environment, time, and space to heal itself and the integrative fibers to regrow.

4. Humiliation, shame, bullying are assaults on the whole system. What happens in the brain is that a natural drive for wholeness and expression slams on the brakes, and the victim is left with a sense of helplessness, anger, toxic release of cortisol -- the stress hormone. It kills synaptic connections in the brain. This manifests physically as nausea, a sense of being punched in the gut, avoidance of eye contact, heaviness in the chest. Inwardly it manifests as a sense of a defective self.

Storytelling and witness gives each person a sense of safety, belonging, and dignity, so necessary to thriving.

5. We are hard-wired to sense the intention of another -- especially if they have destructive or harmful intentions toward us. The stress hormone cortisol keeps us in a state of vigilance when our right brain senses danger in a relationship. But we are out of a state of integration and flow. Long-term emotional danger has enormous physical consequences.

Working with intuition, which is strengthened by the receptivity involved in creative process, makes us even more aware and responsive to toxicity in other people and situations. In these story groups, which are built on the sensory elements of time, environment, character, situation, and storyteller -- we become very attentive to where we are, what we're doing, and the often unconscious motivations and inner lives of others. For me at this point, story -- experiencing my life as an unfolding story with myself as the witness and storyteller -- is spiritual practice.

6. Mental illness, including depression and bipolar disorder, are apparently caused by thinness or inadequacy of integration fibers between the prefrontal cortex (our center of thought and choice) and the amygdala, the part of the brain that warns of danger and controls emotions. Meditation seems to enable these fibers to rebuild. In Dr. Siegel's work, patients suffering from manic-depression became completely symptom-free when practicing meditation and the other activities on a regular basis. Even with genetically created vulnerabilities, such as alcoholism, depression, schizophrenia, and illness, we can change those parts of the brain that are affected, thus moderating inherited weaknesses.

7. The practices that induce the brain to develop integration of its synapses and thickening of connecting fibers, especially between the prefrontal areas that support integration and the brain stem, which supports brain growth, are:

- meditation;
- aerobic exercise;
- Omega 3;
- originality, innovation, creativity, fresh ways of seeing things;
- paying close attention to everything coming in from the senses;
- enough sleep.

Expressive modalities - writing, dance and other expressive movement, visual art, music - create a state of healthy alertness, relaxation, and release. It feels like joy. It's the state of flow -- which is synonymous with the dynamic Self (vs. ego) delineated by ancient wisdom traditions and modern psychologists, including Jung and his followers.

8. Wholeness and integration manifests as vitality, fun, and light-heartedness.

In the mythic journey (the heart and soul of my story approach) the highest evolved archetype is the jester, who holds the whole truth of existence -- both its light and shadow -- within a non-harming joke and a good laugh.

-----

A list of Dr. Siegel's books, provided in a follow-up e-mail by Ruth M. Buczynski, PhD, President of The National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine, include:

The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are;
The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being;
Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation;
The Mindful Therapist: A Clinician's Guide to Mindsight and Neural Integration (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology).

ENJOY!

by Juliet Bruce, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

Releasing Light in Dark Times Through Storytelling

2011-03-15T10:41:00.024-04:00

"I saw an angel in the stone and I carved until I set him free."

No one since Michelangelo has more aptly or succinctly told the story of creative process. In one sentence, the sculptor describes its stages: encounter with raw material, receptive attention to the point of love, trusting that inner presence through the not-knowing-for-sure time, illumination, patient and committed toil, and finally manifestation in the concrete world.

So too with life. Whether we are trying to nourish the inherent strengths of a troubled young person, find deeper love in a conflicted relationship, rebuild our life after loss, create common ground between adversaries, or express ourselves in a fresh way, there is no system, structure, or formula more powerful than creative process.

In his book Narrative Medicine: The Use of History and Story in the Healing Process, Dr. Lewis Mehl-Medrona shares a Pasqua Yaqui native American tale from the southwest about an old man who owned light, but kept it hidden in a box within a box deeply buried inside his house. He was afraid that if it was released, he would discover that his daughter, who lived with him, was ugly. Writes Mehl-Madrona, "You've probably seen the same thing I have, where people are so afraid of what could happen that they hide their gifts and capabilities from themselves and each other." (p. 59)

Through a messy series of mishaps instigated by the trickster Raven, the light is eventually freed from the box, only to be dropped by Raven in his escape, shattering into millions of tiny fragments. The pieces of light hit the ground and bounce back into the sky, where they appear as the moon and stars. Raven gathers together the remaining fragments, shapes them into a ball, and carries the throbbing orb high into the sky. It shines every day as the sun, making life possible on earth.

Once the world becomes visible, the old man sees that his daughter is beautiful. There had been no reason to hide the light in the first place.

Are we not in many ways like that old man? So afraid of finding out we're not good enough that we hide who we are in boxes within boxes? Yet what the world needs more than anything in these traumatic times is for us to be exactly who we are: imperfect, vulnerable, but fully alive and radiating our life force -- the luminous heart at the center of all living things.

One way to do that is to carve away the masks and walls we erect to protect our inner selves from pain, which we learn to do very early in chldhood. To shape the fragments of images, echoes, and moments into our story -- the deep soul story that carries our passion and our purpose for being here. To release Soul into our yearning world.

Working in the metaphors of story, we relearn what we have always intuitively known: that the processes of growth, healing, and transformation mean asking not "How can I fix or change this problem?" but rather "What wants to emerge right here and now from these circumstances and from this person that I am?"

Like rocks obstructing the flow of water, obstacles in our own lives slow us down, ask us to pay close attention, look for the meaning of experience in our interior world, and ask ourselves, "How can I set the angel free?"

Find the Story of Now

Thinking now as artist, storyteller, and sculptor, ask yourself in the third person:

1. What time is it in your life, in the life of your family, your community, the world? Find a metaphor to describe your intuitive sense of time.

2. What's the external environment? And what's the mood? Landscapes and built environments mirror something important about the people who live and work there. The overall atmosphere reflects the deeper emotional context.

3. Who's there? What do they yearn for more than anything? What do they resist with all their might? What private stories do they carry that may be colliding when they interact?

4. What's a healing story plot line you can carve out of these fragments? Remember, healing story has a basic structure of crisis, struggle, unexpected and marvelous help, and transformation.

5. Now write this story line fast -- in 10 or 15 minutes. Get it down on paper. Make it real. The writer is the voice of your internal Storyteller, the voice that reframes, changes, shapes, sculpts, listens, and tells the story. This is the voice that externalizes inner conflicts, moves you out of isolation into community, and releases your light and warmth, which are so desperately needed in these times.

6. Now -- very important -- share your story with trusted others.

Start right here, right now, to open a channel for life force to flow into the world. Set the angel free.

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Coming Up

April 5-May 17, Spring session, "Write of Passage: 7-Week Writing Intensive to Support Personal Growth and Creativity." Tuesdays, 7-9 p.m. FILLED.

Summer session: June 14 - July 26. Fall session: Sept. 13- Oct. 25. Fee: $250. ONLY TWO SPACES LEFT FOR SUMMER SESSION.

Also coming in the fall: a 7-week Write of Passage telecourse. Each session about an hour. Same materials and handouts, just no in-person writing and sharing time. (The truly magical part.) Instead, a group message board for sharing. $175.

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Maya Angelou: "There's no greater agony than carrying around an untold story inside yourself."

I maintain a private practice in New York City and a long distance one by phone with clients in other cities. The journaling, storymaking, and visual arts exercises I offer along with my creative approach are extremely effective in helping you heal from:

~ unhealthy stress;
~ anxiety and depression;
~ unhappiness in a relationship;
~ separation and divorce;
~ deeply rooted financial issues (beyond money itself);
~ impact of childhood trauma;
~ loss and grief;
~ general dissatisfaction with life;
~ unfulfilled creative potential; and
~ career and life transitions.

Working in right-brain expressive modalities helps you make quantum yet grounded leaps forward to the life you want more than anything to be yours. You go deep and you go fast -- and given the creative and incremental structures of poetry and story -- within a safe emotional container.

When you fully tell the story hidden in whatever is blocking you, the block dissolves. Creative, passionate life energy flows freely. "This feels light," said one client, "even though we're dealing with some dark stuff. Big and light. I don't want this to end."

by Juliet Bruce. All rights reserved.
If you would like to schedule a free half hour phone consultation or receive a free storymaking tool, please write me at julietbrucephd@gmail.com.

Understanding Creative People

2011-01-30T07:45:00.036-05:00

More than ever before, our world needs people who are alive and inspired, who have new visions, new ideas for implementing them, and new energy. However, as much as corporations, classrooms, and clinical centers say they want to support creativity, they usually end up stifling it.

For one thing, creative people are often misunderstood as undisciplined, or misdiagnosed as having a personality disorder, when in fact they are absolutely healthy within a creative norm, and capable of brilliant work when recognized, nurtured, and supported in developing their expressive capacities.

In Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, creativity scholar Mihaly Csikszentmilhalyi developed a generic description of the creative personality. It gives teachers, therapists, coaches, managers, and co-workers an expanded framework for working with people driven by internal passions, visions, and values.

Csikszentmilhalyi wrote, “If there is one word that makes creative people different from others, it is the word complexity. Instead of being an individual, they are a multitude. Like the color white that includes all colors, they tend to bring together the entire range of human possibilities within themselves. Creativity allows for paradox, light, shadow, inconsistency, even chaos –and creative people experience both extremes with equal intensity.”

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CREATIVE PERSONALITY

1. A great deal of physical energy alternating with a great need for quiet and rest.
2. Highly sexual, yet often celibate, especially when working.
3. Both extravagant and spartan.
4. Smart and naïve at the same time. A mix of wisdom and childishness. Emotional immaturity along with the deepest insights.
5. Convergent (rational, left brain, sound judgment) and divergent (intuitive, right brain, visionary) thinking. Divergence is the ability to generate a great quantity of ideas, to switch from one perspective to another, and to pick unusual associations of ideas. Convergence involves evaluation and choice. Creative people have the capacity to think both ways.
6. Both extroverted and introverted, needing people and solitude equally.
7. Humble and proud, both painfully self-doubting and wildly self-confident.
8. May defy gender stereotypes, and are likely to have not only the strengths of their own gender but those of the other as well. A kind of psychic androgyny.
9. Can be rebellious and independent on one hand, and traditional and conservative on the other.
10. A natural openness and sensitivity that often exposes them to extreme suffering and pain, yet also to a great deal of enjoyment. Despair alternates with bliss, despair when they aren’t working, and bliss when they are.

The most important quality among creative people, says Csikszentmilhalyi, is the ability to enjoy the process of creation for its own sake.

Ask yourself how you can create classrooms, workplaces, families, and healing environments that value and support the gifts that the creative people you know have to offer.

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Maya Angelou: "There's no greater agony than carrying around an untold story inside yourself."

From a story perspective, the moment when life falls apart -- whether we are shattered by external events or bursting with inner yearning -- that moment is the call to life-changing adventure. Story structure provides a roadmap for navigating crisis that will bring about qualitative change in situations that seem intractable.

I maintain a private practice in New York City and a long distance one by phone with clients in other cities. The journaling, storymaking, and visual arts exercises I offer along with my creative approach are extremely effective in helping you:

~ Release toxic emotions associated with stress, anxiety and depression;
~ Take positive action in an unhappy relationship or job from a place of understanding and compassion;
~ Clear away buried childhood issues that may be contributing to financial and relationship difficulty;
~ Step up to personal challenges such as serious illness, divorce, or job loss with greater confidence in your ability to move through them successfully;
~ Honor your grief after a loved one's death and find a path forward without leaving them behind.

Working in right-brain expressive modalities helps you make quantum yet grounded leaps forward to the life you want more than anything to be yours. You go deep and you go fast -- and given my experience and skill, along with the creative and non-invasive structures of poetry, story, drawing, and other visual arts -- within a safe emotional container.

When you fully tell the story hidden in whatever is blocking you, the block dissolves. Creative, passionate life energy flows freely.

In the Deep, Dark Cold of Winter Comes the Warmth of Story!

2010-12-06T11:57:00.031-05:00

Now's the time of year to deepen your roots in preparation for a greater blossoming. One way to do that is through discovering your own myth -- your deepest and truest story, the one that holds your passion and purpose in life.

Here's a quick story exercise to help you find your myth. It's taken from Tristine Rainer's book, Your Life as Story: Discovering the "New Autobiography" and Writing Memoir as Literature, (New York: Tarcher/Putnam, 1997). I highly recommend this book to people who want to find the story in their life, and I often use it to help my private clients get a big-picture story sense of their life and the shape of our work together. This tale can be drawn, danced, sung, and acted out. But the essence, in my experience, is writing it first. (Please remember that this exercise, almost verbatim, is Ms. Rainer's, and not mine originally.)

"Write a fairy tale about yourself in 3 sentences or short paragraphs, without too much thought, in 10 minutes or less.

In its simplest form, a fairy tale has 3 parts:

-- Something happens that causes a problem for a person or a group.
-- They struggle to find a solution.
-- They experience a transformation and have a realization.

(Example from Tristine Rainer's book, p. 45:
-- Once upon a time there was a little girl whose mother was dragged away kicking and screaming by men in white coats.
-- The little girl began to hate her mother and wish she would never come home.
-- In the end, though, she felt compassion for her mother and loved her as she had always wanted to love a mother.)

Now it's your turn. You can pick something that happened in the past, or that is happening in the present and imagine the change it can bring about:

'Once upon a time, there was a...(little girl, woman, boy, man, family, team, village, etc.)'

-- the problem;
-- your struggle to resolve it;
-- how you changed and what you learned (or how you could change and what the experience might teach you)."

Me again: You have here the bones of a possibly huge story that can be fleshed out over weeks or months. This is at least part of your personal myth and it can help you understand in a deeper way who you are and where you're going. The point is, and I hope you see from this quick exercise, that you have a story. Your story imagination is instinctive, it's dynamic and full of unseen possibilties, and it gives structure and meaning to difficult experience.

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Starting this month:

WRITE OF PASSAGE: 7-WEEK MYTHIC JOURNEY INTENSIVE

FILLED. NEXT SESSION TO START POSSIBLY IN APRIL.

For healers, writers, other artists, coaches, people in transition, and anyone interested in applying the power of the story imagination to their life.

When someone undertakes a great work -- be it getting well, rebuilding a life after it's been shattered by loss, finding meaning and purpose in life, or starting a creative project -- they step out on a hero's journey that mirrors the first great heroic journey in life: the developmental stages through childhood to adulthood. In story, these stages are thresholds expressed as chapters, scenes, and vignettes. Creative struggle in adulthood can bring to light buried thresholds and parts of the self that need attention and nourishment for one to become whole.

Working in a metaphorical, right-brain developmental model such as the hero's journey provides safe access to these places in the unconscious, at the crossroads of mind and body, that lie beyond the limits of rational exploration through memory and ordinary language -- often without ever talking about them. This is the healing power of art. In the "Once upon a time" realm of myth, crisis or challenge opens a path to the inner grail that all people seek: peace of heart and mind, alignment of intention and action, and full release of the life force into one's present life.

The ancient narrative of resilience and transformation that tells of disaster, quest, victory, and wise return can be found in every great story, transformational experience, and meaningful life. It tells of the universal struggle to navigate and grow through crisis and shows us how to transform personal and collective misfortune into deep and necessary change. Using stories and poetry from the exuberant mosaic of the world's written and oral traditions, this unique writing group will teach you how to apply the inspiring hero's/heroine's journey paradigm to any challenging project, difficult life passage, or simply to enrich life itself.

Tuesdays, 7-9 p.m.
January 25 - March 8.
$210 payable up front for all 7 sessions. This is a very small and closed group. Sign up now to make sure you have a space.

Comments from Fall 2010 session:

"Life changing. Affirming what I thought, taking me to the next level from where I was to where I want to be in life. I gained many new insights into myself, relationships, and place in the world. Deep inner change at my core. I took on a writing challenge during this group to write a novel in one month, and they each seemed to feed each other. Would I have accepted the challenge if I hadn't been on the hero's journey? Who knows. The depth of change would probably not have been there. My imagination seemed to open up. I became a better writer and person. I started a book on 11/1 and completed it on 11/22 -- 177 pages, 53,480 words! Woohoo!"

"I loved that it was a small group, with a sense of space and time that I loved. I felt seen, heard, understood, and encouraged. The framework of the heroine's journey is very empowering. To see my life as an epic adventure allows for all the catastrophes and losses to be incorporated, to be seen as part of the celebration of life, rather than shameful episodes that need to be covered up as quickly as possible."

"During the course I felt more and more comfortable about my work and sometimes even proud or surprised. Every class was a new thing and I never knew what to expect from myself. It just felt like I could trust my gut, let go of the inner police, and enjoy, create like a kid, play! I was able to remember how to play!"

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In my private practice I work with adults coping with past trauma, loss, life transition, and relationship/work issues. My clients also include people who want to explore their creativity or need support for a creative project. In addition, I am now offering my story consulting services to socially-conscious businesses and organizations that want to develop a powerful professional narrative. Write: julietbrucephd@gmail.com.

How to Be a Creative Listener: Ceremonies of Engaged Witness

2010-10-29T06:57:00.008-04:00

The deepest emotional need for any human being is to feel valued – to feel seen and heard, and to have their experience acknowledged by others. In other words, to be visible.

Increasingly, in spite of our ever-expanding communications technology, many people (especially those most in need of outer support) feel invisible. This is because fewer and fewer people know how to tell their story, and even fewer people know how to listen. By listening, I mean being fully receptive to what they hear, without interrupting, contradicting, trying to fix, analyze, interpret, diagnose, or judge. In other words, to bear witness.

One of the smartest, most healing and transformational things we can do in our families, healthcare settings, mental health clinics, classrooms, communities, and workplaces is to create story sanctuaries where small groups of people can engage with one another outside their normal roles. Where they free to speak their truth: who they are, where they’ve been, and where they’re going. Where quantum change happens through communal creative process and empathic relationship.

I’m going to briefly share with you a process for teaching people how to be creative and generative listeners. But first, a little background:

In the 1970s, cultural anthropologist Barbara Myerhoff observed a community of elderly Jewish immigrants in Los Angeles. Many of these people had migrated to the US from the shtetls of Europe at the beginning of the 20th century and had lost their extended families in the Holocaust; a number had outlived their own children. The result was a sense of isolation from the rest of the community, a sense of invisibility, which manifested in depression, deeper isolation, loneliness, and frail health.

With help from a community organizer, these elderly citizens created a community in which they could recuperate, be re-energized, and regain their sense of existence. The way they did this was to tell and retell, perform and re-perform the stories of their lives. It was in these small story sanctuaries that these old people had the opportunity to become visible on their own terms. Meyerhoff called these experiences definitional ceremonies – the storytellers got to define themselves and be witnessed for it.

In the 1980s and 90s, Australian family therapists Michael White and David Epston, who had been using narratives with families, began to experiment with Myerhoff’s definitional ceremonies. In their practice, the therapist maintained their central role and elicited the stories through interviewing the clients and their outsider witnesses.

In the process described below, the therapist or facilitator steps back from their central role as interpreter and expert. After explaining the process to storyteller and witnesses, the facilitator does not intervene except to gently keep the process on track and focused on the central storyteller’s sharing. I call these storytelling and story listening experiences ceremonies of engaged witness.

Going Further:
Catalyzing Change through the Telling and Retelling of Stories

1. Tell a story, recite, a poem, or use the “Five Elements” storytelling exercise to build a safe container and create a theme for participants in this experience. I often use myths and fairy tales, as they release people from “reality” into connection with their imagination, intuition, and inner lives. Also, these old stories are metaphors for present experience and as such, are not invasive. I’ve never seen it fail. People universally respond to fairy tales and classic hero myths.

2. Invite a collective response to it – Ask the group what sensory images, phrases, or dramatic moments stand out for them. Not why. Just what. Anyone can share. No one has to.

3. Invite private writing time – Ask each person to find their own private “studio” space, then to write down five words that come immediately to mind. Ask them to choose the word that most captures their imagination, and to make that the first word of an improvisational piece of writing. Give them 5-15 minutes for this exercise, telling them at the outset how much time they’ll have, and that everything they need to say will come out in this time. I often play meditative music during this period to create safety and privacy within the group.

4. Invite reading for whoever wants to share with the group. Again, everyone is invited. No one has to.

5. Invite each witness to retell what they heard, without analyzing, interpreting, giving advice, or judging in any way. This is the critical and catalytic part of the process.
Instruct listeners to focus their feedback on four areas without being rigid or judgmental if they fail to address all the feedback questions in the way you want:
-- The values expressed in this writing, drawing, or performance (what matters to the storyteller);
-- Images that stand out for you and the felt sense, atmosphere, or mood you get from their story;
-- Go further with inner resonance. What areas or memories in your personal life that you may have forgotten are lit up by hearing this. (These last two steps are catalytic because they merge storyteller and witness stories, move the storyteller forward into a bigger story, and create a communal story.)
-- Share a personal shift or change in perspective gained as a result. This lets the teller know how valuable their story is to others.

6. Invite the teller to retell the retelling: What do they take away with them from this experience? WHAT POSITIVE STEPS CAN THEY NOW TAKE IN THEIR LIVES?

by Juliet Bruce. All rights reserved.

"Write of Passage": a 7-Week Hero's Journey Intensive

2010-08-12T14:34:00.010-04:00

Tuesdays, October 5 - November 16
7-9 p.m.
my office

$210 for all 7 sessions.

(This is a small, closed group, and you must commit with payment up front to all 7 sessions. Thanks.)

For New York area writers and other artists, healers, coaches, people dealing with life transitions, those in or aspiring to leadership positions, and anyone who wants to live life as a daring adventure.

I invite you to come on a hero's journey with me.

The ancient hero's journey myth that tells of disaster, quest, victory, and wise return can be found in every great story, transformational experience, and meaningful life.

It's a metaphorical roadmap for the universal struggle to navigate and grow through crisis and shows us how to transform personal or collective misfortune into deep and necessary change.

The orphans, seekers, mentors, warriors, tricksters, tyrants, creators, lovers, magicians, and sages met along the way can found in our own relationships at home, work, and within ourselves. And how often do we find ourselves at metaphorical crossroads, steep mountain passes, turbulent rivers, and seek hidden caves in which to endure life's inevitable dark nights? This unique and beautiful course will give you a fresh perspective from which to more deeply understand the underlying dynamics and possibilities of your life experience.

Using stories and poetry from the exuberant mosaic of the world's oral and written traditions, this writing and storytelling class will teach you how to apply the inspiring, transforming power of this ancient story paradigm to any challenging project, difficult life passage, or simply to life itself.

To sign up for this course, contact me at julietbrucephd@gmail.com. (Most of my posts from 2009 describe the separate sessions of this course in detail.)

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Some comments from past mythic journeys:

"This is the most incredible experience I've ever had! Where is this stuff coming from in me? I'm very excited about this process. I can already feel the shift of energy."

"I'm so fascinated by the archetypes -- the characters who are a part of me. I feel really inspired. It felt so good to hear others' stories and to have other people listen to mine."

"It was a beautiful experience. I had several light bulbs go off in my head about the orphan-seeker characters I'm playing out."

"I got a new frame in which to see my life that has helped me to feel a greater sense of integration and wholeness. Learning about the hero's journey has helped bring dignity and meaning to my own very personal struggles and seeing them in the context of a larger whole gives me a greater sense of connection and purpose. And that greater sense fuels me with inspiration to pursue, persevere and achieve the things that i want to do. I couldn’t have written the third act of my play without this group."

"You create a comfortable and nurturing environment. Each participant felt safe in expressing him or herself, which ultimately impacted the energy of the entire group in profound ways. Your inclusion of literary material provided me with a jumping off point for my creative project."

"I've been an art therapist for many years now and I lead groups for a living. Therefore, I so enjoy being a quieter part of the group, able to sit back and have my own process while experiencing how you present the information, handle challenging and also pleasant situations, and see how you are absolutely present to the process that the group and each individual is undergoing. The interweaving of your skills and the talents/needs of the group members is quite a fine process and a great experience."

A Healing Story for the Gulf, its Wildlife, and its People

2010-06-07T11:49:00.078-04:00

Ancient healers understood very well the power of words, images, dance, music, and especially the dynamic conflicts and characters in stories to heal and comfort suffering people. They often diagnosed illness by observing what parts of a story most resonated with their patient and then told a special curative story to mobilize the sick person's inherent healing capacities.

Contemporary healers, artists, and creative people can do the same for our planet and all its creatures. Through the metaphors of artistic expression, we can imagine into being a better story than the one that is playing out now. This month, I’m inviting New Yorkers to attend a healing story workshop to call forth the energies of restoration and resilience for the Gulf of Mexico, its wildlife, and people.

What exactly is a healing story, you may ask. Healing stories are metaphors for the universal human struggle to create meaning and growth out of misfortune. They're as old as humanity itself and are often called hero's journeys; they're expressions of our natural resilience -- of hope, transformation, and redemption. In this kind of story, a personal or collective disaster inspires someone to leave their ordinary life and go on a difficult quest for the solution to the problem. After many trials and defeats, overcoming dangerous obstacles and adversaries, they succeed in claiming the healing knowledge, elixir, or object, and bring it back home for the good of all. These times call for heroes.

Adventurous minds, released through imagination, can create innovation, leaps of genius, and inspired solutions. What if millions of people across the country let their imaginations loose to create healing stories for the Gulf? What unimaginable possibilities might arise? Mobilization of millions of citizens for the greatest environmental clean-up in the history of the world? A new and more profound commitment to taking care of our environment? What’s your wildest dream for our land and its waters?

The Workshop (WORKSHOP IS FILLED)

Monday, August 2
7:00-9:00PM
Force and Flow Integrated Bodywork
1100 Dean Street, #5
Brooklyn (between Franklin & Bedford Aves.)

FREE

Space is very limited and you must register to attend.
RSVP: julietbrucephd@gmail.com.

We all feel helpless and sickened about what's happening in the Gulf. Once the oil leak is stopped, it will take years, even decades, for the ecology, wildlife, and people of that region to recover. But we're not helpless to create unexpected and amazing change through storytelling. The purpose of this workshop is to activate collective energy for restored health to the waters, wildlife, and people of the Gulf.

In this session, you'll:
- Learn how to write and tell a transformational story;
- Hear a healing story inspired by Salman Rushdie's novel, "Haroun and the Sea of Stories," a highly popular fable written for his son during the fatwa against him, which touches upon similar issues to the Gulf disaster;
- Experience private writing time and communal sharing time (when the transformational magic happens).

This workshop isn't about writing a wishful but inauthentic vision of what you'd like to see happen in the Gulf. It's about finding that place in yourself that intersects with that larger story, and writing whatever your soul and spirit send up from that place. That's how real healing happens, both personally and for society.

In Chaos Theory there is a term called the butterfly effect. This means that small actions in one part of a giant system can affect the whole system. So a butterfly flapping its wings in New York over time could create a fresh wind over the Gulf of Mexico.

Many minds moving with the same intention can create miracles. Think back to the grassroots momentum that put President Obama in the White House, against all odds. It began with hundreds of tiny Camp Obamas, where people were asked to tell a better story for our country and for their own lives. The sharing that happened at those storytelling camps galvanized a movement. Together, possibly we can change this awful story too.

Train info: www.forceandflow.com.

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Comments from Participants on Evaluation Sheets at this Workshop

"Magical and wonderful!"

"Made the tragedy more meaningful to me in a personal concrete way."

"Amazingly creative."

"Facilitation was subtle and anything but heavy-handed. Bravo!"

"Stories you shared were beautiful and inspirational. I felt a strong sense of healing."

"Lots of sharing and feedback, lots of compassion, especially from leader."

"Peaceful and comforting."

"You are such a wonderful storyteller, soft and tender voice with just the right vocal expression. At your dance workshop I learned that the story I shared would be heard and understood. At this one, I learned that it could be expanded to the community in way that would impact each member. It was so powerful to share with each other about our feelings about the gulf! As if we were little drops of water getting together."

"Learning about the hero's journey healing story was beautiful and helped me understand the big picture and the how I can use it in different ways."

"Bathing in collective creative process was like swimming in cool fresh water."

T

How to Create a Thrilling Life with a Story Imagination

2010-04-26T16:23:00.045-04:00

I'm my own best client.

Recently I brought about a miracle in my life -- I mean a real "pot of gold" type of miracle, something that never in a million years would I have thought might happen. I'm sure it wouldn't have happened if I had stuck with conventional notions of reality and failed to mobilize through creative metaphor the big, bold, life force energies that make lightning strike and magic happen.

(This magical photo shows stars decimating a giant gas cloud, from Hubble, courtesy of Barbu Panaitescu.)

Once you understand, as I do, that life is an unfolding story and that you are the storyteller who can shape and play with it on the page, then use that page as you would a roadmap, you gain tremendous power in your life.

In this month's blog, I'm going to share a story process with you to spark your imagination around an issue or situation.

Tools for Creative Practice

First, embrace your life as it is, right now, right here, knowing that you are exactly where you're supposed to be in your own development.

1. Describe in "real" world terms the situation, crisis, misfortune, wound, or lack. What’s the real world reality facing you? This is a narrative report generated by your rational mind. This step alone will make you more present and attentive to what’s going on around you.

Now, look at your situation from the perspective of story. By that I mean, break it down into the elements of story. These include:

Time, both in terms of when it happens and in terms of beginning, middle, and end. Time gives story its basic structure and makes it a safe container for difficult feelings.

Setting and Mood. Where is this situation taking place? What’s the mood? External environments usually mirror something about the people who live or work there. The overall atmosphere reflects the deeper emotional context.

Characters.
-- Protagonists in stories are the main characters. They're seeking good things for themselves and their loved ones. You're the protagonist in your story. What do you want?
--Antagonists created the lack or want to keep the status quo and create obstacles. Bad bosses, mean spouses, people who instill doubt, weakness, lie and betray your trust, and create obstacles to your success. Who's or what's standing in your way, and why? Could they be reflecting an inner demon?
--Allies, friends, sponsors, coaches, wise counselors, caring doctors expand you and give you energy. Who are they in your situation?

Plot. Whenever you try to change a situation, you set up a conflict, even if the new one will make you much happier. The forces of the old ways rise up to hold you fast. In story, this struggle creates the dynamic of plot. Describe the conflict, the choices you want to make, the actions and outcome that you desire. These and your adversary’s response create the unfolding plot.

Storyteller. This is the Voice in you that reframes, changes, shapes, and tells the story. Your voice is where your power lies. It externalizes internal conflicts and feelings, makes you and others more aware of what's really going on, and helps you know you're not alone.

2. Next, rewrite your story as a fairy tale. Writing in the third person as omniscient narrator, turn each story element into a metaphor -- a fantastical object, place, or character. Metaphorizing experience translates it into a language of the senses, which captures its essence. It awakens the non-rational, intuitive right brain and guides you to a deeper knowing where you can discover the unconscious dynamics and hidden treasures in a situation.

Metaphors for Time. “Once upon a time,” is an archetypal wake-up call to the right brain, where new connections will be made. What’s your metaphorical time frame and mythic period?

Metaphors for Setting and Mood. Archetypal landscapes and structures capture the meaning of experience to the interior world. These include deserts, oceans, islands, prisons, parlors, stairs, bridges, tunnels, towers, crossroads.

Metaphors for Characters.
-- Hero: The protagonist as seeker, innocent, orphan, someone who starts out as marginalized. Change happens first at the edges, where the status quo is most vulnerable, not at the center or in the mainstream, where it’s strong.
-- Villain: an illness, misfortune, status quo, forces of regression and resistance to change; the priests and reactionary and/or violent political forces. His agents are trolls, demons, snarling dogs.
-- Mentors, allies, helpers – wise and old men and women, talking birds, omens, gods and goddesses.
-- Demons, monsters, trolls, apocalyptic events set the hero back, but become important teachers.

Metaphors for Plot. After an arduous journey, struggle to the death, or terrible drought, water flows again. A sleeping princess awakens. An ugly duckling is recognized for the swan she is. Transformational story always has some kind of positive outcome, redemption, or shift of consciousness that gives meaning and hope to the struggle. This doesn’t mean a cure or a perfect solution. It means that the life force has begun to flow in a sterile situation.

3. Improvise. This is the step of serious play. What stands out for you in what you've just written? Pick an image, character, or moment in your story that stands out and make that the title or beginning of a 5-or-10-minute freewriting session. Allow whatever wants to emerge through writing, other artistic media, or brainstorming.

4. Translate this fairy tale version of your life back into ordinary reality. Very important! Come back across the metaphorical bridge: What does this look like in the material world for you? With this new and deeper intuitive understanding, what wants to emerge here? What are these circumstances asking of you?

~~~

For me, story is a spiritual practice. You tell your story not to hang onto it or identify with it, but to release it by embracing it, and to release yourself from a pattern that no longer serves you or others.

Tell the story of a painful life experience and it loses its emotional charge.

Tell the story of a block and it dissolves.

Tell a new story and you begin to change your life from the inside out.

It’s much easier, of course, to go through this process with a mentor who has done it many times for others and for herself. If this imaginative approach resonates and you want to make deep change happen in your life, please write me at julietbrucephd@gmail.com to set up a complimentary half hour telephone appointment to talk with me about your needs.

by Juliet Bruce. All rights reserved.
Recommended References:

Lewis Mehl-Madrona, Narrative Medicine: The Use of History and Story in the Healing Process.
Chris Vogler, The Writer's Journey: Basic Mythic Structure for Writers and Screenwriters.
William Noonan, Emissaries from the Imagination – a workbook from the 2002 Healing Story Alliance conference. See his article at www.healingstory.org.
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg & Janet Tallman, Eds. The Power of Words: Social and Personal Transformation Through the Spoken, Written, and Sung Word.

Giving Troubled Kids a Better Story

2010-01-13T15:48:00.037-05:00

This post may be especially relevant for teachers, counselors, and other community professionals who work with at-risk young people.

Last week-end an art therapist posted the following message on a creative arts listserv to which I belong:

I am running a group for 6 students in 3rd grade who have behavior problems and aggression. I found that for the first group, the rules were consistently broken, even when reinforced and warnings were given. I spent so much time on just trying to get the students to be quiet when someone else was talking, take turns, ask for materials rather than grab them from another student, sit in their chair, not name call, tease or swear, that there was little time to focus on the artwork. Any advice on things that will work for them?

This was my response:

I co-facilitated a social skills summer camp for special needs kids with many of the problems you described. They ranged in age from 6 to 12 and there were 10 of them.

What I did was to give them a better story than the one they were used to hearing about themselves -- a profoundly negative story that was imprinting itself more deeply every day on their sense of who they were and what life would be like for them. I completely changed the ballgame from a therapeutic or teaching environment into a Native American warrior rite. (Thus going with their aggressive impulses rather than trying to change them.)

To start with, I played non-percussive music -- mostly Carlos Nakai -- to create a relaxed and mysterious space totally outside of their ordinary lives. All the chairs were placed in a circle and they drew on the floor. I had each one draw fire (implicitly allowing safe expression of their anger and aggression through the metaphor of flames) and had them arrange their drawings together to create a campfire in the middle. I named my co-facilitator -- a social worker -- the Village Chief and myself the Medicine Chief. (Amazing how we both rose to those roles!)

I defined the kids as braves who were becoming adult warriors of the tribe. Their mission was to protect the people, not go to war because that wasn't necessary. All activities and social skills teachings were presented within this context of a brave band of warriors and their mentors. I told stories and myths about indigenous people and they responded with pictures and stories about themselves (some revealing through metaphor that they were experiencing violence, chaos, or trauma at home), and they learned the "warrior code" of behavior rather than "social skills" or "rules of conduct." There were no sticks, but there were plenty of colored rubber balls. To talk, you had to ask for and hold a "talking ball." Only it turned out not to be a ball; the kids decided that it was a sacred fossil containing the bones of a dinosaur that were the source of the power of the tribe and its warriors.

What happened with most of the children was that they were so spellbound by the imaginative world they found themselves in and who they were within that world that they forgot to be disruptive. Teaching took place "under the radar."

It wasn't perfect, of course, but we built in an exit point whereby kids who were disruptive could ask for or be "given" a time-out to go out into the hall with one of the co-facilitators to talk or just to sit quietly. No punishment, just calming retreat.

A year or so later, I used basically the same approach in a more subtle, sophisticated way with youths in a diversion from incarceration program and after that, with teens with HIV/AIDS who were living on the streets. Again, it imbued the groups and each member with a dignity and respect from adults and other kids that they rarely if ever had experienced, and they got to perform "up" to that new self-image rather than "down" to the low expectations most adults had for them.

All of us -- especially children and teens (and adults going through difficult times of loss and transition) -- hunger for dignity and self-expression within the structure of respectful community, as well as some kind of "roadmap" or pathway forward to a better sense of self and future. I've found the traditional rite of passage model and myths of all cultures immensely useful in creating these kinds of dynamic and nurturing environments.

by Juliet Bruce. All rights reserved.

A Warrior Returns: Holistic Therapies for Traumatized Veterans and their Families

2009-09-06T12:01:00.001-04:00

I've developed a conference called "A Warrior's Return: Integrative Therapies to Support Transition from Battlefield to the Community" for the NY Open Center, where I serve as a consultant. If you're working with vets and their families, are interested in doing so, or know someone who is, you might be interested in this event. It's being held at the New York Open Center, 22 East 30th Street, NYC on Sunday, November 8, from 10-5:30. You can find out more at www.opencenter.org/a-warrior.

This event is for mental health professionals, clergy, creative arts therapists, holistic healers and practitioners, nurse practitioners and anyone else who wants to provide healing services to our returning veterans and their families.

If you would like a detailed description of the program's content, write me at julietbrucephd@gmail.com.

CHANGE THE STORY!

2009-03-06T11:52:00.000-05:00

Like almost everyone else, my life has been affected by the recession and I sometimes feel like I'm swimming upstream against the worst part of it -- the psychology of fear that keeps drumming into my head that things will get worse, that I'd better pull back and shut down until it's "over."

But I choose not to participate in this story. Insead, I'm choosing to go within myself, face the feelings triggered by this time head-on, and and find a new story. I can't do much to change external events, but I have all the power in the world to change my inner landscape and experience.

That's what this New Story series is all about: breaking through to abundance. Joseph Campbell wrote that in the ancient world, shrines and churches were built on places of conflict or disaster where someone transcended crisis to break through to the Abundance of the Universe, in Campbell's words, "to see the face of God" and to change the destiny of their people.

So today I'm announcing the second workshop in my series, "Create a New Story." I invite you to join me and others who are changing their stories in the workshops and through weekly writing exercises and sharings on the Create a New Story listserv.

The Call to Adventure: Heralds, Mentors, and Warriors
Making the Commitment to Change

Monday, March 30, 2009
5:45-7:45 p.m.
83 Spring St., 2A
New York, NY 10012

Teleseminar version:
Thursday, April 2
7-8 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time

$20 (includes membership in Create a New Story Yahoo forum)

Why do we love movies like Slumdog Millionaire? Why did millions of people jam the Federal Mall to watch the inauguration of Barack Obama, and millions upon millions more sit glued to their t.v. to be part of that transcendent moment?

Because we are starved for hope, new vision, and inspiration in our lives! Because their stories feed us emotionally, spiritually, and energetically.

The heroes of Slumdog and our new president have captured the collective imagination as seekers of dreams who refuse to believe in the limits of what's possible, who have answered a call to adventure, and who have taken the hero's path to a larger life than ever seemed possible.

Good news: This audacious seeker is within all of us, needing only the energy of imagination and outside support to be activated in our daily lives.

Combining education with personal healing and collective transformation, this workshop breaks down the process of commitment into imaginative scenes, characters, and actions that can be translated into new identities, beliefs, and actions in the material world. Using my transformational story process, myth, and the poetry of Mary Oliver, this workshop will help you:

-- Give structure and clarity to a challenge you or someone you know may be facing,

-- Reveal internal and external strengths with which to meet it;

-- Expand your vision of what's possible; and

-- Gather energy for the next right action.

This is the second in a 6-session series devoted to transforming the fear-based stories circulating all around us. It also stands alone as a creative and strengthening experience. The entire series will span the thresholds of change. After the first cycle ends in August, it will begin again in September with the first session. Fee for the entire 6 sessions -- $100. For 3 sessions - $60.

Space is limited. You must register to attend. Please reply here, indicating which version you're choosing: juliet@arts-for-life.org.

For more information about this series or to inquire about working with me privately (in person or by phone and e-mail), please call my office at 212.947.7111, ext. 341. I'll get back to you as soon as I possibly can.

Juliet Bruce, Ph.D.
Living Story @ Arts for Life
writer, counselor, and story coach for people in transition and for artists in all media
19 West 34th Street, Penthouse
New York, NY 10001
212.947.7111, ext. 341
http://livingstory-ny.blogspot.com

Comments from the first workshop:

"This is the most incredible experience I've ever had! Where is this stuff coming from in me? I'm very excited about this process. I can already feel the shift of energy."

"I'm so fascinated by the archetypes -- the characters who are a part of me. I feel really inspired. It felt so good to hear others' stories and to have other people listen to mine."

"It was a beautiful experience. I had several light bulbs go off in my head about the orphan-seeker characters I'm playing out."

Dragon Mind

2009-01-18T11:58:00.001-05:00

Have you seen those Chinese prints that show a dragon bursting forth from a tsunami-like wave? This image represents the Taoist belief that chaos is the wellspring of creative power, good fortune, and prosperity.

What a perfect image for these times!

The wave can be understood as the implosion of all the old, violent, and corrupt structures that have created such dark times and the dragon as an image of the inscrutable new reality that is bursting to break through in our country, across the globe, and in the lives of individuals, families, and communities.

We each have a role to play in the restoration -- to live with integrity, passion, and purpose; to hold faith in a more perfect vision; and to do our part to create families and communities built upon caring and compassion.