WHEN A STORY ARRIVES

Mosaic at Sheridan Square

In many years of facilitating healthy change through storymaking, I have observed that when we can translate our raw experience into a story, something remarkable and unexplainable in rational terms happens: a deeply transformational process is set into motion.

We feel the presence of a story by the quality of greater presence and attention it brings. A story often begins to tell itself. As a teller, something stronger than intellect is directing our words. As a listener, we understand intuitively that someone is sharing something important with us—a moment that may have changed the arc of their life. 

When a story arrives, we stop speaking in concepts (For example: “I habitually lie to my wife for no reason because I learned as a child that lying saved me from my father’s rage.”) These concepts are important in understanding intellectually the path to self-sabotaging behaviors. But they’re not experiential; therefore not transformational. In transformational story, we're not looking for "facts" as much as we're hoping to untangle emotional knots that keep us frozen.

             

When story takes over, we slow down, begin to speak from our senses, within a concrete setting and time, communicating an emotional quality, repeating significant dialogue, possibly surprised by forgotten details, in which we feel the emotions we weren’t able to feel when the event happened, but buffered and released, as in what happens when we watch a good film or read an engaging novel. For example, here’s the story that might arise:

“One time, I was about nine, I opened a bottle of Dewar’s that my father kept in the bar in the den, and I took a sip. It was awful! Bitter. Why did anyone drink this stuff? I remember the TV was turned on to some after-school program. I hated the program and the Scotch and decided never to do either again. When my father got home from work and saw the torn label, he yelled, “Who did this?” I knew he would beat up the guilty party because he always did. So I lied and said it was my older brother and his friends. It was easy to blame Eddie because he was always getting into trouble and our father didn’t believe his denials. He was the one who got beat that time.”

Untold, we may reenact that lie that saved us over and over, like re-listening to a garbled voice mail to understand the message. Fully told, we are released from that freeze frame that has blocked the flow of our life force around the issue of truth for decades. There’s no longer a need to reenact it. 

Our listener feels the shift in energy as well, and inevitably resonates with their own emotional associations. Story enables catharsis, emotional detox, and liberation for everyone.
 

In storymaking, we give ourselves permission to play with memory. We might create a “What if?” tale to give that little boy in the story what he really needed: a sense of safety around his father. What if a dad swims out to rescue his son who has paddled too far into the lake, wraps one strong arm around his precious child, and swims with the other arm back to shallow water? Not only does this tale inject parental safety into that painful memory, changing the neural pathway that held it; it triggers a new emotional state, and launches the limitless possibilities of a new story. 

If you feel caught in old behavior or relationship patterns, it’s likely that you’re stuck in such a story. You will likely find, as a client of mine did after telling a similar story, that the compulsive need to lie has dissolved. That story is over.

Try This

Reporting facts as they happened chronologically. (“He said, then I said, so he said…”) is not a story. In fact, it can shut down your listener’s receptivity and your own emotional engagement in what you’re saying.

Teller: Tell the situation as you remember it. In three minutes, describe a problematic situation with a trusted friend, therapist, or life coach. Think: context or problem, your usual response, the usual outcome. Compressing time this way forces you to get to the “bones” or essentials of your story.

Listener(s): Listen! The greatest gift you can give someone is to hold space for them while they process for themselves what they said out loud. The Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh once said the most healing thing we can say to someone grappling with a problem or strong emotion is, “Friend, I hear you.” (This also holds true as well for listening to our inner voices. Respond with empathy and the strong emotion will soften and become quieter.)

Teller: Now describe the  as a situation as a scene or master shot, as if you are watching a movie.  Giving yourself another three minutes, ground your story in a setting, with people, describe how the problem manifest in concrete terms, what you did, and the outcome. You’re improving here. Forget about doing it “right.” Just say what comes. When it gives you an ending—and it will—give it a title that captures the feeling you have about it. A title is like the ca-ching of a cash register; it concludes the transaction. In story terminology, it frames the experience and establishes your authorship, and thus your authority, over the circumstances. This is how you become the storyteller of your evolving life.

Listener(s): What stands out for you? Do not interpret, analyze, intellectualize, or give advice. All worthy responses, but a different kind of process from story. Above all, don’t impose your own meanings and solutions, no matter how well-intended. Story medicine is based on emergence: the knowledge that each person intuitively knows is right for them and our role as listener is to help them gain access to it. Respond with what you heard, and what had resonance for you.

Each of you: What do you each take from this exchange? You have engaged in dynamic, direct sensory experience together, rather than a retelling of a problem. Now you can discuss it in your usual roles as friends or client/counselor as usual. 

What do you now see that you didn’t see before? 

Do you have a new idea for what to do about the issue? 

Transformation doesn’t have to be earth-shattering. Life changes incrementally when we think or do one small thing differently. 

I call it a Grail Moment.

© 2018, Juliet Bruce, Ph.D., from the appendix of my forthcoming book, "A Write of Passage: In the Darkness, a Story Path Home."

How to Create a Thrilling Life with a Story Imagination

From Hubble space telescope

I'm my own best client.

Some time ago I brought about a miracle in my life -- I mean a real "pot of gold" type of miracle, something that never would I have thought could occur. 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.

Once you understand that your 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.

The Alchemical Process for Bringing About Amazing Change

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 one who steps up to change the story. Often someone who is vulnerable or marginalized in some way. (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 that represent resistance to change; orthodox priests and reactionary and/or violent political forces. His agents can be armies or trolls, demons, and snarling dogs.
-- Mentors, allies, helpers – wise and old men and women, talking birds, omens, gods and goddesses.They represent your intuition, the heralds of your highest and best self.
-- Demons, monsters, trolls, and natural events such as storms set the hero back, but can 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?

~~~

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.


(c) 2010 Juliet Bruce. All rights reserved.