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00:00:09: Everybody welcome back to another episode of bitchbreathe My name is ricardia,

00:00:15: today I would love to discuss even with you a topic that has been on my mind a lot lately certainly in the last couple of years and this,

00:00:27: subject is about storytelling so as you've probably noticed,

00:00:33: whether its advertising or you know personal narrative whether it's the yoga or the spiritual scene but the word storytelling has become the magical

00:00:45: sort of a silver bullet if you can't sell something tell a story if people don't understand something you're explaining,

00:00:52: explain it with a story and so this whole idea of stories

00:00:56: which is so deeply anchored in our history as humans anyway has sort of found a little bit of a Renaissance in today's world in many realities and,

00:01:09: it's something I'm really interested because I love stories because I love telling stories and certainly embellishing them here and there but we'll get to that later and I wanted to talk a little bit more about it with.

00:01:23: Yeah sort of a different Viewpoint so to back up a little bit I more from like the tough love

00:01:30: School of life I've as a child was always taught to March like a good little soldier if you were sick let's say you had a bronchitis or something you had to go to school anyway because well under the circumstances mom was a single mom there was no childcare so off to school you go and that was normal

00:01:49: I also was in the care of a really really loving.

00:01:53: But tough loving Irish caregiver for the first six years of my life so again there was always this idea of you know don't dwell on whatever story that is going on just

00:02:07: keep marching so this whole idea of feeling all the feels which is something we like to say these days,

00:02:14: didn't happen for me and I think for many many people in my generation and even more and even more deeply for Generations that came before mine so,

00:02:26: I'm used to or I was used to marching you know to function to,

00:02:34: perform the job already and essentially what was being told to me was just don't dwell on it don't feel.

00:02:43: You know all these feelings just you know get on with it as my mom likes to say just get on with it

00:02:51: so it took me a long long time many many hours of yoga and meditation and

00:03:00: also other leaders and women and men in my life to begin.

00:03:07: Not just acknowledge that maybe it's okay to feel things but to be able to identify those feelings and here comes the big one to save them.

00:03:17: Right so that whole idea of feeling had a lot of Shame attached to it for me.

00:03:24: And I was very able to get angry for example anger was cool anger is okay it spoke of power in my mind but feeling not so much

00:03:33: so after years of you know all the feels and really getting into it and finding it super therapeutic and so helpful to finally give myself permission to

00:03:45: go through this sequence of different kinds of feelings depending on whether it's trauma or just trying to digest a certain situation that occurred I started to notice that,

00:03:59: I seem to be crossing over to the other side so what do I mean by that I mean that the feelings.

00:04:09: Took such a center stage role that they didn't seem to get transformed so much anymore.

00:04:18: They started to stay there because I kept re telling the same stories over and over and so what happened when I kept telling this story and you know.

00:04:31: Populating it with all the feelings that went and I'm specifically speaking in the past tense now that went with it I.

00:04:41: I was getting a little bit Frozen in that mode and I started to think.

00:04:46: Maybe I've you know gone from feeling authentically feeling and transforming those feelings to dwelling

00:04:54: on these feelings and dwelling on the story maybe even insisting on the story because now I've effectively become identified with the story that I'm telling.

00:05:06: And I've been gone to look at that lately because I feel like I'm always in an effort to transform.

00:05:15: You know what isn't working for me not because it says so in a really good book or because I'm trying to positive think my way out of something but because it's just hindering me it's.

00:05:26: The story has become a crutch that I'm heavily leaning on to explain why I act the way I do

00:05:33: why I don't feel safe in certain situations in my case the anxiety for example I've had anxiety most of my life you want to learn more about how to cope with that listening to my first episode there but so the anxiety fear anyway can totally take over right fear is mine

00:05:50: probably the most powerful story I personally know and you can get really stuck so there are all these factors that can make us retell a story exactly the same way over and over but

00:06:03: it's not changing and so today I'm hoping to talk about a few tools.

00:06:11: Or maybe just phenomena that I've started to look into to re-examine the story and that's actually the first,

00:06:20: tool but before I do so I would love to quickly quote from a book that I've been reading it's called Deep work by Cal Newport.

00:06:29: And I wanted to talk about it because this was one of the most important points about retelling a story or shifting it around.

00:06:39: So this is a quote by the science writer Winifred Gallagher

00:06:44: and what happened to miss Gallagher mrs. Gallagher is she was diagnosed with a very vicious form of cancer a couple of years ago and,

00:06:56: you know she had to go through the whole thing of the chemotherapy and the whole daily life that you suddenly lead once you've been diagnosed with a very aggressive kind of cancer especially and I loved what she said about her her attention.

00:07:12: She writes the disease wanted to monopolize her attention but as much as possible I would focus on my life instead.

00:07:22: So I like this whole idea that you have the power to focus.

00:07:27: On different aspects of your life at any given moment that you decide what aspect becomes important and what doesn't,

00:07:35: and I'll get back to this particular point a little bit later but first let me return to the idea of re-examining the story so this is a very easy one maybe two just look at,

00:07:46: am I telling this story.

00:07:49: If that is possible correctly does it really did it really go down this way has it really been that long.

00:07:59: Does does it look like something that has anything to do with life as I lead it today and just re-examining first no judgment.

00:08:08: You're just looking at it like you would look at any other story like taking out a storybook look at the story after you've read it look at it again and see

00:08:17: what are the things that I'm noticing about it

00:08:19: as Alma as if you are coming at it with a couple of fresh eyes if you will just re-examine not really doing anything with it yet and see if just by putting.

00:08:31: New kind of attention on it does it still remain the same story and then the second tool.

00:08:40: For how long have you been telling this story so.

00:08:45: If we've had problematic childhoods by now I feel like there are very few who haven't but,

00:08:51: if there are certainly issues maybe even Trauma from our childhood we might be telling this story for a really long time

00:09:00: and I remember many many years ago I tried therapy and actually spent some time.

00:09:06: Going to therapy culturally speaking it's not such a big deal for Americans or maybe that's New Yorkers so it seemed like the natural way to go if I was an adult I'm beginning to find that

00:09:21: certain things weren't working for me

00:09:22: so therapy seemed like that you know the natural next step to sort of look at this whole thing and in therapy I noticed I kept having to tell

00:09:32: my childhood story who my dad was to me who my mom was to me how was my birth and stuff over and over and over and to this day I don't know if that was part of the strategy but I got so sick

00:09:45: of the story I was like really we have to talk about daddy again or

00:09:52: you know how this kid in the playground didn't treat me right don't get me wrong please I'm find this very important don't get me wrong I'm not trying to tell you to gloss over.

00:10:04: Whatever drama was there I'm not interested in what I call the happiness imperative and you can listen into that episode with that name if you like it's not my focus not my my jam.

00:10:18: But just to sort of.

00:10:20: Look back and see how many months or years you've spent telling the story and then to look at.

00:10:29: Does the story justify this investment of time,

00:10:34: right this is life time we're spending we're spending our present maybe our future lifetime projecting the old story.

00:10:44: Unto this present and future lifetime because we're.

00:10:47: Effectively filling that time with telling this pass story again trauma is valid.

00:10:56: Talking about problems is super valid any of my episodes you'll know my friends and I are constantly talking and trying to transform our stories and problems but.

00:11:06: Just sort of looking at.

00:11:08: How long have you been telling it and do you really want to invest this much time in something that already transpired and that.

00:11:17: In terms of it being a past occurrence cannot be changed it can only be morphed or transformed.

00:11:27: Third tool I want to re-examine with you I look at with you.

00:11:33: Does the telling of the story Spell relief,

00:11:37: so for a while depending on what kind of story it is for me one of my

00:11:44: bigger trauma if you will try my time if you will in life was the ending of a very long relationship it ended very very badly and violently,

00:11:56: it's verbally I want to say it was verbally very very violent and very sudden and the whole circumstance just seemed really really big and scary to me.

00:12:06: Pencil for a while I did tell this story over and over and over I need it to talk about it from A to Z and thank God I had listening ears who really would

00:12:17: declare themselves willing to listen over and over because I couldn't stop talking about it I was

00:12:24: so in shock that talking about it made it more real and so it didn't make me crazy,

00:12:32: right because if it was real then it wasn't crazy so talking about the story was super super helpful for a very long time and for many many times.

00:12:42: And then I began to get better not long after I started to get better actually.

00:12:50: But the story didn't the story that I kept telling kept being the same story for one.

00:12:58: But it didn't spell relief to tell it anymore when I told the story I felt like I was now freezing myself in time back at,

00:13:07: the stage when this was still going on and so while I was telling the story I was no longer feeling this sort of.

00:13:15: How do I say I wasn't spilling it out I was regurgitating it.

00:13:20: Recycling it if you will maybe even embellishing in fact because I love to tell stories there's a high probability that I was also embellishing this one or these many stories around that particular event and.

00:13:35: It no longer relieved me I.

00:13:37: I began to feel like am I sounding like a victim and not to discredit that term or the feeling of it but that's a whole nother episode even I think but am I effectively,

00:13:51: continuing to victimize myself long after this person did because I keep retelling the story without there being any relief behind it so what I began to do is.

00:14:04: Even when friends asked me how are you doing how's this particular issue going I put a moratorium on that story I said.

00:14:12: Thank you I love you for asking I don't want to talk about it anymore

00:14:17: and yes you could think that this was repression or or me not dealing but honestly years now later I think it's safe for me to judge it wasn't I had noticed that this story this book.

00:14:31: Had come to an end in that form that it no longer was mine it was mine to own but it was no longer one that served me to tell.

00:14:42: So I really just looking at.

00:14:45: Do I still feel relieved after I tell the story or have I actually moved on and it just feels like an old stale recycled.

00:14:55: I don't know bread tortelloni whatever it is so that was the third tool.

00:15:03: The fourth one is more like a question whose story is it really so.

00:15:11: Throughout my yoga adult life I should say I became more and more interested in the whole idea of ancestral healing if that doesn't mean anything to you basically just means you find tools and ways and people who help you work through.

00:15:25: Stories if you will or trauma or questions that came before you that are part of your family line that are part of how you were raised but that maybe and this is the key of whose story is this really

00:15:40: may not be yours so I did one really great method it worked for me everybody's different people like from.

00:15:49: You know ancestral healing to regression therapy whatever floats your boat to get you through the day and to get you healed that's what you do and one of the many many.

00:16:01: Methods that I tried was one that I think is called birth into being and,

00:16:09: in this doesn't matter what the method is you can look it up but in it.

00:16:15: You sort of tell the actual story of your birth the circumstances around it how was your mother where was your father at the time and when I first,

00:16:25: no told this story to the therapist I was working with I thought oh man not again I don't want to talk about mom and dad like I'm already done I get what went wrong is move the hell on already

00:16:36: but that wasn't really her Focus this therapist,

00:16:41: she was looking at the very particular circumstance of my mother.

00:16:47: And not to get into that too much because I feel like that's my mom's story to tell and not so much mine but the circumstances were super traumatic,

00:16:55: before the birth during the birth after the birth everything was really really hard and at a time.

00:17:04: This was Ireland England in the 70s certain circumstances were in place that just made it almost impossible for her to have me under.

00:17:13: Happy circumstances.

00:17:15: In fact it was impossible but maybe I get to invite my mom one day and have her narrate the story in any case what I noticed is that some of the anxiety actually that I felt,

00:17:28: in my adult age and the trauma it wasn't mine.

00:17:33: I was talking to this therapist and then later we did the actual therapy which is very very physical by the way but I realized wait a second.

00:17:42: The circumstances from me from my childhood or my giving birth to my son were not moms,

00:17:49: that's not my fear I'm talking of here this decision I'm making that's a decision my mom would make out of her.

00:17:57: Very valid probably fear but it's not mine her trauma does not belong to me and so even though getting back to what I was saying at the beginning I come from a long line of.

00:18:10: Tough love like I come from a long line of women who just marched to a strong Fierce Brave who did things during the war

00:18:18: that's only people who have also been through a war could probably understand so I came from this long line of.

00:18:26: Marching soldiers and Trauma and fear but that doesn't necessarily just because we share a bloodline make it mine,

00:18:35: and that was fascinating to me to say like wait a second this isn't my story if I'm going to ask myself whose story this is.

00:18:43: Turns out it's not mine

00:18:46: what a relief that does mean all the trauma has gone but it means I can separate it out I can extract it from my own personal life story and that felt incredibly empowering and I can

00:18:58: only recommend to look into this particular aspect.

00:19:03: So once we've re-examined we've looked at it and we've asked ourselves who story this is its time

00:19:10: to own it now I know this whole term of owning something or reclaiming it certainly since the Oprah Winfrey Show back avian in the day has become a little overused but that doesn't make it any less relevant so when you've decided

00:19:26: to tell a new story maybe to take aspects out that don't serve you.

00:19:31: Own it don't hide away from it don't shrink from it don't tell it if you don't need to but when you do,

00:19:41: I know that this is the one of the most empowering aspects about us is that we own the stories we tell.

00:19:50: We decide who the true heroines our heroes are we decide who actually only played a supporting role they really weren't that important,

00:19:59: we decide what the highlights of that story can be and which low lights we don't need in there anymore.

00:20:08: Which actually never really mattered in the first place.

00:20:13: Really thinking of ourselves as writers because nobody can write our story the way we can nobody can tell it the way we can but that also means that nobody can bring the kind of truth to it.

00:20:27: That we can and when we do look at the whole story.

00:20:32: Maybe it's just me but I think sometimes we've embellished where it served us.

00:20:38: And that's totally fine if it's not serving our trauma or our patterns and maybe we haven't focused on parts of the story that actually.

00:20:47: Are also there and just as valid and this brings me back to the quote I read to you earlier earlier by Gallagher that she said the disease.

00:20:55: I was going to monopolize her attention but she continues later in the book and she says.

00:21:01: I decided that I was going to place my attention on long walks with the dog and my 6:30 Martini in the evening.

00:21:11: And I love that if pandemic dreaming drinking has become a thing for you by the way maybe replace the martini with something else but whatever it is but I love that she decided where the attention goes.

00:21:25: Right it could have gone to the chemotherapy it could have gone to sort of imagining how this disease was.

00:21:32: Taking up her life or maybe taking it eventually but she didn't and again.

00:21:39: I don't mean for you to tell a sugar-coated version of your story but let the story be alive.

00:21:47: Let it like any other oral tradition change over time,

00:21:53: because you've changed over time there's no need for you to be stuck in a story that no longer represents who you are and who you've become.

00:22:04: And to really do your story and you justice.

00:22:08: By trying and I know this is hard sometimes we'll have to ask friends and family to do it for us really try to.

00:22:16: Tell the story truthfully and if you're not sure that you are.

00:22:20: Chances are your friends and family of her the story over and over ask them ask them I still dwelling on something old here or

00:22:29: is this still valid and if I don't like it if it's still valid is there a way I can change it is there somebody,

00:22:36: who can rewrite the story with me.

00:22:40: So that was my story about stories I hope that you found it.

00:22:48: Useful for your own story and that maybe maybe it inspires you to write your own I really look forward to your comments and I just wanted to.

00:22:59: Xiao de a give a little announcement here tonight on clubhouse however in German language I'm going to be in a talk with one of my oldest friends she's.

00:23:10: Fasting teacher if you will and I'm coming at this from a yoga teacher perspective and the two of us tonight at 7:00 on clubhouse at going to talk about Pro aging.

00:23:22: So join us there if you like if you'd like to be an exchange with me write me an email.

00:23:28: Breathe at GM x.com or join our Facebook group by the same name looking forward to hearing from you.

00:23:35: Music.