Latest / 100 Stories: The Narrative Intelligence Project / Rachel Catherine Allen: Words Make Worlds — Inherited Stories, Identity & Agency

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Rachel Catherine Allen: Words Make Worlds — Inherited Stories, Identity & Agency · 100 Stories: The Narrative Intelligence Project

• Paige Williams: Welcome to 100 Stories, the Narrative Intelligence Project. I'm your host, Paige Williams. I'm talking with 100 thinkers, creators, researchers, writers, and people shaped by profound change as I explore the emerging field of narrative intelligence. At the center is one question: How malleable are the stories that we live by? And what does it take to change one? What I learned will help shape the field and the foundational book that I'm writing about it. This Is one hundred stories. Today I'm speaking with Rachel Catherine Allen, who believes that words make worlds. She is the author of 23 books and founder of Bolt from the Blue Copywriting. And Rachel has an entrepreneurial group. And helps hundreds of women develop their story and write. Rachel Catherine Allen, welcome to the show. I'm so glad to have you here today. Rachel Allen: thank you so much. I've been looking forward to this all month. Paige Williams: Tell me about the world that has most shaped you and how you see yourself in the work. Rachel Allen: So I think that like if we're talking about work as like what I've been paid for in my life, it's it's been writing. I've only ever had one job as a grown-up and it's this, it's marketing strategy. But I think it really ties into just my life's work, which is I was put on this planet to write things and to take ideas out of the realm of possibility and move them into reality through words. And it's just it's it's everything I've ever done. I can't not do it. I'm so phenomenally grateful and lucky that I found a way to get paid for it because otherwise I'd be doing it anyway and for free. Paige Williams: So you've been doing it for a long time. Rachel Allen: Yeah. Paige Williams: Tell me about a moment in your life where something shifted and changed and you started doing something in a different way or learned something from it. Rachel Allen: So the moment that I that I always think about with this is the first moment I actually got paid for my writing. because I had gone to school for journalism. I did like the whole honors student interned at NPR, blah, blah, blah. And then I graduated into the O eight recession, and of course, like nobody was hiring. And so in my twenty-two year old brain, I was like, Well, what's the furthest place away from Tennessee? And the answer to that is Hong Kong. So I bought a plane ticket and I left. But I didn't think about like a work visa or a job. So I landed with like two hundred dollars in my bank account and I had to make rent, and so I'm Googling like how to make money online. and I found this job called copywriting, which I didn't even know what it was, but I you know, why not? And they paid me three three dollars and twenty five cents for my first piece and I was like, People will pay me to do this thing that I love so much and it's so What? And it just completely blew my mind. It completely changed the trajectory of my life. Paige Williams: Tell me about the story of growing up that gave you the courage to say, I think I'll go from Tennessee to Hong Kong now, I'm twenty-two. Rachel Allen: I mean, part of it's just youth. But I grew up in a really small Appalachian town in a really conservative alt-right family before alt-right was even really a thing, like before the Tea Party. And I was actually raised in this tiny little Christian school where the whole point of my existence was to be the spearhead of a culture change that would turn America back to Jesus. And that was never a fit for me. it's not what I ever wanted to do with my life. And so I think having been raised in this very confined like this is the path you will take, it didn't feel so scary to be like, No, I'm going to do literally anything else because I knew I didn't want to do that. Paige Williams: How did your family respond to you revolting against the revolution they wanted? Rachel Allen: Not great. I went no contact and that was, you know, I always describe it as the the best, hardest decision I ever had to make. But there was also a lot of dysfunction, a lot of toxicity and abuse, and so that made it in its way easier as well. Paige Williams: Are you still no contact? Rachel Allen: I am, yeah. Paige Williams: But you moved back to your roots? Rachel Allen: other side of the mountains, but yeah. Yeah, I feel a really strong sense of connection to place. because my ancestral family has been here since sixteen fifty. So I feel really connected to these mountains, even if I'm not connected to that particular family. Paige Williams: does that include siblings? Rachel Allen: Yeah. Yeah, nobody in my biological Paige Williams: What Rachel Allen: family. Paige Williams: what story or what narrative about your life and about what happened to you shaped the rest of your life and how does that play into the world so that you create through words? Rachel Allen: Mmm. So I think that words were really my lifesaver in that environment. I've journaled basically every day since I was nine, and I still have those journals. And looking back and seeing like that was a space that I could have an honest conversation with myself, and that I could have other narratives other than the one that was being very strongly encouraged upon me. And I could kind of think it out and be like, well, no, that doesn't make sense, or like. surely there must be another way to see this or you know I could just sort of experiment with it. And then seeing that and knowing that I'd always had a talent for writing, it was always the thing that like everybody praised me for. And I was like, well there has to be something useful with this. This has to be able to get me somewhere. And I think that being able to see how I could change people's minds with writing, even in a very confined environment, really made it to where I like, Well yeah, of course I can sell something, you know. I already know how to to talk about this on a cosmic consequences level. you know, selling whatever dog sweaters is easy. Paige Williams: Was it radical for you to go to college from your family of origin? Rachel Allen: it was the only thing I was ever supposed to do, but also as a woman I was supposed to go to college but then graduate and then not use that degree. I was supposed to get married and then like support my husband. Yeah. Paige Williams: Right. Right. And when you decided to go non no contact, where were you in your journey? Rachel Allen: I so let's see, I graduated college, and I had ha I had been back in the States for about a six months, I forget w I w there was something with a visa, I think. I had to be back. And so I had gone to Hong Kong, come back for a little bit, then went no contact and l for good and left the country again. love looking at this from a narrative perspective. because Paige Williams: Me too. Rachel Allen: I've actually written a memoir about my situation called Batshit. and yeah. Paige Williams: Bat shit. Like bat shit crazy. Rachel Allen: Like Batshit crazy, because when I went no contact, I my brain just destroyed itself. and It was this situation where I had been so gaslit and so physically, emotionally, mentally abused for so long that I knew there was a part of me that had this drive to be like, Well, I if I am going to survive, I can't be a part of this. But also I didn't know how to survive not as a part of it. And so I had this break with reality where I eventually found myself like crouching on the floor of my cheap Paige Williams: okay. Rachel Allen: little flat in London, and I'm like stroking the baseboards trying to figure out like, do I know what reality actually is? Because it had been so sort of cystic systematically undermined in me. And I had this moment where I I had this thought of like, okay, well I can't ever know objectively for sure because I have to exist inside my own head. I can't like no no if I'm psychotic or not. But I decided that I would trust my perception of pain. And that I knew what when something hurt and that I knew that I didn't like it. Cause I I didn't even have that available to me until that moment. Like I didn't know when something hurt me. I didn't feel physical pain. I even still I laugh a lot of times when I'm hurt because I don't know how to like connect those wires. And I had been so disconnected from myself that making that decision to be like, this is the one brick on which I will build my reality, then kind of expanded to, okay, well, if I know when I'm in pain, maybe I know when I'm happy too. Maybe I know when something is safe for me. And I had to rebuild my psyche on top of that. Paige Williams: How'd you do that? Rachel Allen: slowly, badly, with a lot of therapy. and also I ended up leaving my relationship with this man I'd been in for been with for nine years and as a part of that my visa was tied to his so I had to leave the country as well. And my business was also tanking and I was like, well, maybe I'll go be a bartender. I don't know. But it was this moment of I think we all reach these sort of critical, you know, dark night of the soul moments where it's like how I am now cannot continue. Like this story cannot continue in this way if I am to survive it. So even if I have to lose everything, I'm willing to do that to move forward and find out what else happens. Paige Williams: I understand that. I've had a lot of dark night of the soul moments. And after my last one I wrote a book called The Twelve Creative Keys and I looked at what is the process I actually go through from that moment of desperation in order to shift the story. Yeah. Rachel Allen: cool. That sounds amazing. Paige Williams: Do you want to hear about it? Rachel Allen: Yeah, tell me. Paige Williams: The first one is willingness. I have to be willing to look at the story. Rachel Allen: Huh, yeah. Paige Williams: The second one is Rachel Allen: Yeah. Paige Williams: I have to have some courage to change it. And then usually when I get those two, I feel the third one, which is hope. Then Rachel Allen: Mm. Paige Williams: I realize there's something I need to surrender. And it goes on from there till Rachel Allen: Mm, yeah. Yeah. Paige Williams: okay, now I've become who I'm supposed to be or who I am on the other side of this dark night of the soul. Rachel Allen: Yeah. Paige Williams: So I used writing to understand the world in which I experience life. Rachel Allen: yeah. I love that. What's that? There's a Flannery O'Connor quote I think that says, how do I know what I'm thinking until I write it down? I'm like, Yeah, same. Paige Williams: Okay, so you create worlds out of words and you teach that. Rachel Allen: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Paige Williams: So talk to me about the experience of helping other people understand their narrative, whether that's their an internal narrative, their business narrative, their marketing narrative, their leadership narrative, they're in an on an Rachel Allen: Yeah. Paige Williams: entrepreneurial journey, you have entrepreneurs in your group, your monthly group. Rachel Allen: Yeah. Paige Williams: How are you using words and worlds and how does the narrative shape? how people see themselves, one another in the worlds that they're creating. Rachel Allen: You know, I think people come into it a lot of times with a narrative that they've been living for a long time or or a narrative they've created and they think it's gonna play out one way or the other. And I think so much of the work is to listen almost to the real narrative that keeps it keeps peeking through. And they'll say things like and then be like, no, well I don't mean that or that's a mistake or you know, forget about that And I'm like, No no no, tell me everything about that. And it it reminds me, actually as I say this, it reminds me of like a palimpsest, you know? Like where it's a book that's been erased and then written over again. And I feel like I'm looking to see kind of like the ghost narrative in underneath the spoken one. And for me it feels very energetic. I've described it before as like, you know, when you're running your thumb along the outside of an apple and you can feel where it has a bruise, even if you can't see it. Like I listen to them and it feels like that. And then I feel this like, and I'm like What's going on? Like, tell me more about that. And then suddenly this narrative just comes out and they'll it's almost uncontrollable. They'll say this narrative and then they'll hear themselves and go, that was silly or, gosh, I didn't even know I felt that and I'm like, Yeah, that's amaz look at you. Your like real face came out for a minute. And that's the moment I'm always looking for. Paige Williams: And then what do you do with that moment? Rachel Allen: If they're willing, and they usually are, occasionally people will shut it down and be like, I hate this, you're the worst person I've ever met. Like, you know, refund my money immediately. Because it's very uncomfortable to move out of that narrative. but most of them are open for it because it feels like like relief to be seen. And then I think about what they want to do with it. So I'm like, okay, are we writing a book? out of this? Are we doing a speech out of this? Are you selling a product out of this? Are you selling a vision out of this? Like where do you want to direct this pure energy and pure power that just came like bubbling out of your face? Paige Williams: What did your life teach you about finding that moment? Rachel Allen: Mm. I mean, my f those are the only moments I feel alive, you know? Like when I can connect with myself and when I can live that that that vital narrative. instead of the received narrative or the narrative that I think I should be living or the one that makes sense and whatever. Like it's those moments of spontaneous creativity and vitality that it's the the whole point for me. And I routinely look for that in my own life and I am so utterly enamored with it in other people and in humanity as a whole that I'm just like, yeah, anything I can do to bring more of that out, that's what I'm gonna be doing. Paige Williams: in those moments that you're finding with women people, Rachel Allen: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Paige Williams: is this group work that you're doing? And then are they surprised that they're in a marketing group work? Or do you Rachel Allen: Ha ha ha. Paige Williams: do you market it as entrepreneurial work? Do you market as marketing work? Do you market as narrative work? Like, are they like, wait a minute, why am I looking at self in order to do marketing for my business? And can you talk about th connecting those dots? Rachel Allen: Yeah. Yeah, it's a lot of that. so the main my my first thing, my my biggest, I don't know, billboard is marketing. And then people come in and usually they're crying within about fifteen minutes 'cause they're like, I've just never been seen and I'm like, Yeah, it's a little weird for marketing I know, but you know, if you're selling something you genuinely care about, then you have to get to that. depth of feeling. So the way that I connect the dots for that with them is if they're really businessy, I'll tie it into like mission, vision, values, because that feels like a safe container for that. They know how to understand that, even if what we're doing is really so much bigger. but other ways that people come in, I have a sort of secret side business as a developmental editor and ghostwriter. And so people will come in to that door a lot of times and say, like, I need to write this book. I don't understand why, but I'm waking up at in the middle of the night every night thinking about it and I have to get it out of my head and out of my body. And they're often much more receptive to the like, let's talk about the depths of your soul type stuff, because that's where the book's coming from anyway. Paige Williams: You've said words are technology, what you mean by that, and how Rachel Allen: Yeah. Paige Williams: we use language and words to shape beliefs. Rachel Allen: I had this sort of sentence drop into my head a couple years ago after reading a really boring book about a very interesting topic. The book's called Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff. and Mark Johnson, I think, is the other author. But it's this very technical little book that talks about how words are the way that we actually interface with the world. They're the way that we understand, like, like make sense of the space around us. And our brains literally use metaphors. to understand you know what is good, what is bad. So that's what I mean when I'm talking about, you know, the the technology by which ideas and influence spread. I can have all of these ideas in my own head, and you can have all of your ideas in your own head, but if we don't have a way to bridge that and connect, they're gonna remain separate. But when we are able to actually share those, they become so much more than the sum of their parts. It's what makes us amazing as a species. We can we are the only species, as far as we know, who can play outside the boundaries of our own sandbox, you know? Like we can create. Create stuff that's never been thought of before. And that happens because of words. It's the only way we can do it. It's shared intentionality is what Michael Tomasello calls it, if you want to get really nerdy about it. We're the only species, as far as we know, who can do that, and words are what makes that possible. Yeah. Yeah. Paige Williams: Mm, I love that. Can you talk about identity and creating worlds and you know, as a black sheep of the family who went away and made a big decision, how Rachel Allen: Yeah. Paige Williams: that identity shaped you and then how fixed beliefs or open beliefs so that you can continue to reshape identities and create new identities and new worlds? Rachel Allen: Yeah. I think a lot of people seek safety in an identity. I think that they seek like stability by knowing kind of like who they are and these are this is what a person like me does. And if you if they're willing to kind of tie into their own will and think like, okay, well, you know, whatever a person like me does, what do I wanna do? What consequences am I willing to take responsibility for? You know, who do I wanna be? I think that's when the real magic happens because then you can tell a new story about yourself. You can become a new character. I think that people are really scared of that a lot of times, because it requires you to lose an old story and to lose an old identity and who knows what might happen and maybe you'll screw it up and it'll be really bad. And then I think that's where the fixed versus growth thinking comes in, because they think like, well, I have this one, but if I change it, then that's it. And then, you know, if it's bad, it's bad forever. And I'm like, I don't know, I've been five hundred people in my life already, who knows who I'll be tomorrow. I think there's themes that pull through, and I think that's where you get to the real core of what your identity is. But all of the I don't know, all the set dressing, all of the like, I'm an X who does Y for Z people, that could change tomorrow, and I think most people would be shocked at how fast that old life fades away. Paige Williams: Right. Once you see it, it happens. Rachel Allen: Yeah. Right. I mean people ask me all the time, like, how did you make the decision to move? And the answer I give them, I'm not trying to be flip, but I'm like, Well I bought a plane ticket and then I got on the airplane and it's as simple and as complicated as that. Of course there's all the emotional baggage and whatnot, but when it comes right down to it, the logistics are just not that hard. Paige Williams: So what gets in the way between an entrepreneur who you're coaching and marketing for between her story about what she can and can't do and actually buying the ticket and getting on the plane? Rachel Allen: I think it can be a lack of experience, like a lack of stories of other people who have done it. So if you don't know it's possible to do something, it's kind of hard to come up with that out of nowhere. A lot of times we need to see somebody model it, like you model for your niece, you know, or you model for other people around you. Seeing someone who lives that possible life makes you aware of that at least, and you can't unknow that that life could exist, whether you act on it or not. I think a big one is responsibility, whether you're willing to be responsible for your own life or whether you just kinda want to let things happen to you and that's a real bummer, but you know, it's not my fault. Of course it's, you know, we're all responsible, but taking active responsibility for that, I think, is heavy for a lot of people. And I think that I think that particularly for women, we're often so socialized to see our identity in relation to other people. And I found that it's difficult for some women to have or to claim that identity of their own, that story of their own, because they're I'm so and so's wife, I'm so and so's girlfriend, I'm so and so's mom, I'm the reliable person who brings the donuts every Friday, you know? Instead of being like, I'm Rachel and who knows what I might do tomorrow because right now I feel like this. Paige Williams: Mm-hmm. You've written twenty three books, is that right? Rachel Allen: Yeah. Paige Williams: What are the what are the books that you write that you love the most and why? Rachel Allen: Mm. I think so memoir's always been my favorite. I love memoir, I love narrative nonfiction, I love investigative journalism. I I've I've done podcasts more in that realm versus books, but like for books I've done a lot of memoir. And it's because it's all about the stories, right? It's the stories and the possibilities and showing people these little insights into other lives that they might not have ever thought about. So I know in my case, one of the the reasons that I was able to sort of see outside my own reality was because I read books like Lit by Mary Karr or The Glass Castle, Educated hadn't come out when I was doing my stuff, but things like that. And it was moments where I was like, wait, people like me are allowed to write books. People like me are allowed to tell their story. And even if I wasn't ready to to do it yet, just knowing that maybe one day I could was hugely inspirational for me. Paige Williams: When you ghostwrite, it's Rachel Allen: Mm-hmm. Paige Williams: been said that you write me better than I know myself, maybe. What do you Yeah. How Rachel Allen: Yeah. I get that a lot. Paige Williams: do you think about that? What what is that? Rachel Allen: I mean part of it's just outside perspective, right? I think it's hard to see the label from inside the jar. And I can often see things about other people that I I certainly couldn't see in myself. You know, I've had the same mirror turned around on me and I'm like, wait, really? That's how you that's how you see me? Okay. Cool. Thank you. So I think it's the outside perspective. I think it's also this willingness to go into it with like absolute non-judgment. and that's something I think that I I just kind of naturally do because I'm like I, you know, I have done crazy things in my life. I'm I have a high bar for crazy in general given how I was raised. And I'm mostly just interested and kind of in love with everybody I meet. And so I'm never gonna like have them tell their story and then be like, well that was stupid. Why would you do that? I'm like, fascinating. Tell me everything. And so I think being able to bring that to it helps people feel more comfortable to say the truth and like the real like, I'm ashamed of that or I couldn't tell that in a business story type of truth. And when you give people that space, they just blossom and the most amazing things come out. Paige Williams: how do you shift lanes and languages and narratives and perspective between, okay, I know myself from an inside jar looking out, but then Rachel Allen: Yeah. Paige Williams: how do you do that for someone else when you don't know them as well? And is it easier? Rachel Allen: it's so much easier. Like I can I can read other people really well. and I don't have any of the other like, you know, judgment and stuff that I often have for myself. So I think as far as switching the lanes, it feels a bit like I think you'll actually understand this. When I'm around people who have a strong Appalachian accent, I drop back into my original accent and talks like this. And it's easy. It doesn't feel like a different person. It's that same feeling though of, you know, when I'm when I'm speaking, I don't know, when I'm like lecturing at a college, I tend to speak in my more neutral American tone. But I just slip back into that if I'm getting an oil change or something here. And that's the same feeling that it feels like. Paige Williams: Do you take on that other person's persona in order to get it? Rachel Allen: I think you have to. I think you have to be willing to almost set yourself aside and get behind their face and kind of live in their world for a little bit because otherwise things won't make sense. Paige Williams: How do you do that? Like how do you get to know someone so well that you can speak for them, right for them as them? Rachel Allen: I it's a lot of listening. it's a lot of consciously setting my own self, my, you know, any judgments I might have, any any of my own logic aside. Like I don't go into it thinking, if I was Paige, how would I how would I, Rachel, act as Rachel Paige? Because that doesn't make sense. Paige Williams: Right. Rachel Allen: I have to just sort of almost empty myself out and really get into their worldview and be completely open to whatever comes along, even if it seems really irrational or doesn't make sense to me, or even if it's like, I don't know, even if it's annoying. I've written for a couple of people where it you know when you're in those stages of your life where you're just like, okay, I understand that you're growing, but really we're doing this again? All right. And just being along for the ride, I think, is how you really connect with people like that. Paige Williams: How has stepping so deeply into other people's story that you're not Rachel person, you are that person, Rachel Allen: Yeah. Yeah. Paige Williams: changed you? Because I know that stories change us. Rachel Allen: Yeah. I feel like I've lived so many people's lives. and I love that. That feels like an enormous gift to me. I feel like it's also helped me to have less judgment and less rigidity around my own narrative. Because we all like we all do dumb stuff, you know? And so it's easier to to It's very easy for me to offer, you know, forgiveness or non-judgment to somebody else, but then turning that around on myself, I'm like, okay, well, you know, okay, I can do that too. And I think it's also given me this real sense of how similar we are, even as different, you know, as different lives, different narratives, different beliefs, different everything. Ultimately, I think we are so similar as people. Paige Williams: How do think of that in terms of your family of origin? Rachel Allen: I think it's what actually moved me from seeing this as a story of like me versus them to seeing it as a tragedy of circumstance. Because I like I fully believe that they were doing their level best. It they loved me deeply, deeply, deeply. And the tragedy of it is, the only way they knew how to do that. was in a way that also was profoundly dangerous for me. And they they still don't understand why I left. they've never wanted to know. It's just been this sort of ongoing I I still get a lot of emails that I, you know, have sh shunted over to a file, but, you know, a lot of emails of like, Why would you do this to us? Why would you destroy our lives? And I've explained many times and it just doesn't it doesn't track. And so that's why I'm like, okay, our narratives are clearly so disparate that you can't see it. And I mean I think that's what makes it horrible. It's what makes it very sad and I think very hopeful in that, despite that, you know, we're all still here, we're all still alive. I'm still seeking happiness the best way I know how. I don't know what they're doing, but I certainly hope they are. And I don't have any like ill wishes towards them, you know. Paige Williams: It's hard to because we can't control peop what people do or think or believe. Rachel Allen: Yeah. Yeah. Paige Williams: It's hard to explain how rigidity and judgment limit a relationship Rachel Allen: Mm. Paige Williams: and actually harm people. It Rachel Allen: Yeah. Paige Williams: because they're rigid from the first place, so they can't even get curious about the behavior that would make you say that in the first place. Rachel Allen: Right, right, right. Exactly. And I think so I've never, you know, we can't like armchair diagnose anybody, but I think they both had very a need for a lot of structure, a need for a lot of rigidity, a need for a lot of authoritative rules handed down. that's why they sort of went into this very strict flavor of Christianity. And I think that that makes them feel safe. But in trying to impose that on somebody else, I mean that's where the the spirit killing part of it comes in, you know? And if there's somebody who's more naturally curious, like like I am, I'm very curious, I'm very open, and that's just like personality traits we're both born with, right? We don't have control over that. I think that's where the clash comes in. Paige Williams: Yeah, I've thought a lot about in this work. Like you're obviously highly intelligent. And so I assume your parents are too, or at least your mom is. And Rachel Allen: Mm. Yeah. Yeah. No, they both are, yeah. Paige Williams: yeah. And so how can highly intelligent people stay so rigid? I don't understand that. And then Rachel Allen: Yeah. Paige Williams: also we are we inherit a narrative before we're out even out of the womb. Rachel Allen: Mm-hmm. Yes, Paige Williams: So how does that show up in your world making, in your words, in your writing and in your belief system? Rachel Allen: Yeah. So well what it makes me think about is one of my one of my core values is curiosity. And it's what I realize it's when I am at my best, that's what I'm doing. It's what lets me go into rooms where other people are scared to be, or they don't want to be, or they think, these people are disgusting. How could you possibly ever connect with them? And I'm like, but I'm so curious about what goes on in their lives and their brains and their minds. Like, what's their story? And so I think that it's How do I want phrase this? I think that it's opened up a lot of things for me, but I think that talking about the narratives that we're born with beforehand, I think it also made me really realize that while we may come into this world with a story, then I get handed the pen and I get to write my own chapter of this. And while you have to acknowledge, I think, what comes before and what you start out with, I think it drives you crazy if you don't, if you're like, no, I was a blank slate, of course you weren't. You have to acknowledge what you have, but then you do something with it. And I think falling down on either side of that equation, like the acknowledging or the doing something with it, is where people kind of get messed up. Because if it's like, no, I'm perfectly fine, you know, I was I wasn't born with any of this. Well, you're gonna be fighting yourself your whole entire life because you have this narrative that's gonna push to come out. Or alternatively, I have this narrative and that's how I am. I'm I'm doomed by the narrative, nothing I can do about it. That's not true at all. Something I say all the time is like nothing is welded into the rebar of the universe. If you don't like something, you can do something else. And I think people don't don't realize that, and that just boggles me every time. Paige Williams: What might stop them from doing something else? Rachel Allen: fear. I think fear. I think being unwilling to be responsible for the consequences if it goes wrong, or even worse, if it goes right. Cause then it's like, you know, this has worked out for me. How horrifying I have to acknowledge that I could do this. and I think again, I think socialization, right? If you're constantly told you can't, unless you just happen to have a, you know, strong rebellious streak, then you're gonna be like, Well, I guess I can't. That's just how life is. Paige Williams: Your transformation story of moving to Hong Kong, getting on a plane, Rachel Allen: Yeah. Paige Williams: and realizing you can be a writer, they pay me for that because you forgot about a work visa. Rachel Allen: Right. Paige Williams: How has that story shaped over time? Rachel Allen: Mm. I mean, well, I've got it down to a very clean narrative now. you can hear me just rattle it off because I say it a lot. But I think that I for a long time I told myself that that was the story of like a fluke or like good luck. And to a degree it was. You know, I happened to find this thing, who knows? But also, you know, I put a lot of work into it, I followed up with it, I made something of it. And I like about, I don't know, two or three years into doing that, I had still not decided that I was a business owner, even though like I was supporting myself. I was supporting my partner at the time. Like but I was like, no, this is just a it's a little it's a one off until I go get a real job. Paige Williams: Hobby. Rachel Allen: Exactly. My my side gig. And I remember 'cause I was living on a Greek island that summer and it was like, should have been perfect, you know, working in the morning, sunbathing all afternoon, strapping Greek people, bringing me orange juice and stuff. And I was super miserable the whole time 'cause I was like, I'm sure that I am never gonna be able to do this. Like there's no possible way this can continue. I should like get back on the the path for which I was trained and go get a job where somebody else pays me. And I had to make that decision of like actually owning that narrative. whereas for a long time I was like I you know people pay I write things people pay me and that's nothing I have control or influence over. I don't really know why it happens. Paige Williams: So you had to really look at it and say, here's why it happens. Rachel Allen: Yeah. right, it's me, it's 'cause I keep emailing people. Right. Paige Williams: How did the decision to go no contact with your family change your internal narrative and how has it changed Rachel Allen: Mm. Paige Williams: over time? Rachel Allen: I mean, it shattered it. Like in ways that I never anticipated it would. because it's we hadn't we had never had like a close relationship, and so I didn't think that I would have the amount of grief that I had. And I think there's also something that happens on a biological level with that, where my body just didn't know how to exist, not connected to that ecosystem. So it kind of tore everything just right down to the studs and then I had to decide who I wanted to be after that and like what parts of that I wanted to maybe carry forward with me. So people are often surprised when they hear this whole narrative and I'm like, no, like I owe so much of my talent and education to my mom because she read it to me every single night. Like she read classic literature to me since before I could speak. And of course that's in my brain. Or like my dad had phenomenal taste in music and that still influences me now. And so I had to go through this process of being like, what elements of this are good and how can I separate them out from the rest of it? Paige Williams: And did you take spir any sort of belief system or spirituality with you and shape something new, or did you let that go as well? Rachel Allen: So I hadn't been like connected to the evangelical faith probably since I don't know, early high school maybe, and it just sort of not worked in my brain. The way that I describe things now is that I still choose to believe in God because that's how I like to rearrange the furniture in my brain. Like it just sort of feels good. But, you know, I don't consider myself a Christian. I don't consider myself a member of any religion. I do have an ancestor practice, and I do a lot of the, you know, gratitude, energy, tarot reading, that kind of thing. So I guess you could maybe call it a a syncretic practice, but I don't really ascribe to anything specific. Paige Williams: When you think about your own story and the narrative of your life, what are you grateful for the most? Rachel Allen: God, so much. The most. You know, I'm grateful okay. There's I'm trying to like sort out seven things in my brain right now. I'm gonna choose two. I think one is books, because that's what it's what kept me alive and going, you know, all of these stories. As if anybody's watching as opposed to listening, I've got books all along the wall behind me. I exist through them. and they they opened up all these worlds for me where I was like, okay, there's something more that I could maybe try. And I think the other thing is I'm so profoundly grateful for the relationships that I've had and people who saw me even when I didn't want to see me and they were like, hey, just so you know, it's okay to be that version of you whenever you're ready. And having that support and knowing that there was somebody who cared about all of me, even as painful as it is, I think, to be seen sometimes. I think it j was just profoundly transformational. Paige Williams: Mm. And as you think about writing the rest of your story, what what adventures are gonna happen or what might happen? Do you have Rachel Allen: Ha ha ha. Paige Williams: to script it or do you just see what happens? Do you script your future story? Rachel Allen: that's such a good question. So I think of this in terms of two levels, one of which is commitments and one of which is congruence. And so commitments are the things that those are the elements that I do script. I've spent a lot of time getting really clear on an articulation of my life's purpose. Like I know what I'm doing and I think a lot about the moment that I die. And I wanna be able to look back and be like, Yep, I got there. But as far as day to day, I No idea. Things could change whenever. and I think that that's the it's the way I write books as well, right? I know where we're gonna end up, I know what the highlights are, but I have no idea how we're gonna get there. Paige Williams: Totally. Rachel Allen: Yeah. Paige Williams: Do you do you believe that we can create our worlds by scripting the future pr in the present day? Rachel Allen: I do, but I don't think we can do it in the way that a lot of people go about it, which is like if I write my affirmations a hundred times a day, then it will play out exactly like this. You know, maybe. Who knows? But I think that the way that we can go about this is by having a clear direction and And then being really aware of the sort of the narrative threads that are presented to us, and then choosing those as we go. I don't know if that makes sense, but I'm seeing nodding, so I think maybe. Paige Williams: Totally. What narrative threads are you picking up for your future? Rachel Allen: Mm. well, I wanna live in a different house, and so I don't know when that's gonna happen or how it's gonna come about, but like we're my husband and I are actively looking for, you know, where might we be in a year? I don't know. Maybe in a different state, who knows? whenever I Have someone come to me with an idea where they're like, hey, I think you and I are the only people who could bring this into existence. Are you open for that? I usually am. especially if it's true that we're the only ones who could do it. I feel a strong sense of like creative duty when I have sort of ideas and and books sort of dropped in me. I'm like, yeah, I gotta do that. And yeah, I mean, along the lines of books, I'm working on a second memoir called Feral Wife. And I'm I have no idea actually how. that will even look. I just know that I can sort of feel it in my body and I'm kind of following the direction of that. Paige Williams: What's the main narrative through line on your first ni memoir? Rachel Allen: becoming who you are. Becoming a real a real person. Paige Williams: And and what might be the second narrative thread on your second memoir with Feral Wife? Rachel Allen: it's horrifying. Yeah, it's horrifying, but it's being loved for all of who you are. I know. Awful. Absolutely awful. Paige Williams: God. What an order. Rachel Allen: Yeah. And like all like ev all the all the who you are. That's I had absolutely no intention of ever being in a long-term relationship. I most of my relationships have been with women and not with men, but I met this dude and he was just so utterly insistent. on adoring every single part of me and I'm like I don't even know how to exist in that. And it's been this six year process of like, wait, but are you sure this is not some kind of long con? Paige Williams: Mm. Rachel Allen: Yeah. Paige Williams: How do you accept full love when you come from someone who disapproved, beat on you, emotionally, Rachel Allen: Yeah. Paige Williams: brought you down? Like how do you transform into being able to accept and love all of yourself and see yourself the way that he does? Rachel Allen: I have absolutely no idea. That's why I haven't finished writing it yet. I'm still working on it. But I think the again, the like horrible therapy answer is you have to be able to at least sit in neutrality with yourself, if not love yourself, as like as that sounds in my mouth when I say it. But I Paige Williams: I mean, you're writing the book, so what are you gonna say about Rachel Allen: I don't know, that's like the third part. I got the first two parts down. I you know how it always like builds? I've got my first two parts of like, here is the the hero's journey that was presented to me, here is me utterly rejecting this call, and here's all the things that I've done, and now I'm kind of still in this spot of like I think the o the only thing holding me back from this is me. And I'm grateful for that in that I am essentially my only enemy n these days. And it's also hard 'cause it's like, you know, nobody's gonna stop me except for me. wait, I'm really good at stopping myself. Paige Williams: Do you think you have to be somewhat enacting that love for yourself in order to write chap the third act? Rachel Allen: That's my suspicion. Paige Williams: And do you think that you might have to go through some creative journeys in order to get there? Rachel Allen: think so. I suspect so, yeah. Paige Williams: And is doing a new house a part of that? Rachel Allen: Maybe. I would love that. I think that would be awesome. it would just be hmm, how would I say this? Something about where we're at right now feels like being like a plant in a pot that's slightly too small. And it's not even about the size of the house. It's just like, like the part of our life that was here is now ready to move on. Paige Williams: Yeah. How do you know when it's time to move on? Rachel Allen: Mm. I mean, I'm a horrible person to ask this 'cause I move I'll leave the country at a drop of a hat. But I like I feel it, like in my body. I often also feel that like talking back to narrative threads, I have like a physical magnetic pull behind my sternum. Kind of like a like, that way, that way, it's time to move on. so that's how I can put some logic on it, but really it's just I feel it in my chest. Paige Williams: And is your husband cool with like, Okay, let's go? Rachel Allen: yeah. He is the most ADHD man who has ever existed. He would like move every single day. Paige Williams: If you were writing the book Narrative Intelligence, how would you define it? Rachel Allen: Hmm. Ooh. I think it is the ability to be aware of your own narrative and the narratives of those around you and to actively shape your story. Paige Williams: Beautiful. And if you don't want to answer this, it's okay if it's too personal. Rachel Allen: That's fine. Paige Williams: If your family of origin ever came back Rachel Allen: Mm. Paige Williams: and actually had changed their relationship to their own story and to yours, would you make a different decision? Would it change your narrative? Rachel Allen: Yeah. Mmm. I think I'd have to see what the change in the relationship was with them. So I know I did like a bunch of research on this. Apparently people in my position often harbor these fantasies of like, they would see it from my perspective and beg my forgiveness. And I really don't have that. Like I I just don't care. but I think that if I saw this like openness to curiosity, openness to seeing everyone in this story as equally human? Maybe. I don't know. I think I'd have to see ha in the moment how I felt. Paige Williams: They would have to go through a big aha moment to change them. Rachel Allen: I think so. You know, I haven't Paige Williams: Yeah. Rachel Allen: it's been fourteen, fifteen years, since we went no contact. So, you know, who knows who how they are now. But yeah, I think from where we were when we left off, it would have to be a really large change. Paige Williams: Yeah. If they did change, How would it shift the narrative you're living? Rachel Allen: I mean it would certainly add some narrative complexity, like, we love a good redemption arc. but Paige Williams: Great plot points, great plot points. Rachel Allen: right, right, exactly. At the last minute. I think though I think it would require actually a lot of growth maybe on both sides, you know? Because I've been in this position where it's felt very safe for a really long time. I don't anticipate changing that because, you know, I like feeling safe. I like feeling alive. but it would be an interesting invitation, you know, if that were possible and then there were some kind of possibility for relationship after that. I mean, fascinating. Who knows what might happen. Paige Williams: You said I like being alive. Did they make you feel like you were going to die if you stayed? Rachel Allen: I was 100% certain I would be dead by the time I was nineteen. Like, I there was no conceivable way that I would be alive if I hadn't gotten myself out of that situation. And that I a actually as I think about that, that kind of makes more sense why I was able to be so air quotes brave and do this stuff, because I like, no, I'm living on borrowed time anyway, or bonus time anyway, you know? Why not try something else? Paige Williams: Now that you have a husband who loves all the parts of you and is helping you love yourself that way. Are you safe enough to allow imperfect parents back into your life? Rachel Allen: Hmm. I think Yeah. Paige Williams: Deeply flawed parents. Rachel Allen: I'm gonna say no, and it's not because of the flaws. it's because of patterns of behavior that have continued that I don't like that indicate to me that their judgment is not safe. Like Paige Williams: They're Rachel Allen: The communications I've gotten since that time have felt really disconnected from reality. And I don't feel any like responsibility to deal with that or manage that for them. I don't think it's a sense of like, they're, you know, deeply flawed or we have deeply different belief systems. It's the world that they choose to live in is fundamentally not the one that I live in. And I don't Know what they might do, thinking that it is reasonable and loving and kind in their world that may actually be very threatening in my. Paige Williams: could you ever write a memoir from their perspective as their daughter? Or would that be too much? Rachel Allen: Mmm. Yeah. I don't know so I'm thinking about it on two levels, right? One, the like the craft level. I think it's really hard to move yourself around in family positions, just like having done it to a limited degree in batshit. as far as like, you know, can I could I find the compassion to do it? Yeah, I have deep compassion for them. I think I can see a lot of things from their perspective. And I think, like I said, that's what makes it a tragedy. It's like, yeah, how absolutely horrifying to you that you did your utter best to love this person and they don't want to know you anymore. Like, that's a horror movie. Paige Williams: Have you forgiven them? Rachel Allen: Yeah. I don't have any like residual resentment or anything. There's a couple of little things where like, you know, I didn't have any financial literacy, so that held me back for quite some time. I made some dumb mistakes. So I'm like, well, you know, I wish that had been different. But generally speaking, I don't really wish anything had been different. It made me into who I am today. I'm proud of what I've done with it. And there there are so many good things that I brought forward from it. Paige Williams: Rachel, I'm so proud of you too. Rachel Allen: thank you. Paige Williams: Before we close, here's what I'm taking from this conversation about narrative intelligence. Rachel begins with a phrase, words make worlds. And in her life, they quite literally did. She grew up inside a very specific world, a family, a religion, a set of expectations about who she was supposed to become. But she started journaling when she was nine. And those pages gave her somewhere to encounter other possibilities, a place to ask, does this actually make sense to me? Is there another way to understand this? And eventually leaving that world required more than changing her mind. It meant losing family, identity, relationship, place. And for a period of time, even her confidence in her own perception of reality. And one of the most striking things Rachel said that was she eventually chose one place to begin rebuilding. She would trust her perception of pain. If something hurt, she could know that. And from there, maybe she could know what felt safe. Maybe she could know what made her happy. Maybe she could begin building a life from her own experience instead of from the story she had been given. That feels important to this project because narrative intelligence cannot mean that every interpretation is equally valid or that we can narrate our way out of material reality. Discernment matters. Sometimes the work is figuring out what actually happened. What do I know? What can I trust in my own experience? And Rachel's story also complicated something else for me. She can now see her parents with compassion. She knows that they loved her. She can imagine their version of the story. She can understand why, inside of their worldview, their choices may have felt loving to them, and she has forgiven them. But she still would not necessarily let them back into her life. Because understanding someone else's narrative does not obligate us to live inside it. Compassion is not the same thing as reconciliation. Forgiveness is not the same thing as access. In Flexibility does not require abandoning discernment. Rachel said their worlds are so different that something they might experience as reasonable, loving, or protective could still be threatening in hers. And that may be one of the clearest examples I've encountered yet of what it means to change your relationships to a story without needing the other people in the story to change theirs. And then there's identity. Rachel has moved through so many identities daughter, outsider, writer, entrepreneur, queer woman, wife to a man, and she said something I love. She feels like she's already been 500 people. And she doesn't seem particularly interested in finding one final fixed version of herself. And there are threads that endure. But the character can keep changing. And maybe that's a part of narrative intelligence too. Knowing the difference between the story you inherited, the identities that helped you survive, and the parts of yourself that you actually want to carry forward, regardless of the change. And Rachel said we may arrive in the world with narratives already waiting for us. But eventually, I get handed the pen. I think that's where agency lives. Not in pretending the earlier chapters weren't written, not in pretending we can control all of the characters, but in recognizing that we still have some authorship over what happens next. Whew. So the question that I'm leaving with is what story were you handed? And what becomes possible when you realize that the pen is in your hand now? Let me know. What next chapter are you writing?