Latest / Relatively Stable / Story Is Everything

Transcript

Story Is Everything · Relatively Stable

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining me on Stable Roots this week.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Today I'm going to be talking about story,
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: how story is everything,
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: and the narrative webs that weave us together.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Podcasts are by their essence containers of stories,
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: so I have two announcements that are a fitting share for the theme of this week's writings.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was a week of deep conversations and connections,
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: sitting down with cups of tea and listening to wise women.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was an honor to share a table and a microphone with all of them.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love for you to listen to their words and join in the richness.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: You can also find these episodes on all your favorite podcast platforms, but
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: I've got the Confident Rider podcast with Jane Pike,
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: and she's holding a series of Christmas conversations,
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: and all of them are wonderful.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I was so honored to be able to sit down with her and others this week,
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: and you can find that on The Confident Rider.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then my podcast,
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Relatively Stable,
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: I had finally the opportunity to sit down with Tamar Reno and I could have a
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: conversation with her every single day and every single week and record it and send
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: it out into the world.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: But you can click on this post for Stable Roots and find links to the Confident
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Writer podcast and Relatively Stable,
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: or you can just search for them and find them on all your favorite platforms.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get started.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: What's in a story?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Don't slay me for saying this, but I really dislike Charles Dickens.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Is it doubly bad saying this before Christmas, or would Dickens be like, of all my stories, that one?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm sinking into his unforgettable opening line.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: It was the best of times.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was the worst of times.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because I can't find a better quote to sum up the last quarter of 2024 for me.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: These past months,
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: I've had a lot of downtime and these hours of being alone with my thoughts have
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: made me hugely aware of my stories,
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: the narratives we humans construct to make sense of the world.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: My story this year has been one of great joy and great upheaval.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Story is everything.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm taking those words from Tamar Reno.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Writers have permission to live in alternate realities.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a lie if it's art.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm here today to talk about stories, the timelines we choose to live in.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: We all do it.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote as a kid because I wanted to escape the reality I lived in.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Horses and barns became the same kind of medicine for me as time went on.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's a mystery in the presence of the herd that invites us to think beyond our limitations,
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: to consider a different way of being.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: When I first started taking the stories out of my head and putting them down on paper,
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: someone accused me of having stolen the words or having made it all up.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: I still smart when I think about that.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Having our story questioned is a really big deal.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: I can vividly remember the periods of my life that were consumed with stories,
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: characters,
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: landscapes,
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: carved from my imagination and as real to me as the light from a sunset.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: These are liminal spaces.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: the in-between times of my world.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: My brain is balanced when I'm drifting in creative space.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: The whirling cyclones of my logical thoughts,
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: constant,
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: swirling,
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: destructive,
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: meet the sweeping robe dervishes of my subconscious.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: I've written before about how I'm an anxious traveler.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Many years ago,
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was deeply immersed in a story I was writing,
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: and my ex-husband planned a sudden trip back home to Istanbul.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was expected to get the farm in order in a matter of days,
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: arrange the trip,
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: get finances in order,
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: hop on a plane,
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: and go.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: South Carolina to Turkey isn't a day trip.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Just getting there takes 24 hours of flights.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: This trip should have hit all my triggers and made me a nervous wreck.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: But it didn't.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: I had a story in my head.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was in love with my characters,
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: a criminal collection of international anti-heroes with sordid pasts,
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: burgeoning redemption,
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: and witty one-liners.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: My imagination was living my daily life through their lens.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: I might have looked like a farm girl on the outside, but my reality was so much more.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was guided by the story building inside my head.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: I packed my bags and with my best traveling clothes,
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: downloaded an eclectic Baroque soundtrack and boarded the plane to Turkey like I
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: was the most interesting person in the world.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone in the airports became a potential character, every view a potential new scene.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: With the storyline in my head,
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: I got out of my usual nest of fears and I lived life boldly like I belonged there.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: This way of traveling was so directly opposite to the way I usually did things that I astounded myself.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: What better way to experience the world,
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: to absorb it and not be trapped in lists and what-ifs and limiting self-consciousness?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: I felt my fingers against the fluted glass of hot tea beside the gray waters of the Bosphorus.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: I stood still on a street of fabric shops and absorbed the call to prayer like it
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: was a song made of wind.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: I photographed every sacred street cat I saw.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: I tried on clothes and danced to the cure in a dressing room.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: I engaged in deep, drunken conversations with mystics in old bars.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: I chased ghosts by the graffitied walls of old Constantinople on Halloween night.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Photos from that trip are so different from the dark-eyed hauntedness on my face
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: and images from other trips to Istanbul.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: We made many sojourns there.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: I love the city and was proud to know it was my second home.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: But my face on this trip, when my head was filled with stories, it's different.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: My eyes are mischievous and bright and open, alive, not guarded.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: The stories we live in our minds change the shape of our realities.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: We think in stories.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Psychologists know this.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's why cognitive behavioral therapy has become the mainstay of therapeutic techniques,
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: considered universally beneficial when so many other tools are strongly debated.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: CBT works by challenging the spontaneous,
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: negatively habitual thoughts we've amassed as defensive patterns in response to the world.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Narrative therapy is another psychotherapeutic process that is used to transform thinking patterns.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: We live and breathe and react through the stories we tell ourselves.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Some are good,
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: some are bad,
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: but we have a choice,
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: no matter how much it feels in the moment that we do not.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: I know that feeling of stuck, frozen immobility intimately.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: We can change, adapt, alter, and transform our stories.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: We really are the authors of our own life.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like defending my first written story when I was little,
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: I will go to war over someone challenging my narrative.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Many years ago,
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: I was honored to share a space in a clinic with Jane Stewart of Journey Horse in
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: New Mexico.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: It was my first experience with horse people who were more interested in knowing
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: the horse than they were in chasing achievements and accolades.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: The atmosphere was quiet and natural and vulnerable.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: We shared stories and we were honest with each other.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: At one point,
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Jane explained that we needed to let go of our stories in order to show up in a
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: better way for the horse.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: This idea incensed me.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: I argued back.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: I explained that as a writer, story was my guiding force.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: How dare anyone suggest I give up my story?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was like Jane wanted me to give up my identity,
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: hand over my documents,
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: and begin a new life and witness protection somewhere in the middle of Alaska.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: I hate the cold.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: I thank Jane to this day for her deep rooted patience with me.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: She explained that the stories we tell ourselves don't need to be static.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: They can move and change and grow.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: The point is letting go of our attachment to our story so that we can see what lies
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: beyond the mountains of our perception.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: We become so used to wearing the same story every single day that we forget that
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: stories are like clothes.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: We can wash them, dry them, change them, or try on a new outfit altogether.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're not supposed to be stuck.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: In my podcast interview with Tamar Reno, she said, story is everything.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's how we perceive our relationship to everything.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Humans for thousands of years have been programmed to think in stories.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's how we connect with ourselves, with other people, with the world around us.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: We think in stories.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Language is the root of our story.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the language we naturally think in directs the energy of our stories.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Tamar talks about how English is a static language.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's still and slow moving.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't inspire action.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: English holds our thoughts like a snapshot instead of a movie reel.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's easy to get stuck there, motionless in our thoughts.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Curiosity moves us.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Inspiration sparks us.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Questions encourage us to act.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Asking the right question.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's Tamar's gelding first horse who encourages us to keep searching,
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: trying on many questions for size until we found the right one,
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: until we've landed on the right question.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: How do we know when we found the right one?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because you won't need to ask a different question, first horse says.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote in my love story about challenging myself to see if I could hold an entire
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: conversation in questions.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Hint, it worked and Christopher didn't realize I was doing it.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Or he hasn't called me out on it yet.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Learning how to talk in order to listen was my first lesson as I launched my
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: coaching practice the day the world locked down during the pandemic.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: We were frightened.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: uncertain of the future,
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: wary of each other,
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: and learning to use our senses in a different way,
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: unable to read expressions beyond our masks.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: The only way I could show up as a confidant,
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: advocate,
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: and guide was by learning to ask questions,
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: sit back,
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: and wait.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: I learned to be patient with the pace of someone's story and to accept their stories as their truth.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Questions are the roadmap of my sessions with clients.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Questions can be hard or soft.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: They can create connection or divisiveness.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: They can be open or closed.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: The question I'm sure is right is rarely the one that ultimately allows a person
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: the space to unlock the next steps of their story.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Questions are alchemy.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Questions are a moving, breathing art.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Questions are my dance with the horses, myself and the world.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Questions, like all art, take practice.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Through questions,
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: I better know my story and decide if the narrative I'm living by still has my best
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: interest at heart.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Questions show me when I'm ready to change course, adapt and move forward.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Questions tell me when it's time to stay still and wait.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Inquiry guides a creative life.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: I pull myself out of dark places by the light of curiosity.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: At first, it's a dull flicker like a distant candle in the window of a forest.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm brave enough to reach beyond my story and follow a path of questions through
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: the dark trees,
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: I don't mind the briars and the sticks that snarl me.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: I brush them away and move closer to the light.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's no certainty as I shift the perspective of my story.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: The distant candlelight might lead to an empty house or it could welcome me into
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: the warm kitchen of a kind character who invites me inside for tea and conversation.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: I won't know until I knock.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: What I offer you at the end of this month,
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: this season,
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: this transition,
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: this year,
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: is an invitation to sink into your questions.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: I welcome you to explore your story.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: You can do this in your thoughts or in your notebook,
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: wherever it feels best to take a journey into and beyond yourself.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Here are some questions to get you started.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: One.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: What is a lie you told yourself and believed?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Was the lie necessary at the time?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: What happens if you write the truth next to it?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: 2.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Pretend you are a tree.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: What do you see?
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: What do you hear?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: What is your story?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: 3.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: What does no feel like in your body?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Do you listen to it?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Four, what does yes feel like in your body?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Do you listen to it?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: And five, if you could live anywhere else, where would it be?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Describe what your alternate home looks like.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: How do you spend your days?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's the season of shameless self-promotion.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to reorganize my relationship with gift giving in this end of the year rush.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: We made the universal decision in the farmhouse to take the pressure off.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: If gifts are under the tree on Christmas day, great.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: If we're gifting each other in January or February, that works too.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: The gifts I value more than anything right now are time, experience, and support.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: The day before I visited with Jane Pike on her podcast,
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: she sent out a list of beautiful,
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: thought-provoking questions.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: One was, do I have anything to share?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: As I made a list of things I wanted the world to know about,
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: I was surprised that supporting the arts was at the top of my list.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Before horses, I sold art, but I've always been interested in the primitive and outsider art.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: I want to know what people are making on the fringes.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: I want to know what folk artists see.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: I want to know their stories.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: My farm is a collection of outsider artists in every medium.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: I am thankful for this well of creativity every day.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And here's my wish list that I'm sharing with you.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: In your already overtaxed list of people's wants this season,
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to add to the burden by outlining ways you can support my work and my farm.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you have someone on your list that's hard to buy for,
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: think of these suggestions as creative,
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: eclectic,
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: and outside the box.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And the first is something new that I'm offering this season, and that's an archetype coaching session.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: And these micro sessions are 30 minutes in length and they use a combination of
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: beautiful cards and questions to assist you or your recipient in re-imagining your story.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: They take place by Zoom and the participant will receive a recording to refer back
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: to as they make their way into the new year.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the cards that I use for these sessions are beautiful and they're based in botanicals and animals.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it really gives us a chance to dive into symbol and archetype and what those
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: overarching themes in our life might mean for us.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: The second thing that you can do is sponsor a horse.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Many of our herd are seniors and every horse at my farm comes to us with a story.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: They have a permanent home with us where they help people heal every single day.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: By sponsoring an individual horse, you become part of their care and support team.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: And sponsorships allow us to provide care for them that we might not be able to otherwise.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very huge part of our barn here.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Another way that you can give back hugely to this community into this farm in the
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: holiday season is to subscribe to Stable Roots.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it's free,
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: paid,
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: or a gift subscription,
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: you are helping support the heart of my writing and this little farm in the
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: I have some exciting things planned for paid subscribers in 2025.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: And two other things,
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: we're past the time for holiday delivery,
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: but if you're not on a deadline,
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: you can snag Bramblewood Stables merchandise or a calendar if you visit our website.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Lastly, my wish list that I'm sharing with you.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: This item is absolutely free, and that is please share my work.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: Comment with your thoughts and spread the word on social media.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: It costs nothing,
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: but it pays dividends in building my platform and allowing me to send the wisdom of
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: my herd out into the world.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Let's do everything we can do to share each other's art in this coming year.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being here with me.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for reading my stories.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you for being the light that draws us closer through the forest.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be hosting a Zoom call next week for all my paid subscribers.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a long time since we did that.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I look forward to seeing everyone there.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Love, Kim.