People talk a lot about stories as in \u201cshe\u2019s stuck in her story.\u201d\u00a0 Story is made out to be a bad thing.\u00a0 Story is often given a bad rap, but there are also stories that inspire, that open doors for us.\u00a0 I think we need to learn the difference between stories that trap us, and stories that support us.<\/p>\n
One of the things I learned, perhaps when I was doing co-counseling, was that if you listened with attention, the person would work their own way through whatever the problem was.\u00a0 One time I was listening to my friend Beverly talk about something that was troubling her.\u00a0 I had all sorts of ideas and agendas to ask her about, but fortunately I kept my mouth closed.\u00a0 She took the story to an entirely different place that was a good solution for her.\u00a0 So I learned to keep my mouth shut and listen.<\/p>\n
I had another\u00a0friend, someone I saw regularly, who was living in a community.\u00a0 Some new people moved in who belonged to a fundamentalist group.\u00a0 Every time I saw her, she would talk about how awful they were, how she was scared they would take over.\u00a0 I kept listening dutifully, hoping she would work her way through, but hearing the same story over and over.\u00a0 Finally I got so fed up I told her it was boring.\u00a0 She was horrified.\u00a0 I felt terrible.\u00a0 I thought about it a lot and realized I should have intervened much earlier.\u00a0 I had failed to pay attention to my own frustration, and had forgotten the useful skills of NonViolent communication<\/a>.\u00a0 It would have been so much better if, as soon as I started feeling frustrated at hearing the same story yet again, I had said \u201cI\u2019m uncomfortable listening to this story.\u00a0 It sounds to me like you are telling the same story over and over.\u00a0 Could you tell me what you\u2019re feeling as you tell me about these people?\u201d or some variation.\u00a0 I learned from that experience that sometimes people do use a story to stay stuck.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think anyone uses a story to \u201cstay stuck.\u201d\u00a0 But I think it is possible to get stuck.\u00a0 Lots of people get stuck in \u201cvictim\u201d stories, possibly that makes people feel sorry for them? \u00a0It also allows them not to do the hard work of healing. \u00a0Or they blame their perpetrator.\u00a0 Neither of these stories creates movement.\u00a0 On the other hand, sometimes you have to realize that you were<\/span> a victim, because then you can stop beating yourself up about the stupid behavior that resulted from being victimized, and you can start to heal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" People talk a lot about stories as in \u201cshe\u2019s stuck in her story.\u201d\u00a0 Story is made out to be a bad thing.\u00a0 Story is often given a bad rap, but there are also stories that inspire, that open doors for … Continue reading