{"id":851,"date":"2010-11-24T10:02:13","date_gmt":"2010-11-24T15:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=851"},"modified":"2012-03-22T19:34:10","modified_gmt":"2012-03-22T23:34:10","slug":"more-about-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=851","title":{"rendered":"More About “Story”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\tWhat\u2019s the difference between a story that helps you move on in your life, and one that\u2019s just digging you deeper into the hole? Often a story that blames someone else for your difficulties is one that keeps you stuck. I had a friend who used to go on and on about some people who had moved into her community. She would talk about how awful they were and how afraid she was that they would change the neighborhood, but she just kept kept saying the same things over and over. I got very tired of listening, but didn\u2019t know how to stop her. I also made encouraging noises, hoping she would feel heard and stop, but she just went on & on. I realize now that I could have used Marshall Rosenberg\u2019s Non-Violent Communication<\/a>. I could have said \u201cI\u2019m uncomfortable listening to this. Would you be willing to tell me how you\u2019re feeling as you tell me this story?\u201d Sometimes telling that kind of story is just an excuse for not doing your own inner work. You aren\u2019t going to be able to change someone else, so it\u2019s important to find a way of taking care of yourself that allows whatever they said or did to just become a fact in your history but not a determinant of your narrative.
\n\tThe quality of the listening can make a difference. If you are telling the story to someone you know cares about you, and won\u2019t judge you, there can be great relief in the telling, and sometimes you even see new facets of the story and new places you might go. If you are telling your story to someone who has an agenda for you, or someone you know (or just think) is judging you, then the story gains a whiny or intense edge that has you trying to prove something or justify something, and you are caught in the \u201cjudgment loop<\/a>.\u201d
\n\tAs the oldest child in an alcoholic family I have a tendency to \u201ctry to fix it\u201d when someone\u2019s having trouble. This usually doesn\u2019t work, and I was lucky to have an early experience of how compassionate listening works. My friend Beverly was telling me about some difficulty she was having, and I thought I knew what she should do, or maybe I had an analysis to tell her, but instead I kept quiet. Beverly talked her way through the difficulty, which turned out to be something completely different from what I thought was going on. She knew EXACTLY where she needed to go – or found it out in the talking. Unfortunately, that experience as well as early participation in \u201cCo-counseling\u201d, where the listener just listens without offering anything, made me go too far the other way. I have a tendency to listen uncritically, which is fine, but I need to pay attention to my body and speak up when I feel uncomfortable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s the difference between a story that helps you move on in your life, and one that\u2019s just digging you deeper into the hole? Often a story that blames someone else for your difficulties is one that keeps you stuck. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healing","category-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}