Episode 20: It's Just A Story

I’ve listened to many ‘stories’ from a lot of people about their lives for my entire life and I've told a lot of stories. But it wasn’t until I was told, “It’s just a story,” did I stop and reflect and realize that all those people who were hanging onto their stories, were using that story as a reason for why they could not heal. And if I wasn't careful and aware of this, I risked doing the same thing.  Once I made the conscious decision to reframe everything that had happened to me into the context of “it’s just a story," everything started to shift from that point forward. In today's episode, I give you insight into patterns we all share in our life story and how your storyline is not linear, but spiral and how those patterns repeat at specific intervals. 

Disclaimer: This podcast is for people who are ready to heal body, mind and spirit and are willing to take full responsibility for what that involves. I am not a doctor. I am not a therapist. This podcast contains adult language and themes that are not suitable for young children or those who are easily offended or triggered. The views discussed in this podcast are my own, based on personal experience and of those I have known and worked with for my entire adult life. This show is not meant to take the place of sound medical or mental health advice. You and only you are responsible for the choices you make based on the information you hear on this show. 

"We're all just walking each other home." Ram Dass

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Transcript

            Welcome to Episode 20: “It’s Just A Story.” 

            The summer of 2017 was a very tough summer for me. I’d spent eighteen months by that point doing torturous deep dives into my childhood, my life in general and I was seriously caught in a terrible circular thinking pattern that wasn’t leading to any healing whatsoever. I had absolutely stagnated and needed help. A friend of mine was worried about me and strongly suggested I talk to a therapist who she thought would be an ideal fit since the woman was no-nonsense and able to help people disentangle themselves from themselves. I agreed and made an appointment. I liked her from the moment we met. She was calm, direct and I could see how she was peering into me before we even sat down. She asked me what I did for a living and I told her I had been a writer for over thirty years until I had to quit in 2015 because of my health issues. So using my understanding of how to craft a storyline, she adapted that as a guidepost for her advice. After talking about the main traumatic events in my younger life for about twenty minutes without her saying one word, I took a breath and a sip of water. “How do you feel?” she asked me. “Tired,” I said. “I’m always tired.” “Hmm,” she countered. “Hmm, what?” I asked. “Can I tell you two things?” she offered. “That’s what I’m paying you for,” I replied. “First off,” she stated, “every time you dredge up your story and what happened to you, your reactivity to that trauma gets reignited in your brain. Your brain doesn’t know the difference between the story you’re re-telling of the event and the actual event itself that happened almost fifty years ago. You’re kicking your stress hormone cortisol up every single time you repeat and then re-live that story. And if you’re doing that all day long for months or years on end, is it any wonder you’re tired?” She had a point. A good point. “Okay,” I said. “What’s the second thing?” She put down her pad and leaned forward toward me. “It’s just a story,” she said. “It’s your story and it’s important to understand the context to understand your development. But in the end, it’s just a story.” 

            In that moment sitting in that cramped little office, I was put off. I felt like ‘my story’ was being ignored, dismissed, or not taken seriously enough. But don’t you know, that happened and this happened and he did this and she did this and then this happened and that happened and….ech. And yes, yes, yes. I’m tired. I’m exhausted. I didn’t see her for another couple weeks but there wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t think about what she said. And you know what? She was right! And that simple statement: “It’s just a story” began to reverberate in my brain more than ‘the story’ had been reverberating for those long eighteen months. Every time I started to re-think and re-live ‘my story,’ I stopped and said out loud, “It’s just a story, Laurel….It’s just a story.” And by doing that, I made the conscious decision to reframe everything that had happened to me into the context of “it’s just a story.” And everything began to shift from that point forward. 

I’ve listened to a lot of ‘stories’ from a lot of people for my entire life. But it wasn’t until I was told, “It’s just a story,” did I stop and reflect and realize that all those people who told me their stories, were using that story as a reason for why they could not heal. Everything from “I was neglected,” “I was abandoned,” “I was abused,” “I wasn’t given the tools I needed to live my life,” “I wasn’t taught how to deal with stress,” “I come from a family of addicts,” “I didn’t have a father,” “My mother hated me.” “I’m adopted and I’ll never get over it.” And on and on and on. 

I’m sure you’ve heard your share of sad stories too. And as a writer, I know how to write a story and what is involved in crafting a good story. And all good stories are built on the main character’s arc, as it’s called. Think of the arc of a rainbow. The character development starts on the left side of the arc or rainbow, follows that rainbow arc up and around and by the time they reach the other side of that arc, they are changed from the person they were when they started on that arc. In essence, they have traveled the journey of their own transformation.

            I majored in radio, television and film writing in college and I was blessed to learn from some of the best retired screen and television writers in Los Angeles at that time. These guys all knew how to tell a good story. And there’s a formula to telling a good story or writing a good script. Every single good film or television series that stands up to the test of time and is always considered a five star show faithfully follows this formula and through excellent storytelling, keeps the viewer engaged and so involved at times, that you forget you’re watching a work of fiction. You are rooting for that main character and if that character is flawed, all the better. We love flawed characters because we see aspects of ourselves in those characters. If they overcome that fictional adversity, it gives people inspiration and shows them that it’s possible for anyone to do that. And what is the first critical element that must be laid out in the first ten minutes of any film or television show or in the first ten to fifteen pages of any good novel? I learned the answer to this question on my first official day in class. What must you have? It’s five words: A PERSON WITH A PROBLEM. Without a person with a problem, we just have people sitting around a table eating dinner and talking. So, a person with a problem. Look at books that you really like, and see how the author grabs you in the first ten to fifteen pages. They establish the main character and then set up that character's problems. It may not be the main problem of the book, it may not be the main focus of the book, but you've got to introduce what that character is initially attempting to “solve.” By the time that storyline has completed, that problem must be resolved or settled in some way. But until it’s resolved, other problems arise that complicate the main character’s storyline. Obstacles are required for that character’s quest to overcome their problem. Complications are imperative in the quest for overcoming those obstacles. Dangerous or tense situations must often occur where you fear for the main character’s safety and wellbeing. 

And what is the driving force that generates these obstacles in any good storyline? The bad guy. The villain. What is a good story without the villain? Sometimes the villain is not a person. Sometimes it’s a force the character must struggle against. A hardship that forces them to become stronger and more resilient and through that experience, they transform and grow. 

I learned about the story formula that is called “The Three Act Principle.” Act One of your story establishes the main character, their problems, and creates the obstacles to those problems. Act One lays the foundation for their entire story. Within that first act, your main character requires either other characters and/or situations—preferably both—that continually complicate their lives as they attempt to solve their problems. Without the hills to climb, your character’s story will be flat and pointless. Challenges create intrigue and demonstrate the cleverness and/or determination of the main character. By the end of Act One, you must insert a challenge or greater issue than what has come before. In other words, Act One must end with a tense situation that puts the main character in some type of pickle. And this is the springboard to launch into Act Two which is the longest Act of your story. 

Act Two is the core of your story. Act Two is where you delve deeper into your main character, creating constant obstacles for him or her to overcome. This is also where you allow your main character to show their grit and creative determination to solving minor problems. Constant struggle in a story can be depressing. Just like in an action film, constant action becomes manic after a while and loses its attraction. So, you must have quieter scenes that are reflective before jumping back into the action. But always, always, always you have to keep the story moving forward as you peel away the proverbial onion layer by layer until you hit the center, which is the "sting" or the end of Act Two. Often by the end of Act Two, your main character is put into a position that threatens them in some major way. And this all leads to the big wrap up in Act Three, the final act of your story. Act Three is when all the pieces of the main character’s story come together and find some type of resolution or closure. 

Now, based on what I just outlined, I want you to begin reflecting in the coming days on your own story where you are the main character. But here’s the caveat: reflect on your story while also remembering it’s just a story. Don’t get so engaged in your story that you ‘lose the plot.’ Losing the plot is akin to becoming so confused with a diverging chaotic storyline that you forgot the plot of the story and basically don’t care anymore. Happens all the time in novels. You lose the plot you get bored you put the book down. In life, you lose the plot, you become disengaged, disinterested, detached and you put your own story down. Meaning, you stop caring and your story stops moving forward. I’ve lost the plot of my storyline many times. It’s often felt as stagnation or “what am I doing here?” or “what’s the point of this?” That’s your cue to stop and step back and reassess your story and make the appropriate adjustments so that it can pick up again and your life can move forward. 

Why am I suggesting you take time to reflect on your story, even though I keep saying it’s just a story? Well, if you are going to understand your story and your part in it, reflecting on the storyline that has happened so far, is necessary. Most of us never do this type of reflection. We’re too mired in the present time, just trying to get from this day to the next. Or we’re focused on the future and worrying how that’s going to shake out. But if you ever find yourself in a situation like I was in where your body breaks down and you don’t have a whole lot of choices and you are forced, as I was, to sit in a rocking chair for hours each day looking out a window and doing nothing but reflecting on the various years, you will begin to see the patterns in your life story and how those patterns shaped you and led you to wherever you are right now. You want to become both the observer of your life as well as the participant in your life. Ideally, I think it’s important to become the observer and participant in equal portions. By doing that, you train yourself over time to step out of your story and observe yourself, the people in your story and the patterns in your story and how all of this created who you are and how you operate in life. When you can look at your life as a story and see how you, the star of that story, got into this issue and that issue and gained this knowledge but lost something over here....you’ll start to see clear patterns. You see where you might have always gotten in your own way or sabotaged yourself and how that pattern was repeated years later. When you can reflect on your life and not have the ego driving the narrative, you can have a sobering conversation with yourself about what you must be willing to let go of and transmute in order to have the truer self break through. 

By looking fearlessly at the patterns and how those patterns created avoidance, bitterness, grief, longing and more, you can hopefully – through being ‘the observer’ – begin to catch the patterns that are not working in your favor and make an adjustment. This takes time. Months and months so don’t think that you can do this exercise over a long weekend. Once you learn to become the observer, things really do begin to shift and a lot of “Ooooh, okay, I see it now” reactions start to form. And while you’re observing your story, you have to keep reminding yourself that it’s just a story. I’ll keep saying that because it is so easy to fall into the victim mindset and that’s when you get mired in the drama and the trauma of whatever happened. 

In keeping with the Three Act Principle, look on your First Act as birth to around twenty-eight years old. Your second Act starts around twenty-eight to twenty-nine years old and continues until around sixty-two to sixty-five years old. Your third and final Act three, spans sixty-five to your death which is the end of your storyline. Now, within those spans of time, there are many embedded cycles that operate and carry your storyline forward. I've noticed a pattern with seven year and fourteen-year cycles and how they are often chapters in one's story line that end one way of being and launch another. So be aware of important life events at age seven, fourteen, twenty-one and onward in seven year increments and fourteen year cycles starting at ages fourteen, twenty-eight, forty-two fifty-six, seventy and eighty-four and so on. While I don’t like to generalize, I’ve paid attention to patterns with a lot of people where significant life events occurred between age twelve and fourteen, especially just before turning fourteen or just after turning fourteen. Check in to see what happened in your life between age twenty-seven and thirty-one. Then look at what happened when you were forty-two. Fifty-two to fifty-four can be when chickens start to come home to roost and if you don’t address it then, you may have no choice between age fifty-seven and sixty-one. Age seventy-seven can be another big year and then eighty to eight-four.

Life is not linear like it is in a novel or film where you have a distinct arc that starts here and drives a line to the end point of the storyline. One’s life story is not a straight line but, in actuality, a spiral. A cone. And this is where recognizing the patterns becomes fascinating. So picture an ice cream cone and wrap an imaginary string around that cone from the wider top of the cone to the narrow tip at the bottom. The top of the cone may span fourteen years as the imaginary string wraps around the cone. The next section of that wrapped string may be another fourteen years or a little less. The further down you go on that cone, the less years are represented by the string. Now, in your mind’s eye, place a point (which represents an experience or event) like the tip of a felt pen on the imaginary string and repeat that point on the wrapped string beneath it and so on. Each point reflects back on the top point. It’s often the same type of experience but it’s experienced by you on different levels and different perspectives because you get older and older. But you will often see, when you begin to reflect like this, that the same experiences repeat and if you don’t learn from them and resolve that underlying issue, your life will spin around on that imaginary string until you reach the next ‘point’ where the same experience is re-introduced and brought forth with the intention of you being able to heal it ‘this time around’ or if you can’t completely heal it, remove some of the baggage from it so when it circles around again on the spiral, you don’t have as much to resolve and complete. Look on each point as a mirror of the original traumatic experience or a reflection of it that shapes itself to repeat within a different context but with the same theme. 

I’ll give you an example of this. At age fourteen, a girl witnesses her mother attempt suicide in front of her by overdosing on pills. But the girl doesn’t get any therapy or a way to process this experience and so the healing for that experience of watching her mother attempt suicide never happens. Because she doesn’t get help for an understandably traumatizing life event, that event is left unhealed in the ether, and unhealed means unresolved. Thus, the originating event is clearly established and the pattern that will follow is engaged. So we now have the first point of experience on the string around the cone. Wrap that string around to age twenty-nine or thirty and that girl who is now a woman has a mirrored experience that is expressed as the next level of that first experience when her mother does indeed kill herself. Now the trauma is really embedded in what could become a cyclical pattern. Again, she doesn’t get help for this traumatic and life-changing event and so the pattern remains unhealed. Wrap that string around the cone and twelve years later at around age forty-two, put another point on that string when her sixteen-year-old daughter almost dies from a drug overdose. Now this event brings back the first event where the woman watched her mother overdose on pills in her suicide attempt. So here we are with an undeniable full-fledged traumatic pattern. What does the woman do this time? Does she change anything? Well, this time she agrees to therapy to gain some type of context. But after two years and not feeling like she’s getting anywhere, she quits therapy and begins to fall into a very deep depression. This continues for ten years (because remember the imaginary cone is getting narrower so the points of mirrored or reflective experiences are getting tighter in years), and at the age of fifty-two, it is she who attempts suicide. But she survives the attempt and now there’s no running away from it. Now a big decision must be made if this pattern of suicide is going to be faced, explored and eventually healed. And in this woman’s case, she decides to finally take the leap and do whatever it takes to heal this destructive pattern that has chased her on that spiral since she was a child. Eight years later, at the age of sixty, and after deep and meaningful healing and awakening to her divine purpose, she establishes herself as a certified counselor for teenagers and adults who have suicidal ideation. Suddenly the spiral pattern is broken and there is no need to repeat or mirror the suicidal event at any time in her future life story. Because she didn’t just heal it but she used it to help others hopefully avoid the same pattern she experienced. That is an example of how elegant these spiral experiences can be. Not only was it her destiny to have this suicidal pattern run in her family of origin but it was also her destiny to take it and create something useful to others that can prevent them from establishing the same destructive pattern in their lives. 

So, shifting gears now, it is vital to understand how your story is remembered and recounted and whether you can do this while maintaining accuracy and not allowing the emotional impact of your story to override the truth of what happened. If that story you are retelling is traumatic, that often alters the perspective and the reality of that memory. Three people can experience the same event but gather them together in a room and have them recount that event, and you will have three different perspectives and sometimes three different versions of the story. See how nebulous one’s story can be? I’ve known many people who were so traumatized by their upbringing that they built a robust fantasy storyline about their childhood that didn’t resemble anything close to the truth. And when several people were exposed to the same trauma and one of them continually leaves all the dark and horrible parts out and only props up the good parts, that becomes a real problem for the others who remember all the dark parts. What I’ve noticed in cases such as this is that the person who can’t or won’t acknowledge the darker truth often had a more sensitive, fragile nature and the event so deeply traumatized them to the point where they blocked it out completely in a way to protect themselves. I had several family members who were like that and while I didn’t understand back then about dissociative disorders or fragmentation of the mind due to extreme trauma, I did observe the manner in which they would always recount a story from their past and how they would tell that story in a detached manner, along with how the tenor in their voice would shift so that they would begin to drift away and then become lost in that place until someone else spoke up and they would be brought back to the present moment. 

This type of individual often experienced a trauma where they couldn’t believe what they saw because it was so awful and so they wiped it from their memory and pretended it away. I knew someone who did this and she brought the same “I can’t believe what I’m seeing or hearing” mentality into the present so she always reframed an upsetting or disturbing present-day experience through the same damaged rose-colored glasses. She could be in a room where she and others heard someone make a very abusive statement and she would later deny that what was said was said, even against the volley of the others who chimed in to say “No! That’s indeed what he said!” Now, part of that is dissociation which is a cardinal sign of trauma. When you’ve been traumatized and you’ve never gotten help to heal it, any time the traumatized person engages in a conversation that is stressful to them, they will not be able to accurately repeat back to you what was said. And sometimes, they have no memory of what was said, period. Why is that? Because they checked out. They detached. They dissociated. They disengaged and everything that was said or done during that dissociative period was not absorbed by them because they literally disappeared from the conversation.  

One of the worst things you can do is give too much emotional meaning to a past event or memory where you don’t have all the necessary information, or you are basing your meaning of a past event through the lens or perspective of someone else and you are just parroting whatever they say. Again, so much of this comes down to perspective and being able to accurately see what is really happening and remove all the emotionally driven narrative or perception from whatever you’re seeing. And then be able to have ten or more years pass and be able to recount the story of that event with the same pinpoint accuracy. That’s not easy and when you bring brain fog and age decline and trauma into the mix, you can understand how a story can become corrupted and misremembered. I read an article that stated how we are constantly revising our memories within our storyline and that it’s based on our present-day perspective and whether we have gained emotional maturity and awareness so that when we reflect back, if we are able to do so, we can often see things we didn’t understand when we were younger and closer to the actual experience happening. An example of this would be how a person always framed an annual family get together and the individuals who were there and maybe they always said something like, “I never liked my Aunt Mary because she wasn’t kind to me and always treated me as if I didn’t exist.” But then we grow up and we discover that all those years ago, Aunt Mary was in a very abusive relationship that she kept secret and the annual family gathering was always a major source of stress for her because of how her husband would treat her. So you have to revise not only your opinion of Aunt Mary but you also have to realize her behavior toward you had nothing to do with you and that, in truth, now you feel a great deal of compassion for how she was silently struggling back then. 

The other very important point I want to bring up is how you must be extremely careful that you don’t manufacture false memories that have the potential for creating tremendous, unnecessary chaos in your life. And any therapist or guru who manipulates you to believe this person or that person abused you when they absolutely did not should be regarded as dangerous and you must remove yourself from them. False memories or false perspectives about your past can also be exploited during sacred plant medicine ceremonies when you might be guided prior to your sacred journey to program your intention on a specific event in your life or person surrounding that event. That’s very common. The reason a lot of people go to South America to take part in these intense ceremonies is because they want to heal past trauma. When you are under the power of the psychedelic, it’s often hard to quantify what you are experiencing, and so it’s very easy to believe you uncovered something when, in fact, you conjured a false narrative because you so want to create containment around your trauma and the way you are being guided during the session to address this issue is driving your internal narrative. I’ve experienced this myself and I’ve witnessed it with others who are engaging with psychedelic therapy where meaning is attached to something that is completely misconstrued. I fully understand that healing traumatic childhood abuse is one of the big reasons a person chooses to use psychedelic sacred plant medicine therapy and do it tandem with a shaman, a guide or a sitter who is trained in this type of intense work. But the number of false memories that are often cultivated and are not seriously analyzed when one is not under the influence of the plant medicine is concerning to me. Some of the false memories I’ve had people relay to me don’t pass the critical thinking test. Either the timeframe they are insisting on doesn’t make sense or the people they claim were witnessing the event were living in another state when it happened or simply, the story just doesn’t make sense or add up. And if you hear the same type of memories being falsely remembered by two or more people who don’t know each other, within a healing group, that is driven by a charismatic teacher of guru, that’s a huge red flag. 

The term, “it’s just a story,” I learned, is attributed to a quote by the author of the The Fight Club, Charles Palahniuk. He wrote, “Your past is just a story. And once you realize this, it has no power over you.” In the theme of personal transformation and alchemical healing of body, mind and spirit, your story is really a compilation of experiences, traumas, celebrations, milestones and more that becomes the tapestry of your narrative. But by always remembering that “it’s just a story,” one can eventually begin to extricate themselves from the burden that story is creating for them. Through the healing process that one goes through, we learn that dragging the past into the present doesn’t allow for a healthy future. Yes, you have to acknowledge your past story but I think I’ve made it pretty clear today how that story can become manipulated and given meaning that it doesn’t require. And while understanding your patterns is vitally important to uncovering why you might be prone to illness or depression or panic attacks, dredging it all up constantly does nothing to help heal what needs to be healed. I can attest that spending too much time engaging in your story and rehashing it and basically beating it to death is not the best method to use if you are seeking peace and contentment. Every time a solider with PTSD has to repeat the story of a battle in which his buddy was blown up two feet from him, he is forced to relive that story and bring back up to the surface the grotesque images that haunt him and give him nightmares. In that case, the story and the retelling of it becomes counterproductive to his salvation if he has any chance at resolving his trauma. One of the worst things that happens is when you are too engaged in your story, you are not fully experiencing the present moment. That is what happened to me when I fell into this mindset and attached far too much meaning into ‘the story’ and because of that, I kept obsessively digging and digging until one day I finally realized I had to stop because if I didn’t stop digging, I would never find the peace and contentment that I thought would be found at the end of the digging. But that was a lie because there is no end to the digging so I had to get to a point where I agreed that my healing didn’t depend on reaching the bottom of that imaginary hole. 

I will say this: once you come to terms with that realization, you really are able to put to bed many events in your life that were characterized or defined as “traumatic.” I know many women who were sexually molested as children and who have done the work and healed from that experience and while they fully acknowledge it was a point on their storyline, it does not define them, it isn’t the reason anymore that they can’t participate in life or be happy and intimate with their partner. It’s not their legacy or how they see themselves in the present moment. 

Your story is not a badge or label you wear, but a chronicle of how things progressed for you, the main character, and how those events got you to where you are right now. But while it may be important to you, your story may not be that unique because the same stories are often repeated throughout history and in different languages and cultures. The point is that you are NOT your story. That’s far too limiting a concept, in my opinion. Your story simply serves as the engine that drives your experience in this lifetime. I think far too many people lean on their story as their identity. And by doing that, they create a very tight container that often holds them hostage, especially when they constantly repeat events from the past that don’t serve their present moment. That does nothing to heal you. That’s regurgitating an old story that gets very boring and tedious to listen to after a while. When your story becomes a crutch that you use to either not engage in life or as a weapon against others, then all you’re doing is creating a cycle of victimhood that is never going to lead to your intended healing. 

As I said earlier, everyone’s story will have similar themes. There will always be the obstacles and challenges to overcome. Everyone around you is playing their part in relationship to your story and the trajectory of where your story is destined to go. You have supporting players and countless guest actors that drop into your story for a brief period of time, and then when their part and influence is complete, they leave your story. And just like with everyone else’s story, there must be villains because without the villain, there is nothing for you to push against and push through. Nothing to overcome. Just like every great story you’ve ever read or seen in film, TV or stage, the villain is an inherent and necessary element to the storyline. We may hate the villain. We may be terrified of him or her. We often want to see the villain suffer. The villain can be a person. It can be a terrifying or dire situation. The villain can also be a place. And yes, the villain in your story can be all three, hopefully not at the same time. But that can happen. It happened to me and lasted for almost two years. And by the end of those two years, I was easily able to walk from the place and the situation and face the person without fear. And that triple threat, while exceptionally stressful and maddening at times, proved to me that we can play the role of David to whatever Goliath shows up and recognize that the inner strength and power that was imbued in me because of that often insane experience, allowed me to inhabit a focused and determined demeanor that refused to give up or give in to the villain. And so, in this case, the villain played her role to perfection by giving me the opportunity to learn what I was made of. There will always be at least one villain in your story, but each one represents and mirrors the same energy with varying octaves, that shows up with the sole goal of teaching you the lessons you were born to overcome. 

Always remember to root for the main character in your story.

But always remember that it’s just a story. And don’t let that ‘story’ be your reason or excuse for why you can’t heal. 

That’s all for this week. Thank you for choosing to listen to this show. If you like what you hear, share this podcast with others and follow me. Check out the notes for this episode where you’ll see the links to find me on Instagram and X @laureldewey or thealchemyofnaturalhealing. On all the show notes, I’ve included the companies I personally support and have helped me in my own healing process, so please check that out. And there are coupon codes. Looking forward to you joining me next week when we’ll talk about “The Art Of Letting Go.” New episodes drop every Saturday. Until then, remember that “Awareness is a demanding mistress. Once she wakes you up, she won’t let you go back to sleep.”