If you are searching for insights into how to feel better, stories can help.

Seeing your life through the lens of stories helps you make better sense of your challenges and successes in the past.

Just as important, it helps you tap into persistence, hope and other positive qualities to help you overcome challenges in the present and future.

To explain more about what I mean, let me tell you my story.

Strive

To enter the world of adults, I had to grow.

Success!

After much effort, I reached my goal. An adult at last.

 

Oh no! I wasn’t finished yet!

Some new situation showed me I needed to climb again.

 

More growing!

Some mountains were easier to climb than others.

  

 

What does it all mean?

At times I paused, wondering, “Who is the person doing the climbing?”

Connecting the dots

I reached out for help to pull the pieces together.

Stories are for sharing

By shifting perspective, I saw my life as a story.

 

 

 

Striving together is way more fun

Sharing stories helped me combine my energy with the people all around me.

How about you?

What is your healing story?

 

 

I can help

In therapy, I provide support and tools to help you grow through difficulties towards your better self.

In memoir coaching, I show how to use your story to help you grow toward self-understanding.

In classes, I show you how to gather random memories and use writing to help you discover a healing story.

Seeing your life through the lens of story, helps you:

• Feel more confident in your own skin
• Feel courage about next steps
• Feel closure about regrets, abuse
• Increase your dignity and connection with others
• Find insights into multi-generational influences, trauma, etc

Writing about your life helps you:

• Engage in a healthy, energetic, creative hobby
• Improve brain health, word recall, articulation, verbal skills
• Develop a sense of purpose through communicating
• Appreciate the value of storytelling in modern life

When can you benefit?

The benefits you might gain from finding your healing story will vary depending on where you are in your life. Consider which of these challenges resonates with you.

Launching into emerging adulthood

When you finish biologically growing up, you must go out into the world. During this complex adjustment, you must develop relationships, career, and adult self image. Developing your story can help you claim your rightful place.

Grieving

After a loss, stories can help you find your way back to a life that makes sense. For one thing, stories can help you stay connected with the person you lost. For another, stories can help you gain courage to make sense of your new situation.

Midlife

After you’ve been an adult for a while, you begin to notice that the story of youth, when all things were possible, no longer seems to apply. A healthy, healing story can help you maintain energy and excitement.

If you’re feeling anxious or depressed

If your emotional state is distracting you from enjoying life, there are a variety of tools that can help you get back on track. When expanding your options, consider the power of finding the healthiest story you can tell about yourself. In your healthy story, you can heal from old wounds and add a more conscious courageous approach to the future.

Healing from trauma, abuse

Some disruptive events in the past leave emotional wounds years later. Repairing your story can help you recover from these disruptive memories, and restore a healthy sense of safety and purpose.

Other major changes in role or identity

At many times in our lives we must assume a new role. Now I’m a parent, then a grandparent. Now I’m a student, then a doctor. Now I’m a resident of one country. Then of another country. Now I’m married. Now I’m single again. As we move from one role into another, finding the new story can help us grow into and fulfill our best selves.

Healthy aging

As the decades pass, you look back on an increasing pile of memories. If you ignore these memories, they might seem jumbled. By gaining the habit of storywriting, you can reshape the past into the purposeful framework of a story, bringing you pleasure and energy in the present.