Real Life Resilience

Ann expects to die with an open notebook in her hand. In fact, her tombstone inscription is already prepared: Loved This World, Pen In Hand. This poet and has been writing since the fifth grade. She believes writers live life twice, and that’s her favorite quote from Anais Nin. Listen as Ann shares how writing spurred her curiosity in life, and helped her get through depression. Lifestory Toolkit: Noticing The Details,  Free Download: 5 Ways to Get Kids Writing and 1 Sure Way For Them To Enjoy It

 

Curiosity for Life

* At 25 (in 1971), Ann drove cross country on her own to visit everyone in her address book, and picked up hitchhikers along the way

* She hitchhiked on her own through the US and Europe

* She loves to meet new people, and once introduced the US Ambassador to Scotland and a CIA agent on a plane. She is now invited to teach in Scotland whenever she travels there.

 

Writing Habits

* Ann writes every day, but not at a set time

* She handwrites (prints) because it is slow and it is about the period of a breath

* In her classes, she asks people to handwrite because of the pace and physicality of it

* Although you don’t get every idea, your ideas will come out at some point – perhaps connected to something else

* Ann collects her favorite quotes and writes them in a journal along with the name of the author, these serve as inspiration for her writing

 

Writers Live Life Twice

* The first time, you live your life

* The second time, you re-live it and re-experience it through writing about it

* There’s so much around to help you remember

* Ann’s depression took hold of her for a year. To keep her spirits strong, before she went to sleep, she wrote one thing of beauty that she’d seen that day. That helped her get through that year.

* At one point, her therapist asked if she was suicidal. Ann said, “I’m not suicidal, but I know why people commit suicide.” Writing (and a good prescription) helped keep the spark alive.

 

Lifestory Toolkit: Noticing the Details

(Brought to you by Lifestorytelling.com – Discover YOUR life stories!)

This episode’s Lifestory Toolkit features an activity I call: Noticing the Details. Writing that draws a reader in is composed of details that most people don’t think about until you’re conscious about it. This week, go take a walk through your neighborhood. What do you see? Notice the architectural details of the houses. What kind of plants are in the yards? What brand of cars are in the driveways? What do you hear? Birds? Kids playing? Cars on nearby roads? What smells do you smell? Flowers? Cooking? Car exhaust? Record these on your smart phone as you go along. Then, when you return from your walk, see just how many of those details you remember. Be a bit of a Sherlock Holmes and notice the details. Those are your little bits of information to include in your writing that will make it come alive. You’ll bring your reader on the walk with you, which draws them into your story. Try it once a week and see how much more you’ll notice about the world.

 

Free Download: 5 Reasons to Get Kids Writing and One Sure Way for Them to Enjoy It

Writer Kristi Willis started using Evernote by clipping and organizing her vast collection of recipes while watching football games. She shares some unique ways you can use Evernote (a virtual productivity tool) for all stages of writing, from sketching an outline of your idea, capturing audio notes and interviews, collecting research found on the internet, to putting it all together. Lifestory Toolkit: Headspace App. Free Download:  21 Ways to Capture Family History

 

Untethered And Productive

Kristi co-authored a book entitled Untethered With Evernote: Tips and Workflows for Independent Entrepreneurs. Evernote is a key tool for writers. The book is for people who work in messy places on-the-go such as airports, client offices, and coffee shops.

 

Evernote Productivity for Writers 

We’re just scratching the surface of how to use Evernote in this interview. If you want to write your family stories, Evernote can help keep you organized. Ideas that Kristi shares:

* Collecting research and keeping it organized

* Tagging/labeling the individual pieces of different projects

* Record interviews with people (hint: family members) and share them

* Collect and preserve pictures – scan or upload

* Write names/dates/details right on the digital picture

* Share these virtual notebooks with others in the family

* Organize chapters of your book along with the research associated with each one

* Upload and attach documents to specific notebooks

* The search inside Evernote is powerful…even if you’ve taken a photo of a word it will show up in a search

* Pictures, audio files, text, Word documents, PDFs and other formats can all exist in one note.

* Evernote syncs between all devices that you have (desktop, web, phone, tablet)

* Two or more people can edit a document at once, Evernote shows you the other person is there

The best way to discover how this tool can help you, think about a problem that you have first. Then brainstorm ways that Evernote can help you solve that problem.

Listen to the podcast to discover Kristi’s two favorite tools within Evernote – Skitch and Scannable.

Evernote Blog has different ideas on how you can use this tool to help organize your life. The basic sign-up is completely free, plus version is $24.99 per year, and the premium version is $49.99 per year (which includes unlimited storage). Here’s the link to sign up.

 

Lifestory Toolkit: Headspace App

(Brought to you by Lifestorytelling.com – Discover YOUR life stories!)

I’m a big fan of the Headspace App. I’ve heard many times that meditating or mindfulness is helpful for your focus, relaxation, and getting more things done. But I was never able to do it. This app is fabulous because it actually talks you through it every time you use it. So it’s a guided meditation and helps you make it very useful. There are various goals you can tell it to help you focus on health, performance, change, appreciation, creativity, happiness, focusing itself, depression, anxiety, self-esteem, and many more. A 10-session foundation course is free, so check it out. To unlock the full headspace journey and choose what you want to focus on you can get a monthly or annual subscription for as low as...

“I believe everyone has a story and that storytelling has the possibility of changing the world. It’s a high concept, I know. This doesn’t mean everyone will write a memoir or a piece of fiction. But, if we know how to read our stories we’re so much better off in articulating our purpose and knowing next steps. Sometimes, that purpose includes writing. Other times, it’s just decisions that leave us stumped. We can’t know our story unless we’ve allowed it room to breathe,” Elora Nicole, author and coach.

Storytelling is an Excavation

* You can’t bite everything off at once and expect to be the same person afterward

* It’s like a chunk of ice, you have to take an ice pick to it and work around the edges

* The more you write and focus on the peripheral of your story, the more some of the core pieces will surface

 

Storytelling is Currency for Human Connection

* Tell me a story, the why behind the why, I’m more likely to connect with you and understand on a deeper level.

* When faced with a conflict, it’s natural to reach for a story

* That’s why storytelling changes the world

* When you have a connection with someone, it’s harder to ostracize them and use them as a stereotype

 

Take Home Message:

* Get a HUGE discount for Elora’s Coterie premiere writing membership site for a monthly membership of 17 dollars

* Start excavating YOUR story by working around the edges

 

Lifestory Toolkit: Pomodoro Technique

(Brought to you by Lifestorytelling.com – Discover YOUR life stories!)

This episode’s Lifestory Toolkit features the Pomodoro Technique. It’s a way of getting any work done, whether you’re writing, working on the job, or just need to make progress on any project. For many people, time is an enemy. We race against the clock to finish assignments and meet deadlines. The Pomodoro Technique teaches you to work with time, instead of struggling against it. A revolutionary time management system and the fundamentals of the Pomodoro Technique are simple yet incredibly effective. Here’s how it works: First, choose a task you’d like to get done…big or small. Second, set a timer for 25 minutes and make an oath to yourself that you will work exclusively on that task and not interrupt yourself. If you think of something else you need to do, quickly jot it down on a piece of paper and go back to working on your task. Third, when the timer rings, stop what you’re doing and put a checkmark of success down on a piece of paper to track. Take a short break, get a cup of coffee, breathe, take a short walk or do something relaxing. When the break is done, set the timer for another 25 minutes. Every four Pomodoros, you’ll want to take a longer break of 20 or 30 minutes. Give the Pomodoro technique a try and you’ll be surprised just how much progress you’ll make. You can find more information at pomodorotechnique.com.

 

Free Download:

Can I Write...

Most people are trained to hold their own story at arm’s length. The goal of academic writing is to separate your own experience from what is objectively true. That lifelong training can make it very hard for people to write from their own heart and soul. The interesting thing is that when you get in the middle of a writing project, those lines start to blur. When you go on a writing journey, you discover a lot about who you are. That’s when it gets really interesting. When you reveal yourself, become vulnerable and show your passions, that’s what makes it exciting for the reader and that’s where the magic happens. Lifestory Toolkit: The Emotion Thesaurus. Free Download: Does Your Scrapbook Have a Story Arc? and Behind the Scenes of Writing a Book.

Struggling with Procrastination

* First of all, don’t beat yourself up. Everyone struggles with procrastination at some point in their lives-it’s part of the human condition.

* Those moments when we procrastinate tend to indicate that we are approaching something that is important-the more you procrastinate, the more important that project may be for your life.

* Ask yourself out loud or in writing: Why is this project important to me?

* Tip: Morgan has her author clients write out 1 to 3 sentences on a Post-It note and put it above their computers. Seeing that intentional, visual goal everyday helps tremendously with motivation.

* Personal Example: “I’m writing this book to inspire and encourage writers to stop procrastinating and to give them the tools to write their book. This book will change some writer’s life. She will write the book she always wanted and that book just might change the world. This book will help me connect with authors and grow my business so that I can support my family and work from anywhere in the world.”

Free Writing-The First Step

* ‘Free Writing’ is Morgan’s favorite exercise for beginning a book

* It’s a necessary step, because when you approach writing as “I’m going to sit down and write my book right now”, your internal editor turns itself on and starts judging before you even put any words down

* You need to push past that and write so fast that your internal editor doesn’t have time to judge!

* Tip: sit down with a timer, hands on the keyboard (or pen on paper), and just bring to mind what you want to write about. Start typing or writing as fast as you can-no rereading, backspacing, etc.

* There will be an almost direction connection between what your hands are writing and what’s sitting in the back of your mind.

* When you push yourself to go that fast, you will find that you are pushing past the predictable words and that the unpredictable is starting to tumble out.

* A few of these free writing sessions will open the floodgates and provide clarity and motivation.

* Note: You don’t need to use the free writing in your book. It’s just a tool for getting practice, ideas and direction.

Not Just the Facts, Ma’am

* Most people are trained to hold their own story at arm’s length.

* Schools, in particularly college, really train people to be objective and not rely on their own opinion, but to just ‘state the facts’.

* The goal of academic writing is to separate your own experience from what is objectively true and that lifelong training can make it very hard for people to write from their own heart and soul.

* Entrepreneurs and business people tend to do the same thing because they have been trained to present a self that is objective and professional.

* But, the interesting thing is that when you get in the middle of a writing project, those lines start to blur and it’s hard to say “this is an objective statement and it’s separate from who I am”.

* The writer can’t be separate from the words, so when you go on a writing journey,

“Like many people, I’ve had a difficult childhood,” says Author Mary DeMuth. “One of the things I struggled with in telling my story openly was that I didn’t know if I was through it yet and in a way, I don’t feel like I’m 100% completely healed of that story. I also worried about what other people would think, particularly family members who are still alive. And that was something I had to come to terms with. I realized that if everybody had that fear, and if everybody waited for all the people to die before they could write their memoir, then there would never be any encouragement for those who are walking through the muck of healing from their past.” Lifestory Toolkit: Trello Free Download: I Should Have Raised My Hand

Pain and a Broken Childhood

Mary DeMuth, author, speaker, and founder of Re-Story Me, had a very difficult childhood, including having been the child of 3 divorces and a victim of sexual assault.  Those issues can’t but help come out in writing because so much of what makes up our lives is formed in the first few years.  Pieces of Mary’s story are told in her book “Building the Christian Family You Never Had” which was followed up with her full memoir, “Thin Places”.  She has gone on to write much more and today, she’s also an international speaker, working with Compassion International at college campuses, and she is a guest at writer’s conferences.

Journaling to Achieve Healing-the First Steps

* Mary has always been a journal writer, so that much of her story was already in words but it was still ‘bottled up’ inside.

* When she first became a Christian, she started telling everyone her story, the ‘awkward oversharer at the party’, because she was desperate for people to hear her and to heal; she just didn’t know how to do it.

* She learned that was not always wise and it wasn’t until college, when she found a trusted group of friends that would pray for her, that the real healing started to happen.

* Her advice: If you haven’t already gotten your story out, journaling is an excellent first step, and then sharing it with a very trusted friend who won’t diminish or dismiss its importance.

 

Healing and the Creative Process

* God has used every book Mary’s ever written to heal her, so every time she’s inspired she wonders what He has to say and show her.

* God uses the creative process within our own lives for our benefit.

* You don’t have to write for public consumption. You may just have to do it for your own eyes, but God is going to do amazing things through your words by you simply writing them.

 

Letting Go of Fear

* One of things Mary struggled with when telling her story very openly was not knowing if she was ‘through it’ yet

* She didn’t feel 100% completely healed and how that might affect her writing

* She also had a fear of what others might think, especially relatives who were still living.

* She realized it was just something she would have to handle because if we all wait for everyone to die, there would never be any encouragement for others who are dealing with the muck from their past.

* Although you never truly get rid of that fear, Mary knew she had to overcome it because God had put her in place to write these books.

* It was a very scary and tenuous place to be, but after publication she never gave it another worry; she knew that her words would set people free . That joy trumped the fear.

 

‘Mind if I Pray for You?”- Mary’s Website and Newsletter

* She knows that many people receiving her newsletter have deep struggles and may be in a dark place, so she when she first started it, that piece of praying for her readers evolved and “Mind if I pray for you?

“The interesting thing that always strikes me when I write about emotional moments like this is just realizing that I’m very much writing about the experience as I experienced it, not necessarily as it was,” says Brett Gajda, host of Where There’s Smoke podcast. “What actually happened in the past is blended with our experience and our emotions. What happens over time is our emotions change, so perhaps our truth changes with time and distance from the event.” Lifestory Toolkit: StoryCorps App. Free Download: 5 Myths About Lifestory Writing

 

 

Bringing Your Truth Into the Story

When we’re looking to connect with people and make a point, we often tell a story. Through his podcast, Where There’s Smoke, host Brett Gajda brings poignant concepts to consider and tells stories to encourage deeper thinking. Telling his own stories on the podcast helps connect him with listeners and also helps him reflect on his own life truth.

Brett shares this wisdom:

* A real writer shows up even without the muse. The muse that inspires you is fickle. You, the writer, have to show up every day.

* Self-awareness is the foundation of self-development

* A huge part of showing up in the world the way you want to show up is our ability to constantly be practicing being present and self-aware

Writing is being able to step back a foot from who we are and what we’re experiencing or even to look back on something and slightly remove ourselves from it and then say “Okay, what happened there? What do I observe?” And that’s both connecting with our own feelings but it’s also separating ourselves from our own feelings just enough to try to keep some sort of unbiased perspective about it.

 

On Writing Well

* Borrow things from fiction writing that make an interesting scene to bring to life a lifestory.

* Use morning pages to get your thoughts out…and you don’t even have to read it. Sometimes writing is just about getting rid of the noise.

* To begin writing, ask yourself what is the purpose of writing for you.

There are infinite reasons to write. Judgment for your own writing doesn’t belong here. Judgment from yourself should never be part of the equation.

Recommendation: Go online and look up The Gap with Ira Glass. He talks about the concept called The Gap. At it’s core, any artist when they start doing something is the gap between what they know is good, and what they are currently doing. Whatever your “there” is, you’ll get there eventually.

 

Take Home Message:

* Watch The Gap with Ira Glass. Then bookmark it, believe this truth, and watch it whenever you doubt yourself.

* For the first 5 listeners who email Brett, commenting about this show, he will give a shoutout to you (and whatever you’re creating) on his show.

 

Lifestory Toolkit: StoryCorps App

(Brought to you by Lifestorytelling.com – Discover YOUR life stories!)

The StoryCorps app and StoryCorps.me were created as a global platform for listening, connecting, and sharing stories of the human experience. You might know them from the StoryCorps stories on National Public Radio. The StoryCorps app—a free mobile application—brings that experience to ALL of us! It seamlessly walks users through an interview by providing all the necessary tools for a wonderful experience. You receive help preparing questions,

Meg Worden spent 2 years in prison for conspiracy to sell the drug ecstasy. Problem was, she had already cleaned up her life and had a 2 month old baby when Federal agents knocked at her door with the indictment. Being able to tell her story is what liberated her from having to deal with the stigma of her situation. She wanted her son to live a life without shame. Listen as she discusses her search for value and what she’s done with her life now. Free Download: How to Tell When it’s Time to Leave Your Man and Meg’s Free Your Mind. Lifestory Toolkit: Morning Pages.

A High Price to Pay

“Why can’t we hang out with people that go to the Guggenheim?” Meg asked her boyfriend/drug runner. It’s a high price to pay when you are dealing drugs. You hang out with uncultured drug dealers…and her boyfriend was involved in an organized crime ring.

Drugs gave Meg a sense of power and value. People came to her for something that they wanted. It was a feeling that she could take up space in the world and she had something of value.

Ultimately, she realized the boyfriend and the drugs weren’t doing her any good. She started practicing yoga, cleaned up her life and had a baby.

However, Federal agents had secretly been carrying on an investigation involving her past. Although her life was cleaned up, her past arrived in full force when she was indicted and sent to prison.

Writing to Heal from Shame

There is a microcosm of real-life inside prison. It gave Meg time to think about definitions of things. For instance, people say they’ve been “given time” for prison, but they were given time as a punishment instead of a gift. People on the outside world long for “more time”. That started her on a journey of re-editing herself through creating and redefining life.

When Meg returned to the outside world, she started writing. She invested emotionally into what story she was going to tell to the world about what happened. She also needed to separate her story from her son’s story, because she didn’t want him stigmatized.

Listen to this episode as Meg share her story about writing to heal from trauma and shame.

Meg has a free mini-course called Free Your Mind….the basic foundation for creating a physical foundation for your success. You can find that here: http://megworden.com/free-your-mind

Take Home Message:

* Writing your stories can help you release the shame and fear that you have…so get started! The experience of telling your story is transformative.

* Start thinking about how you define things in your life. Naming those definitions can help bring clarity.

* Take Meg’s free mini-course Free Your Mind

 

Lifestory Toolkit: Morning Pages

(Brought to you by Lifestorytelling.com – Discover YOUR life stories!)

If you’ve looked at writing blogs or books you may have come across the concept of Morning Pages. Here’s the deal: Basically, everything you write initially is crap. Yes, I said crap. It’s, like, rip it to shreds, flush it down the toilet, “I can’t believe I even thought about being a writer” crap. However, the strange and ugly secret of all writers is this: you can’t get to the really great and inspiring words that will change the world…unless you write a bunch of crap first! There’s no getting around it. Young and old, experienced or not, you have to slog through the mire first. So the practice of morning pages, is designed to get that crap out of the way so you can write the good stuff.

“I was the only 8 year old who was using her allowance to buy death certificates,” says Lisa Louise Cooke, author of The Genealogist’s Google Toolbox. She’s discovered that Google is ‘cousin bait’ because our family history is in each others’ attics and Google is the portal. Listen as Lisa also describes how to take the intensity out of your core family relationships by picking your own values from your ancestors instead of your immediate family. Free download: 5 Fabulous Google Strategies for the Family Historian. Lifestory Toolkit: Scrivener

Demystifying the Genealogy “Why”

Lisa Louise Cooke feels that everyone should invest in learning about their family history. “If you don’t know where you’re coming from, it’s hard to know where you’re going,” she says. Learning about your rich family heritage…including the good, the bad, and the ugly…demystifies the “why”.

She has found it has almost eliminated animosity completely around some dysfunctional family situations. You regain a sense of control when you pick the values that work for you and put them into action. You don’t have to be in victim mode.

The first step is just to DO. She encourages us to start with baby steps. One hundred percent perfect but not done doesn’t help anybody. Eighty percent perfect but done will help somebody.

Cultivating the Storytelling Muscle

Lisa says that we should all tell our stories. Cultivating the storytelling muscle is a key way to ensure your family history research will last and benefit future generations.

Lisa has a stand-alone podcast for beginners called Family History: Genealogy Made Easy.

 

Take Home Message:

* Start a free blog and talk about your family history stories…Google may just pick up on keywords and introduce you to a distant cousin

* You can look into your ancestors to pick from family values to adopt as your own. You aren’t limited to your immediate family.

* If you don’t know where you’re coming from, it’s hard to know where you’re going.

 

Lifestory Toolkit: Scrivener

(Brought to you by Lifestorytelling.com – Discover YOUR life stories!)

Scrivener is a powerful content-generation tool for writers that allows you to concentrate on composing and structuring long and difficult documents. While it gives you complete control of the formatting, its focus is on helping you get to the end of that awkward first draft. Writing a memoir, research paper, script or any long-form text involves more than hammering away at the keys until you’re done. You might have to collect research, order fragmented ideas, or shuffle index cards in search of that elusive structure—most writing software is fired up only after much of the hard work is over. Scrivener is different. It’s a word processor and project management tool that stays with you from that first, unformed idea all the way through to the final draft. Outline and structure your ideas, take notes, view research alongside your writing and compose the constituent pieces of your text in isolation or in context. Scrivener won’t tell you how to write—it just makes all the tools you have scattered around your desk available in one application. They have versions for Mac and Windows and it’s a one-time fee of $35 to $45 depending on...

Happiness researcher Gretchen Rubin is interested in all facets of human nature. She shares her insights into the 8 Splendid Truths of Happiness, including "feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right in an atmosphere of growth." Sometimes happiness doesn't always make you feel happy, and sometimes we do things for our happiness that don't actually make us feel good. Find out why in this episode.

"There's been much research about the healing effects of writing. What writing does is connect these two parts of the brain that normally don't talk to each other. Every time someone says, 'Oh, this is gonna sound crazy' I know they're about to say something profound and true," says writing instructor Anais Salibian. Many studies have shown that it's emotionally healing for survivors to write about traumatic events that took place. Research done by Dr. James Pennebaker shows that there are actual health benefits from writing about unresolved experiences. Listen to the show to learn more.

Lifestory Toolkit:The Happiness Project One-Sentence Journal

Free Download: You Don't Have to be a Writer to Write Your Stories!