Hey dude!

In today's episode, we focus on what a story is, and how we tell the stories of our lives communicates way more, if we know how to hear the unspoken layers. More specifically, we talked about:

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How story is a container, that holds all sorts of fragments of truth and shards of the ‘who I want to be and just am not.'

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If story is the container, then there are definitely different kinds of containers that hold not just our stories, but who we know ourselves to be. These are like Russian nesting dolls, the smallest having the least space to hold things other than itself, but also in many ways feeling the most solid, and real.

These include personal narratives, myths, and archetypes:

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Personal narratives are the ways in which we frame our stories that aren't nearly as dramatic/fun/adventurous as we wish they had been. They are where we begin to move from ‘this happened and then that happened' to ‘and when this happened, it meant…and then when that happened, I felt, you felt, we felt…this.' Personal narratives give us a small measure of control because when we tell the story, we begin to own the story.

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Myths take that control to the next level. The story begins to evolve, we tell it in ways that while still true, might become less factual. Myth longs to be more than what actually is. It wants to proclaim that “I am so goddamn important that I will obscure myself completely from this story that who I tell you I am is only a tiny, insignificant piece.”

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Myth and story both seek to contain the narrative, to control it, so we can communicate to others who we are (even when we don't necessarily know who we are, or even who we want to be). Archetype is too large to control. It holds more than we could ever imagine, and it can be held in our mind with a single symbol. No other words are necessary.

In order to grow, you have to apply this shit. You could..

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Pay close attention to your same ol', same old. What books do you find yourself returning to again and again? Shows that you’ve binged more times than you can count? What routines sooth you? Drive you nuts?

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What phrases do you hear yourself using over and over again? What might they mean (don’t stop at just one meaning, mind map that shit, and explore as many possibilities as you can ring out, and then try for two or three more).

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Get curious about how these frames/themes/stories ground you, and if you’re a brave badass, consider how even your most beloved stories of self may be imprisoning you.

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HOSTED BY: Jenn Fredette