Episode 46 How to Re-frame Your Difficult Stories: Step 1 (Workshop 5-Part Series)

REFRAME YOUR DIFFICULT STORIES – 5-Part Workshop Series Do you want to be free of the stories in your life that make you feel small or that you find shame or guilt around? These stories often affect our self-perception and thus our interpreted self-worth. This workshop is to help you reframe and resee your life in healthier ways. Workshop Step #1 – Accept It Debbie Ford said, “The greatest act of courage is to be and own all that you are. Without apology, without excuses, and without one’s masks to cover the truth of who you really are.” Stay with us today as we launch into the 5-week Series outlining the 5 steps to reframing your story. Today we will discuss the first of the five steps that take you through the process of reframing your stories for a new space of freedom, peace and a new appreciation and love for your own story. This process is not always easy. In fact, if you are truly doing it correctly it could prove to be a painful process, but make no mistake, it is worth every brave step to dig deep and do the work to love your story, which leads to a fuller acceptance and love of yourself.  And what is more important than that foundation? Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee, and I’m excited for our future together of telling stories, evaluating our own stories, and lifting ourselves and others to greater places because of our control over our stories. This podcast is about empowerment and giving you, the listener, ideas to work with in making your stories work for you. Story power serves you best when you know how to use it. As I was finishing up my masters degree and my research on the personal narrative, and considering where I wanted to go with my doctorate work, I found that I wanted to further my work with personal narrative in an effort to make sense of my own life story, for which I did not feel complete comfort. There were spaces of shame, of disappointment and of failure that I wore on my back, everyday. I designed a research plan before I was even finished with my MS work and jumped into the research by interviewing women to discern if their life stories had turned out as THEY expected. It turned out that out of the 20 women who agreed to be part of the research project, only one of them said her life had turned out as planned. These women were diverse. They had different belief systems, they came from different parts of the country, they were different ages, had different careers, different marital statuses, etc.  As I became privy to their stories I felt less alone, but I also realized that there was powerful work to be done in how we view our life experiences.  After graduating with my MS degree I went into a space of consideration – where would I go from here? Would I pursue my Ph.D. and the Love Your Story research? Would I start consulting with businesses on how to use story? What would I do next? As fate would have it, I began an emotional intelligence leadership conference that lasted the entire next year as I went through one program after another. At each step, I learned more about the stories we tell ourselves, about how to reframe, about how to let go, and about how to live big. I worked with personal coaches and I eventually coached others. It became clear that what I wanted to do with my writing, my research, and my tools and understanding of story was to share them and empower as many people as were ready to stand up and love their story. People, who like me, were ready to embrace the tools and take the action for coming to a place of increased peace with their own powerful, disjointed tales. Brene Brown said, in her book Rising Strong, “So much of what we hear today about courage is inflated and empty rhetoric that camouflages personal fears about one’s likability, ratings, and ability to maintain a level of comfort and status. We need more people who are willing to...