Tag: story

Rebuilding Your Island

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Recently, I returned from an amazing honeymoon voyage to the Virgin Islands. As our ship docked, we were in breathtaking awe of the pristine clear blue waters and lush tropical hillsides. We were greeted by locals dressed in colorful costumes representing their indigenous culture and dancing to Caribbean music. Quaint shops lined the historic avenues and street vendors displayed their wares with cheerful enthusiasm. One could not help but be taken away on a warm breeze of excitement. Taxi drivers lined the avenues willing to take you on tours of their treasured island for this is the home of THE “Treasure Island” boasting the resting place of much famous pirate booty, ship wrecks, water wonders with many colorful species of coral (who knew “fire coral” is a thing); animals, military forts, historic landmarks, and much tropical horticulture.


Joining other eager tourists, we commandeered a taxi bound for the other side of the is ...

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Posted in:

  • Afterwardsness
  • Comfort
  • Decisions
  • Effort
  • Family
  • Presence
  • Processing
  • Relationships
  • Story
  • Tragedy
  • Trauma
  • Vulnerability
  • compassion

Tags:

  • Community
  • Confidence
  • Connection
  • change
  • coping
  • courage
  • friendships
  • growth
  • intentional
  • relationships
  • story
  • success
  • trauma
  • trust
  • vulnerable

A Vow to Myself

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There are many different trainings or theories that I have walked through in my personal and academic life. Each one has offered a unique skillset to help myself and others navigate stormy seas. One of the most recent approaches has stuck in my mind more than others in the past. It is an approach created by Dan Allender and taught to me from an LPC named Matt Kenney under the name of  “Story Retelling.”  The premise is fairly simple: each person at one point in their development incurred a wound. This wound spoke a message of shame to the child. The child then created a vow to be a certain person or live a certain way so as to never feel that shame again. As a result, a false self is created through which the child learns to interact with the world. This false self is the point of discontentment and battle within the adult.

 

It begins with a wound. The fallen nature of the world ensures that each person will be hur ...

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Posted in:

  • False self

Tags:

  • story
  • trust

Nachträglichkeit (Afterwardsness)

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A white Caucasian male in his mid-to-late thirties sits down for lunch in his mother’s kitchen. He slowly enjoys the sandwich he has made for himself, along with a handful of Sea Salt and Vinegar potato chips, (which for the sake of losing a few pounds) he knows he shouldn’t be eating. He has a set of headphones on, with which he is using to listen to his carefully constructed playlist on iTunes. To the left of his lunch sits his laptop, on which he is casually- and without much thought- working through his e-mails. He suddenly and unexpectedly receives an e-mail from his lawyer regarding his recent job-loss and the American’s with Disabilities Act and defamation lawsuit which ensued. He grows discouraged by what he is reading; and as he glances up, his eyes catch a hand of bananas. A flashback emanates, the likes of which he has never experienced. Before long his wife finds him blacked out on the kitchen floor, in a cold sweat, and hyperve ...

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Posted in:

  • Afterwardsness

Tags:

  • Sigmund Freud
  • intentional
  • mindfullness
  • story

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