How Your Unhealed Past Keeps Controlling Your Life

I am Anna Seewald,

And this is Authentic Parenting,

A podcast about growing ourselves while raising our children.

I'm a psychologist,

Educator,

And parent coach.

And on this podcast,

I explore how you can connect to your authentic self,

Practice radical self-care,

And raise emotionally healthy children.

Let's break the cycle of generational trauma for a more peaceful,

Kind,

And compassionate world.

Today,

How your unhealed past keeps controlling your parenting.

Have you ever stopped to wonder how the stories you grew up with,

The ones you absorbed in childhood,

Still shaped the way you parent today?

In today's episode of the podcast,

I talk with Gigi Renee Hill,

An author and creative coach whose work helps people uncover,

Rewrite,

And reclaim the stories that define them.

Gigi is the author of Story Work,

Field Notes on Self-Discovery and Reclaiming Your Narrative,

As well as two guided journals,

Self-Care Check-In and A Year of Self-Reflection.

She is also the founder of the Inner Story Writing Circle,

A community for writers and creatives who want to do the heart-centered work of writing about their lives.

Together,

We explore how childhood narratives continue to influence us as parents,

What it means to break generational cycles,

And how to parent from authenticity and self-trust.

Gigi also shares how writing became her path to healing and how she uses story work to help others rediscover their power and voice.

This is a tender,

Thought-provoking conversation about trauma,

Healing,

And the power of rewriting your own story.

And now,

Please enjoy,

And thank you for listening.

Well,

Gigi,

Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you for having me.

I am fascinated by your story.

You know,

When people reached out to me and they said,

Hey,

Do you want to interview this person growing up with a schizophrenic mother and,

You know,

Retelling your story,

Recreating yourself,

And I'm like,

I just sent one sentence,

Yes,

I am interested.

You know,

I don't write long emails,

But I knew immediately,

Like,

From everything that this is what I want to talk about,

How,

You know,

Our childhood stories,

Narratives affect the way we parent,

Even though,

Like you and I discussed a little earlier,

We may not recognize how,

Even though many of us are claiming to be cycle breakers,

We broke the cycle,

We know we're doing it,

But those stories are there.

Sometimes I catch myself,

I'm like,

Oh my God,

Like,

It's playing out in front of me and I'm not even aware about this,

You know?

I just experienced this,

Like,

A few days ago,

Really,

Like,

And I'm like,

Wow,

This is so true.

No matter how much you,

Quote unquote,

Heal and do your own work,

Like,

Those stories are steeped in your DNA,

It's so deep,

Who you are and how you show up in your parenting.

Of course,

Your memoir is heartbreaking,

Heartwarming,

And you have prompts and writing for healing,

So I love all of this.

So,

I want to know first,

Was there a time in your own parenting that you recognize that the old stories are still running the show?

Definitely,

And I realized quite a while before I really started doing anything about it,

And it's hard to admit that,

But it's the truth,

And I just want to give that honesty and vulnerability to anyone who is struggling with that,

Like,

Maybe they've noticed things and aren't sure what to do about it yet,

But there would just be times where my kids would express something,

Because as kids do,

They're honest,

They don't bite their tongues,

And they would say something or notice something,

And I would diminish it,

And of course,

We have to be appropriate with our kids and find age-appropriate answers,

But I would diminish it,

I would even distort it to try to just get them to not pay attention or to notice it,

Or it would be another time I noticed would be when I felt pressure to parent my kids a certain way from other people,

Maybe it was my in-laws or elders in my family,

Well,

You should do this with them,

Or it should be this way,

Or they should behave this way,

And I would bend to that and didn't really trust my own knowing,

My own intuition,

I didn't have a solid trust in myself,

Feeling like I always questioned,

I knew how to love on my kids,

I knew how to nurture them and nurse them,

But some of the harder parts of parenting for me were how to discipline them in a way that feels constructive and not destructive,

Right,

So certain parenting methods didn't feel right to me,

It felt like I don't want to tear them down,

I want to coach them through these experiences,

But I didn't know how to stand up for that truth that I felt,

And I had never really been parented that way,

I was parented with harsh,

You know,

And we'll get into this more,

But my mother really disciplined me through this sort of mix of fear and doom,

Right,

Like because she associated everything through religion,

And it was always this threat of you're going to go to hell,

And these terrible things are going to happen to you if you don't do these things,

And I knew I didn't want to do that to my kids,

So I was always uncertain of,

Well,

How do I teach my kids,

Mold them,

Discipline them,

Train them without this other extreme,

You know,

Of being too soft because I'm this sensitive mom,

And,

You know,

Everyone's telling me I'm too soft with them,

So it was just like not knowing what my authentic parenting approach was,

And so allowing other people to dictate that for me for a long time,

And when I noticed the way I was parenting wasn't aligned with who I really am,

I didn't know what to do about it at first,

And it just continued for a while because I was just like,

Everybody knows better than me.

Yeah,

Yeah,

When you feel disconnected from your authentic self,

Right,

Like you're saying,

It's hard to know who you are,

What you stand for,

You know,

You want to do it differently,

But you are like in front of this blank canvas.

You get pulled here and there.

Yes,

You're trying to discover who you are,

But it's hard.

That takes time.

That's a process.

I feel like we dedicated this whole podcast to that.

I feel like that's why a lot of people get lost even more by listening to different voices and trying different philosophies and trying on different things,

And then eventually,

I guess,

You find yourself,

You stumble upon,

I'm not sure how it works for different people.

How did you,

Like,

Stabilize yourself in knowing who you are,

What you stand for,

And finally,

Like,

Applying those ideals to your parenting?

Like,

What grounded you?

What helped you?

A lot of inner child work,

Self-help work,

Where I reconnected with the needs,

The fears,

The unmet needs,

Right,

The fears,

The desires of my own inner child,

Sort of like reparenting myself.

So,

I started doing that kind of work through journaling,

Through,

I'm a big reader,

So just reading books and articles about this concept of inner child healing,

Talk therapy,

Going to therapy,

Talking about inner child healing,

And how,

You know,

Re-mothering myself,

Re-fathering myself,

What does that look like?

What does that masculine energy of parenting look like?

And what does the feminine mothering,

I,

In some ways,

Got,

But in some ways didn't.

And if I had this ideal parent situation,

Like,

What would have been nourishing and beneficial and empowering to me?

So,

That was one thing.

And another thing was reconnecting with my authentic values.

And like you mentioned,

I didn't have that groundedness.

I didn't know what my values were.

I knew the values that had been taught to me.

I knew the general societal values of being a good person,

But I didn't know my values.

I thought of values as this very vanilla,

Generic thing.

You do a workshop in your,

You know,

In corporate America,

We did workshops on values,

But really from an authentic soulful place,

What do I really value?

Like,

What lights up my soul?

What do I feel comes naturally and organically to me?

What is the expression of like my essence,

Right?

My spirit,

Am I,

You know,

I'm nurturing,

I'm comfort,

Like,

These are the words,

Sometimes you have to talk to the people who love you in your life and,

You know,

What value they get from you.

Oh,

You're comforting,

You're gentle,

You know,

You hold space and you listen.

And I knew these things about myself,

But having that reaffirmed,

It started to,

I started to feel this empowerment in those things that for a long time,

I felt were almost things that made me more fragile.

I knew I was sensitive.

I knew I was gentle.

I knew I was soft.

And those qualities had often been weaponized against me.

So I felt like these were things I needed to be ashamed of.

I needed to be tougher.

I needed to be thicker skinned,

Grow out of it,

Grow out of it.

Yes.

Yes.

And so when I started to feel the empowerment of these things,

I was like how,

And I knew I was using them in my parenting on the positive reinforcement side.

Right.

But when my children need discipline,

I didn't think that those were qualities that would help them.

I had to rethink.

Yeah.

And also,

I also want to mention like the fact that like being a Black woman,

There are expectations and stereotypes of being a certain type,

Right?

Just to survive and exist in this world.

Can you say a little bit about that?

Absolutely.

I talk about that in the book.

Like I was definitely given culturally and from a family standpoint,

The value of being strong,

Putting forth an unbreakable persona,

Right?

Don't let them see you sweat.

Don't let them see you cry.

Don't look crazy.

You know,

Keep your emotions in check.

Be tough on your kids because the world is tough.

So you have to really infuse like,

You know,

You're being hard on your kids.

And this is influence that I got from people in my life who meant well and who have really had to raise their kids harshly because the world was dangerous.

And I'm not saying that it's not anymore.

The world is still dangerous.

But I think that I took those pieces of guidance and those values literally and very Black and white.

It has to be this way.

And I think that I learned that I could instill the same values of teaching them how to take care of themselves,

How to protect themselves out there,

How to carry themselves in my own way.

And it didn't have to be with cursing them out or yelling at them.

There's just a deviation that I had to make and feel empowered in myself that I can still empower my kids to be strong without doing it in a way that I feel like is tearing them down.

And that was tough because I didn't really have examples of that.

I didn't have that example,

But I knew that authenticity is where our power is,

And that I would be a more powerful parent if I'm being authentic to myself than if I'm trying to do what someone else does or told me to do.

I'm not going to be able to cut through the noise and really harness who I am and all the gifts and strengths and everything that I authentically have if I'm trying to do things in some other way.

And it's not easy when you have family members and all of this other influence saying,

This is not the way to do it.

Yeah.

No,

I mean,

It comes from a painful place,

Right?

I understand that mentality,

Why they are saying it,

The reasoning behind it,

But the application of it is so harmful.

It's like a trauma response that you keep perpetuating onto your own children.

Instead,

You need to empower them to survive in a tough world,

Not the opposite,

Right?

It just doesn't even make sense,

Right?

Yes,

The world is a tough place,

But you don't have to victimize me.

But that's a trauma response on a parent's part,

Which is understandable,

Obviously,

Historically.

But I'm glad to hear that you broke that pattern.

That's a cycle brave step right there.

Yeah.

And some of it has been pretty recent.

I can remember there was a pretty recent one.

It was only within the last five years.

Teenage daughters will push your boundaries and new things happen and you don't know how you respond until you do.

But my daughter did something that she knew was against the rules.

And I completely lost my temper and behaved in a way that when I looked back at it,

I was like,

I'm setting an example for her in that she sees me.

This is what happens when there's conflict or when something goes wrong.

Not that it's inhuman,

People lose their temper,

But the way I lost my temper,

I was like,

This ends.

And so I sat her down and I said,

Yes,

You were wrong,

But I want you to know that mommy's human.

And I don't like the way I responded to that.

And I want you to know that I'm actively going to take steps to work on my temper and just sort of brought her into the experience of my humanity.

I just had this vision of her.

I don't want her doing this with her kids,

Right?

This is not helpful.

Whereas that was normalized.

You get mad,

You hit things,

You scream,

You say mean things.

And I was just like,

Oh no,

I don't want to continue this.

I don't want to set this example for them.

I want to show them how to honor your anger.

Yes.

Honor when your values have been violated,

Your boundaries have been broken,

But let's work on ways to do so where you don't abandon yourself and your truth in responding to that.

And it's not,

Again,

It's not easy.

Like none of this is easy or simple or straightforward.

Anger has been something that I've always struggled with.

And a lot of us I think do,

But that was definitely an inciting moment where I was like,

No,

I cannot continue this.

I feel like I'm being true to myself and the type of example that I want to set for them.

Yeah.

Anger,

Yes.

Violence,

No.

That there is a difference.

And many of us grew up where violence was normalized.

But I think our children,

At least this generation,

I can see it in my daughter.

I can't speak for the generation,

But I see her friends and younger kids that I communicate with.

They are so much aware.

They can stand up for other people and they have more awareness.

They understand that they have better racial understanding,

Cultural differences.

This generation is amazing than what we had.

And so it gives me hope that a world is going to change.

It's going to be a much better place for our children and for their children.

And they will create a different,

Better world and hopefully peace one day.

This reminds me of,

I had another podcast guest.

She says many powerful quotes,

This woman.

She's like in her seventies.

One of her quotes is,

We will stop bullying when we stop bullying children.

So it's just like anger is fine.

Anger is a normal emotion.

Violence is not okay,

Especially towards one another.

But I'm already loving you and our conversation.

I feel like,

Wow,

I can talk to you about so many wonderful things and maybe I can have you back again.

Now,

But I want to talk about the book.

I mean,

There are so many beautiful things in the book.

I wrote down a quote.

I think it was someone else's quote that you have in the beginning of the chapter.

It said,

The past created the present,

But the present also recreated the past.

Tell me how this quote talks to you and how it's applicable to your book.

I love that quote.

That's by Nadia Spiegelman.

And she,

I use that quote in my storytelling workshops as well.

It captures the essence of story work in the sense that yes,

The past obviously shapes who we are in the present,

Right?

We know this,

But we can also look back with our hindsight,

Wisdom and the growth and who we are now and reshape potentially stories,

Beliefs,

Memories that maybe we always thought of a certain way,

Right?

So I came to writing this book with a lot of victim narratives,

Right?

There were experiences in my life that I just felt like,

Woe is me,

This happened.

Now I'm this way and I'm damaged and I'm not enough.

And I have all these beliefs that were disempowering that made me feel like I couldn't do as much with my life because I had these broken pieces.

And there was this part of me that knew I was meant to have a impactful life,

But I thought of it as I will use this drive that I have to be a light in people's lives and to encourage people and help people.

I just,

When I see people,

I see souls,

Right?

And when I talk to people,

I always immediately after the first couple of sentences go somewhere deep.

That's just how I've always been.

And I knew that this,

I love this about myself.

I've always seen it as a gift,

But I felt like because I'm broken and I'm holding up quotes,

I know this is an audio podcast,

I'm broken.

I would only be able to empower others in this limited way.

And that I certainly would never be able to lift myself up to any ideal place in the world because of this brokenness.

But writing the whole idea of writing the book was at first,

I wanted to just get these truths out.

I wanted to get these stories out.

And as I was writing it and getting feedback from peers and friends and acquaintances,

The question was asked to me,

Well,

How do you want people to feel reading your book?

Because at first it was very sad.

It was very like,

Almost like trauma dumping kind of confessional cathartic.

And it felt really good to get all these stories out,

But I didn't want to just leave it as,

Oh,

Write your stories and you'll feel better.

Because if we don't write our,

If we don't write our stories with an intention to find a healing narrative,

Then we won't necessarily feel,

You might feel better for a little bit to get it out of your body and out of your head onto the page,

But there's more to it.

So when I studied the expressive writing method by Dr.

James Pennebaker,

And I started studying what is therapeutic writing?

What is writing that actually heals,

That has physical healing benefits?

And I started understanding and I started connecting that to the creative process and how stories have an arc.

What is the arc here?

It was not just like,

Oh,

These things happened,

Goodbye,

The end.

Who did I become because of these things?

And so I started to,

As the quote says,

Reshape the past with this intention to say,

Even though this thing happened and it was hard,

What gifts did I develop because of this?

What compassion did I develop because of this?

How did these things make me a more evolved person?

How did I respond to these things?

What good has come out of it?

And that can be really challenging for,

I think,

For us in general,

Especially when we're dealing with people.

People have all types of difficulties in their lives and memories and trauma,

And there's an intentionality behind it.

We don't immediately say that.

I'm not into bypassing like,

Oh,

That happened.

That's really sad.

Well,

What's the silver lining?

What good came out of it?

There's a process to it.

It's not that simple.

You do need to honor it.

You do need to be there with it,

To feel it,

Allow yourself that discomfort.

And then,

And I talk about this in the book,

It's like,

Okay,

Let me get curious about this,

Like what else was happening during that time?

And I talk about in the book,

Like I had a lot of difficult experiences,

But I also had a beautiful childhood.

I had a lot of love and support and friendship and exposure to the arts and all of these things.

Despite my mother's delusions and accusations,

She also took me to plays and she had me in dance recitals and all of these beautiful things.

And so when I started looking at the ways that I was poured into as a The story started to evolve and change.

And it was like,

Yes,

These things happened,

But also these things happened.

And for me to be whole and for my story to be whole,

I need to remember all of it.

And I need to think about how all of that has shaped who I am today and make those connections between the present and the past.

And that was a creative challenge.

I think that really opened my eyes to the fact that we all have our creative material,

Which is our life experiences.

And what we choose to do with it has such a huge effect on the quality of our lives today.

We can focus on all of the horrible things,

The sad things,

The things we had no control over,

Or we can focus on the whole experience and look at it from this zoomed out perspective of who we've become holistically.

Yeah.

In the book,

You have many powerful exercises,

And I love writing exercises,

Writing prompts.

I'm a journalist throughout my life since I was 13.

I promoted on the podcast.

We've done episodes about the healing power of story writing,

All those things.

And I'm a big believer in what you're saying.

As I experienced it myself,

The transformative effects of writing for healing and telling your story,

Especially those stories that are steeped in shame,

That hold you stuck,

That keep you small,

And you don't live your authentic life.

But the moment you start telling and sharing,

Not only you heal and transform,

But allow other people to heal and transform.

It's an invitation.

And I want to emphasize that,

Yes,

Your book is not for people who want to be writers and write their stories.

This is for ordinary folks,

For healing purposes.

And I highly recommend it.

So there is an exercise on page 65 that I was looking at this morning,

How you can write your own story through different story models or perspectives,

I guess,

Narratives.

I think you know what I'm talking about,

Like the rebirth,

Overcoming the monster,

Rags to riches,

Voyage and return.

So could you talk about this exercise?

I think it's really powerful.

And maybe my listener can take notes and do it for themselves.

Yes,

That is an exercise that I started using in workshops and got such a great response to it.

I knew I needed to include it in the book.

It's a great way to,

I mentioned earlier that all stories have an arc,

Right?

Reading a book or watching a movie,

We want to see that character develop,

Right?

We want to see the challenges they face or whatever conflict they're facing.

We want to see how it changes them and how they evolve.

And so there's a book called The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker.

And he outlines these seven basic plots that many of the stories that we know really well come from.

So there's,

Like you said,

Overcoming the monsters,

Like a classic David Goliath story.

A tragedy could be something like Romeo and Juliet.

They're all laid out in the book.

And I present this exercise with the idea that everyone has some type of tragedy story or tragedy narrative in their mind,

In their way they think about their life.

And so one of the things I say in there is like,

You might think tragedy,

Like,

I don't think of my life as a tragedy.

I'm just using that as a concept for us for the exercise.

It could just be,

I've always been too loud,

Right?

I'm just too loud.

People always tell me I'm too loud.

And because I'm too loud,

I can't do this or I can't do that.

Or I've always been the black sheep in the family.

And because I'm the black sheep,

I can't do these things or I'm always going to be treated this way.

Whatever negative narrative you have in your head that you feel is like something that limits you,

That you can't overcome,

It's a fatal flaw.

And that's what the tragedy story,

Every main character in a tragedy story has this fatal flaw that leads to their downfall or leads to them not living the life they fully have the potential to lead.

And so the idea for the exercise is to take that fatal flaw or that tragedy storyline that you might be carrying,

Something that you believe or a belief that has been imposed on you that you think limits you in some way and keeps you from living the life that you want.

And you can reframe it through these other six story arcs.

So if you're overcoming the monster,

That monster could be very conceptual.

It could be addiction.

It could be a dysfunctional family or some type of dysfunctional relationship that has held you back.

And that could be the storyline where you say,

Okay,

That's my Goliath.

What if I imagined that my story is not just a tragedy where I just have to succumb to this and lay down and say,

This is just what it is,

But I find the strength somehow within to overcome this monster.

Another one you mentioned is rebirth.

And I think that's my favorite for my story because for so long I was living according to this tragedy storyline that it wasn't safe for me to be my authentic self,

That I would be abandoned.

I would be judged.

I had so much shame and I couldn't show who I really was because I had built up this belief that if anybody saw me for who I really was,

That I would not survive that exposure.

There's so many tragedy storylines that I had.

And creativity and finding my voice and the healing work that I did led to a rebirth where I turned all of those things that I thought would lead to my downfall or made me not good enough or made me need to hide.

I turned them into strengths and I turned them into parts of my life that I talk openly about now that I can harness now to help other people.

And I had a rebirth and that change in that narrative arc is everything because then you realize that these things that I thought were holding me back in life actually could be used to propel me forward.

And you have to experience it little by little to really begin to trust it and believe it because you might have forces in your life that are telling you different.

You might not have examples to look at.

And I think as humans,

We often want to see to believe,

Right?

Like if I see someone.

And so that was another powerful part of my journey in getting into creativity was connecting with other creatives,

Healers,

Coaches,

People doing similar work that I saw them using their story,

Their shame story or their painful story and turning it around and using it to inspire others,

To help other people see that they weren't alone.

And I saw that and I thought,

And I just felt this awakening.

Like,

I feel like I could do that.

And I feel like I'm actually made for that because I,

Even though I felt such shame and guilt and regret about so many things in my life,

When I talked about them,

I felt a surge of power.

I felt a surge of hope.

And I was like,

Well,

Maybe I can trust that,

Right?

It took me a while to trust that feeling.

And I think that those seven plots,

So there's rebirth and there's voyage and return.

And you can,

It gives you this opening of your imagination to like,

I've always thought of this as just something that there's a dead end here.

I can't get past this.

But when we use creative tools like this,

We have some distance,

Right?

We're all creative beings to begin with.

As children,

We're born creative.

It's our job to be creative.

And sometimes as adults,

We lose our creativity a little bit.

And we start thinking black and white,

All or nothing.

So using creative tools is such a beautiful way to get back to your authentic self,

Your imagination.

And like,

Well,

What if I thought about this differently and I plugged my story into these different plots and I could imagine things could be,

You know,

I could imagine things to be different and I can start to actually live my way into this plot that I've mapped out.

And it really does help you to overcome that resistance that tells you that just because things have always been a certain way,

Or you've always thought a certain way that you always have to.

Yeah.

I mean,

We clink two stories and sometimes they're so outdated.

When you update them,

You're like,

Wow,

I wasted my entire life.

I could have done this earlier.

And our stories,

That's the thing,

Like memory.

Every time you tell your story of trauma,

Every time you open,

You tell it's a different story.

You know,

You shape,

You reshape,

You create new meaning with every age who you tell it to.

It just changes so much.

It's so fluid and so elastic.

And just to know that there is a possibility that you can recreate and,

You know,

And change your story and have a different life.

Why not?

Right?

Why to be stuck in the same story narrative?

Like,

Can you watch that movie when it's stuck on the same scene?

And I'm thinking that I have one listener.

Hi,

Jen.

She's probably listening to this podcast now.

So Jen is very good with AI.

And this crazy idea just came to me.

Like,

What if you can write your life story,

Like the facts of your life,

The challenges,

The arc of your story,

The way you know it,

Right?

Let's say.

And plug that into AI and say,

Give me this story in rebirth.

Instead of you writing it,

The AI can create that story based on the seven plots that you mentioned.

And you would look at your own life.

I don't know if this would be a good exercise or bad exercise.

But it's a curious one.

Of course,

For the healing purposes,

I want people to write the stories themselves.

But I just had this crazy idea that like my listener Jen is definitely going to do this through AI because she does everything through AI.

What do you think of that?

Like,

That's an interesting take,

Right?

Oh,

I love that,

Especially for that person listening who might be intrigued by the idea,

But feel intimidated by the process of writing it or just feel like their mind goes blank when they try to recreate it and shape it into these different arcs.

I could definitely give you those ideas that spark something for you.

I would encourage anyone who does that to use the prompts,

Put it into AI,

And then journal from that.

See what you have.

Open the door for you.

Imagine AI in general,

Just like use it as a place for idea generation and then take it further for yourself.

Because absolutely,

I know that there are many of us who are so rooted in the same story that it can be hard at first to try to think of it any other way.

Even with a tool like that,

It could also help to look at the stories that relate to each like Rags to Riches,

Like a Cinderella story,

Right?

And to just think about in what ways has your life been a Cinderella story and just allow yourself to go back to childhood and to just open your imagination.

It's so healing to even just do that.

And I think it would be really curious to see what AI would come up with based on the details of someone's individual stories.

I think that's a great way to open that door.

Yeah.

And then because I think writing seven stories would be challenging for someone who is like stuck to their story and it's their comfort zone.

It's like,

No,

This is my story.

But because I see this in therapy,

Right?

In my work with clients,

A client tells me a story of their trauma,

Of their struggle,

Of their adversity.

And I'm like,

Wow,

I comment.

I'm like,

This is why.

I'm like,

I'm not surprised because now you have this gift or this skill or this superpower.

And they're like,

They're shocked that I can see something in them now that I excavated from this tragic story that they told me.

And that's why people go to therapy,

Right?

And they are enlightened and they're like,

Wow,

I never thought about it that way.

And then the next time they come back and they're like,

Remember when you said that?

I've been thinking about that.

Yes,

I am.

This is my superpower.

And I'm like,

Yes,

You know,

We can tell our story in so many ways and have so many different endings and arcs.

And it just amazes me how our imagination can be such a healing tool for ourselves,

Right?

It's so underutilized.

Oh,

Absolutely.

That's the whole energy behind this book is that healing is truly a creative process.

You have to find ways to open your mind and your heart to think about your stories in your life differently,

The pressure off.

We use tools that take us back to a time when creativity was just fun.

And it was just,

You know,

The word I can't or the limitations that we have on ourselves sometimes as adults,

As a sort of a safety,

Like a comfort zone.

Like,

Let me stay in this box.

I know within this box,

I feel safe from harm in this box.

So stepping outside of that box to even think differently can feel really scary and it can feel really foreign.

So creativity is a gentle way to step outside of that box and just get a little bit imaginative again and a little bit playful again.

And then you start to see how that playfulness and that imagination can actually start to become something more solid that you can stand on.

And I just,

I can't say enough about how writing has been that for me to be able to imagine,

What if I just thought about this a little bit differently,

To just open my curiosity,

To imagine a different perspective.

It can be really life-changing.

Yeah.

There was another good exercise in the book.

I think it's like a three-step process.

First,

You write down the factual events of your life,

Then the feelings and the healing.

So I'm wondering if you can share that too.

That is another one of my favorites.

I'll probably say that about all the exercises,

But that is based on the expressive writing method by Dr.

James Pennebaker,

Where he did a research study where he had,

The participants had been through some type of traumatic experience.

So they were writing about this traumatic memory.

And when I use it in workshops,

I say either draw on a traumatic memory,

Or if you're not in the emotional space to do that,

You can just draw on something that's emotionally charged for you,

Something that you want to revisit.

And first you just spend the first 20 minutes or so just writing the facts of what happened,

Just the facts,

Not how you felt about it,

Just facts,

Sensory details.

The paint on the wall was blue.

Mom had on a red dress,

Just facts,

Only facts.

And then you step away and you take a break for a little bit.

And you come back for your second part of the exercise is to write your feelings.

What were the feelings that you associated with that event?

So first you tell the facts of what happened,

Then you talk about your feelings related to it.

At the time,

How did you feel?

This was really helpful for me in doing inner child work.

How did I feel?

Because I never as a child really gave myself permission to acknowledge what I was feeling.

And there's a lot of memories that are gone,

Right?

Like some of us who have these complicated childhoods,

A lot of memories are hard to get back to.

Yeah.

And the hippocampus deletes them,

You know,

The memory center.

Yeah.

Struggle with that too.

Yes.

So you write as much as you can about like,

What did you feel at the time?

And sometimes those details help those feelings come back,

Like helps the memory.

So one little thing might lead to another little thing,

Another little memory that you have.

So you write how you felt about a time and you try to do your best to honor what you felt at the time.

You don't judge it.

You don't,

Well,

I shouldn't have felt this way or like,

It's just what you felt.

Then you take another break and then you come back and then you're writing the meaning that you assign to it now.

So in hindsight,

Using your hindsight wisdom,

The growth that you've had over the years,

How do you look back at it now?

And one of the first stories I remember doing this with myself was a quick story.

I think is in the book about my mother coloring in this painting she got for me of these white ballerinas and she colored them with a Brown crayon.

And so I wrote the facts.

I remember this was something I was really embarrassed by because I didn't want my,

I thought it was just such a weird thing as a teenager.

So teenagers are so like everything embarrasses them.

And I was so embarrassed.

And this was around the time when mother was always doing embarrassing things because she was,

You know,

She was undiagnosed schizophrenic and had a lot of quirky behaviors.

And I was always highly nervous about how she would behave around my friends.

So she had this,

Put this painting up on my wall and I was very embarrassed by it.

So for first I wrote the facts,

Then I wrote my feelings at the time,

All the embarrassment.

But when I went to the hindsight and I was writing the meaning,

I was like,

Wow,

Like,

Yes,

My mother at the time was really declining mentally.

She was getting worse and she would often do things that were harmful and that were hurtful,

But this was not something harmful that she did.

This was actually a beautiful moment.

I didn't want to do ballet anymore because I was at that teenage year where I wanted to,

I was always going to ballet and I was like,

I don't want to go to ballet.

I want to hang out with my friends.

And she wanted to inspire me.

She wanted to encourage me to continue dancing.

It was a positive thing.

She knew that the arts were something that was really important to me.

And she wanted me to see that.

And they didn't have black ballerinas at that time.

So she probably wanted to,

I mean,

Let's not forget that important fact.

That's what I was getting to.

Yeah.

The fact that I was embarrassed by was not that it was ballerinas,

But that she,

Instead of finding black ballerinas,

She colored it in all messy with a brown crayon.

But I was like,

That's actually beautiful.

Like the adult me could see how beautiful that was,

She wanted to show me that,

Yes,

You can be a little brown girl and still be a ballerina.

And she did what she used what she had to show me that.

And she put it up right over my bed.

And it made me think like,

How could I even have looked at that as anything other than a beautiful moment of a mom trying to inspire her child.

But I honored that in my teenage years,

I just wasn't able to connect with that compassion.

And I didn't have that deeper insight at the time,

But in hindsight,

I was like,

What other moments maybe have I always categorized as my mom being my mom and embarrassing me or hurting me or whatever,

When really through her challenging mental state that she was going through,

She was trying to still be influenced me in positive ways and to open doors of opportunity for me.

And I thought of more.

From that exercise of turning that around and breaking it down in that way,

It gave the story an arc it didn't have before and it opened doors to other stories.

And I was like,

I could interpret this other story to be another example of a time when everything ended badly and it was another break in our relationship.

Or I could look at it maybe from my mom's point of view in the struggles that she was having.

Or sometimes it was a story about my dad.

And that was one of the first exercises I took through that process.

And I encourage anyone who tries that to just be open-minded to what I was going through at the time,

What I was thinking at the time,

Who I am now,

I'm a mom now.

So I have new insights because I'm a mother now.

And also my parents as humans and going through their own challenges that they were going through with their own upbringings that they're trying to reconcile.

So it also made me curious about,

Well,

How were they raised?

What was the generation that they grew up in like,

And how did it shape how they parented me?

And I didn't have that curiosity before because I was just younger and I was just kind of like,

They're just my parents.

They're not humans,

They're just my parents.

Their whole life is just to parent me,

Right?

Because I was just young and self-centered in that way.

But growing up as an adult now,

It got me really curious to understand,

To zoom out and to understand what was going on outside of our little bubble or my little bubble,

I should say.

And that opened more doors to curiosity and creativity and seeing the story as more than just what I had always thought it was.

Yeah.

I mean,

It's liberating for you.

It also generates so much understanding and compassion towards the villains in your story that at that time that you created,

Right?

It generates compassion and understanding towards your parents,

Towards your mom.

And like you said,

New stories emerged and you saw her under a different light.

This is so beautiful and touching,

You know?

Yeah,

It is.

You also talk about the power of living the questions.

I love that too.

So I'm wondering if you can say more about that.

What do you mean?

What questions?

Then you mentioned something,

Examination and exposure.

So yeah,

Take it from here.

Yeah,

Sure.

So living the questions is the idea that we all have questions.

I think I refer to them as burning questions that we're carrying around.

We don't always make time to address.

We've got jobs to do,

Bills to pay,

Things to take care of,

Roles and responsibilities.

So we don't always make time for these deeper life questions that have been following us.

And so one of those questions for me was definitely,

You know,

One of the things that I talk about in the book is being estranged from my mom.

And it was not an overnight decision.

It was more of a gradual thing that happened.

And I carried this burning question for so many years of like,

Am I a bad person?

There was other reasons that I had this burning question that maybe I'm kind of underneath it all,

Just a selfish bad person.

And I carried that question with me and it affected my choices.

It affected the way I showed up for myself,

Just carrying this question,

But I never directly addressed it.

I just kind of let it simmer in this shadowy place inside myself.

And I'm sure anybody listening can think of what are some questions that maybe you have about yourself,

About your life,

About your story that just kind of linger there and we don't directly give them the attention because we're afraid.

It's scary because it's like,

If I answer this question or if I attempt to peel back those layers,

What will I find?

I might find things about myself that I don't like.

I might come to a conclusion that I don't like.

And so the first exercise in the book is to attempt to address those questions,

To just at least acknowledge them,

Right?

And everybody has to kind of meet this work where they are.

Maybe you can even just start by acknowledging,

Writing down what those questions are for you.

So yeah,

That first step can just be acknowledging what those questions are for you,

Those life questions that affect how you show up in the world,

Ways that maybe you doubt yourself,

Things you feel insecure about,

Acknowledge what those questions are.

And when we talk about examination and exposure,

There are so many reasons why we tell our stories,

Why we acknowledge them for ourselves and why we might decide to share them with others.

And I've heard in my workshop so many different reasons why we tell our stories and why we choose not to.

I've heard writers and participants say,

Well,

This story has been told before,

Or nobody wants to hear this,

Or I was taught that you should keep private things private,

Right?

There's so many different reasons.

But then I've also heard,

Well,

I think I can help someone with my story.

I think that my story is something that I can turn into art or I can turn into something useful that someone could use.

It could be something more than just something that weighs me down.

It could be something that uplifts.

There's motivations that we can tap into that give us a compelling reason to explore our stories and to do something else with them.

So examination is that human need to understand ourselves,

Our lives and human nature on a deeper level.

And one of the ways we do that is by sharing our stories.

And everybody's individual motivation is a little bit different.

Someone might be perfectly content to explore their stories for themselves in their journal.

And the way that work shows up is just how they live their lives.

They don't have to share their story necessarily with anyone,

But maybe it shows up in how they,

You know,

When they go to their job and they're good to people and they're kind to people and they have a huge impact on people's lives because of the work that they've done privately.

But then there's those of us,

And I would say I'm on this side of it,

Who feels compelled to share,

To offer guidance,

To offer tools,

To say,

Hey guys,

Like I know what this feels like.

I've been there and I've come up with a few ways that have really helped me.

And I want to share them with you.

It's a compulsion,

Honestly.

And so that examination is the essence behind that motivation is that to examine yourself,

To improve your life and to improve the collective.

Now,

The difference when people say,

Well,

I feel like I'm just sharing for attention or shock value.

I don't want to put my story out there.

That's sharing for exposure.

And that's when we want to make sure that our motivation is not coming from a place of,

I just want to be seen,

Or I want to get revenge or something destructive or something ego-based,

Right?

Like I just want everyone to know what I've been through so people can pay attention to me and feel sorry for me.

And it can be very human.

I'm not even villainizing that.

It can be just a very human thing.

And I've had to reckon with my own desire for exposure because often feeling unheard in childhood and feeling ignored or overlooked,

There were times in my creative journey and my healing journey where I did want attention or I did want applause.

Like I wanted people to be like,

Good job.

You overcame that.

Or I see you and there's nothing wrong with that.

But I realized that,

You know,

And it's that classic,

Like,

A student.

I want an A.

I want a gold star for this,

Right?

That was very much in me.

But I realized if I'm going to be this healer and this teacher in this way,

It has to be coming from that place of examination,

Of authenticity.

And I'm sharing for this deeper reason.

And so I was like,

Well,

What do I do with this part of me?

And I love parts work.

What do I do with this part of me that's like wants applause and wants to be seen?

And I said,

That part of me,

When I really listened to it,

Really just wants connection,

Right?

I want to have emotional connection.

I want to have an emotional impact.

It's not like me.

It's a deeper desire for connection.

And so when I made that realization,

I could bring that desire for quote unquote exposure into the fold and realize,

Okay,

This is still all about the desire to help,

To share,

To empower people that their vulnerability can be a strength,

That there's power in their story.

And it's not just about me.

So I would ask anyone who's listening,

Who's thinking about maybe reasons to explore their story,

Or maybe even reasons to share their story.

Maybe they feel compelled to share,

But they're holding themselves back because they feel like I don't want all that attention,

Or I kind of do,

But I don't know how I feel about the fact that I do.

Just get clear,

Do some journaling about what are the reasons that you want to examine your story and what are the parts of you who have a resistance to that exposure,

Right?

Who feel like part of me wants revenge.

Part of me wants to get the attention I never received.

Allow yourself to explore that,

Listen to it,

Give it a voice,

Let it get all the way through.

And I feel like you'll come to a layers and you realize that underneath that sort of more surface level desire for exposure,

There's something deeper that's asking for a voice,

That's asking for healing,

Is asking for expression.

And that's where we can find our true source of motivation.

And I always say that like,

Once we find our true source of motivation,

We can always return to that.

We can always return to when it gets hard,

When you do get criticism or you get judgment or you get pushback from family members or whoever,

You return to that true source of motivation.

Like what am I doing this for?

And it gives you the fuel that you need to keep going.

Yeah.

Well,

This is so great.

I mean,

I can say so much.

Once we did an episode,

I remember about why storytelling is powerful,

Right?

And I remember one of the listeners said,

Well,

It all sounds great,

But I don't think my story is as important or as powerful,

As worthy of sharing and telling.

Yes,

I think we all have stories.

And it is important to share.

We don't have to share it just to inspire people or to heal the world or change the world.

I think just for ourselves,

Number one is so important to understand who you are and make sense of your story and get in touch with your creativity,

Right?

Like there's so many other valuable reasons to do it.

But I am also personally challenged with this because I feel like I'm in the middle.

I do understand the value of sharing my story.

And I have shared various of stories,

Right,

Of mine on the podcast and things like that.

But there is a general big story that I would like to share,

But I don't feel,

I'm not sure what holds me back.

I always have this like,

Who cares?

So what if it's inspiring?

It's yet another inspiring story.

Those lessons that I am going to expose in my storytelling,

It's like other people have shared that too.

Like it's not going to land.

It's just like I have those kinds of limiting beliefs about my own story too,

Because people who know me,

They're like,

Wow,

You're a great speaker.

You should do a TED Talk and share your powerful story.

It changed so many of us.

And I'm like,

I'm not sure about that.

Like I know there's some truth to that,

Obviously.

But I personally,

I'm not either ready or I haven't given enough thought.

I'm not sure.

I know the value of storytelling,

Believe me.

But there's something holding me back.

Yeah.

I think each of us have our own unique like soul imprint.

So sometimes we say,

Oh,

Like I could say there's so many other people have told the story of having a parent with mental illness or situations that I've been through.

Like trivializing.

Right.

We can trivialize it and just say,

Oh,

Mine isn't going to make a difference.

But what I found from my journey and just following that compulsion that I have had,

That guiding light that has just been almost like an inner voice,

It's a chair.

And it's been that you never know how your unique soul imprint might make a difference to someone who hears that story.

Someone who relates to you because you are you.

Someone else might have that story and they relate to other people,

Right?

Because of who they are and the way they express themselves.

So there's no there's only snowflakes,

Right?

Like there's only one of us.

And despite the fact that we're having this universal life experience,

We're all experiencing it differently.

The way you share,

No one can share the way you share.

No one has the voice,

The perspective,

The even the tone in which you share your story,

The way you share is so unique and individual to you.

And I feel like we all have this vibration we put out and it's like a radio wavelength and people can tune into that just like any like on social media or TV or anything you're flipping through.

And some things just cut through and you're just like,

Oh,

Wow,

I just really relate to this person.

I've heard other stories like this before,

But for some reason I'm drawn to the way this person tells their story or whatever.

And that has been my experience because I felt like,

You know,

Nobody's going to care about me sharing this story or it's not that impressive or magnetic that anyone would notice.

But then when you have just a couple of people that say,

Your story really helped me see aspects of myself or put into words,

Things that I had experienced or felt and didn't know how to,

I began to believe and understand that my unique form of expression is nobody else has that even,

You know,

They cannot share my story,

Even if there's a situation exactly the same,

Because they're not me,

They're who they are.

Theirs is just as valuable.

So I think,

Like you said,

It's not something that we need to force ourselves to do.

But if you do feel like it's this little voice that always comes back that says,

Share,

Then it's time to revisit what are the beliefs that are holding me back from sharing?

What good could potentially come from sharing?

What do I even want to get out of it myself?

Right?

Like,

What do I think will,

And I always found that I think that my compulsion came from,

I felt empowered by it.

I felt like I was taking my power back.

Every time I shared a story that had used to cause me shame or regret or guilt or anything like that,

Every time I shared a little bit,

I felt more empowered.

You know,

There's a quote by Brene Brown where she says,

Never share unless you have no unmet needs that you're seeking to fulfill.

That's a good one.

That's a good one,

Right?

And that really has been guiding for me because I'm like,

Okay,

I know if I'm not ready to share,

If I'm still thinking,

Okay,

After I share this,

I want to get some type of validation or some type of approval or something.

But if I'm just like,

I've worked through it and now it's like a tool in my toolbox and I think I can help someone with it or I can just own myself even more by sharing it,

Then I know it's time to share.

So it's a journey,

You know,

Of really trusting that inner guidance.

Yeah,

It is.

Thank you so much.

You're so inspiring.

I love listening to you.

I love the book.

I love your story.

Like I said,

The very first time I got the email,

This guest is going to be on my podcast.

You know,

I'm terrible at responding to pitches and I just delete most of them.

I don't even read them,

But I just glance at them sometimes.

And maybe there was something,

Just story work,

The title,

Like there were compelling words that attracted me and I said,

Yes,

I'm interested in this,

You know,

And I'm very glad that we met.

I would love to have you back.

I think moreover,

I would love to do workshops maybe for my community with you about this,

Like to take you to the next level.

People who listen to this podcast episode who are ready to do this work with you,

Maybe we can co-create something and they can join.

We can do this work together.

I would love to do this work with you and see what my blocks are.

And yeah,

I feel like you have so many gifts to offer that I want to be in your universe to,

You know,

To get the gift.

So thank you so much.

I would love to talk about all of that.

Yes.

Thank you so much for having me,

Anna.

Yeah,

Thank you.