Creating Narratives

The Pomps of the Subsoil, 1947 Leonora Carrington

When we focus on storytelling and meaning making, instead of looking at our lives as isolated events, people, and experiences, a world of possibilities opens up. When we create a story, we are weaving these events and people and experiences into a cohesive and integrated identity that we internalize.

The great thing is that we can write the story. We can take some creative license. We can shift our perspective to see our story as having been more bold, more deliberate, more synchronistic perhaps, than it initially appeared. There is power in developing strong and meaningful narratives that tell the story of our struggles and triumphs. As we do so, we are enlarging our agency in the world and allowing ourselves to become the heroines and heroes of our own journeys.

As coaches, how do we help clients create these narratives and stories? We abide by the first tenant of meaning making which is this: "The person is not the problem. The problem is the problem"

When clients come to us, they may be at the point where they believe they are the problem. They are the reason they are not reaching their goals. They are the reason they have not achieved whatever success they are seeking. They have internalized the problem. But! When we use narrative development, storytelling, and meaning making, we are helping our clients to externalize the problem--to see the problem not as part of who they are but rather as a product of the client's culture and history--and as having been created over a period of time based on events, people, and experiences. The story becomes longer with much more nuance and substance. Its not as easy to concretize the problem. It becomes a living entity that one must grow to understand in order to change.

In this way, there can be a courting of the problem. We can enter into a dialogue with the client and the problem. Solutions become deeper and more meaningful and more resonant. And clients grow to see solutions as developments in their stories. Rather than concretized events, the problem is a plot point that evolves throughout the narrative.

To guide our clients through this powerful process, we need advanced coaching skills related to narrative development and meaning making. In the Authentic Wholeness Coach Training Certification Program, I teach storytelling, meaning making, and narrative development with clients. These skills are extraordinarily powerful and the process is deeply resonant. Our clients can move forward from this narrative development process with radical new understandings of themselves and their experiences in ways that are vigorously empowering.

On the timelessness of storytelling: by Mike Jones

I’m a teller of tales, a spinner of yarns,

A weaver of dreams and a liar.

I’ll teach you some stories to tell to your friends,

While sitting at home by the fire.

You may not believe everything that I say

But there’s one thing I’ll tell you that’s true

For my stories were given as presents to me

And now they are my gifts to you.

My stories are as old as the mountains and rivers

That flow through the land they were born in

They were told in the homes of peasants in rags

And kings with fine clothes adorning.

There’s no need for silver or gold in great store

For a tale becomes richer with telling

And as long as each listener has a pair of good ears

It matters not where they are dwelling.

A story well told can lift up your hearts

And help you forget all your sorrows

It can give you the strength and the courage to stand

And face all your troubles tomorrow.

For there’s wisdom and wit, beauty and charm

There’s laughter and sometimes there’s tears

But when the story is over and the spell it is broken

You’ll find that there’s nothing to fear

My stories were learned in my grandparent’s home

Where their grandparents also had heard them

They were given as payment by travelling folk

For a warm place to lay down their burdens

My stories are ageless, they never grow old

With each telling they are born anew

And when my story is ended, I’ll still be alive

In the tales that I’ve given to you.