THE STORIES WE TELL

What is a story, anyway? Is it defined by incident, or meaning?

We hear and tell tens of stories throughout the day, in full or in part. Some of them amuse, others provoke thought, others give insight into the teller. We define ourselves to others, and ourselves, by the stories we tell.

There’s an outfit called the Landmark Forum which grew out of a seventies therapy movement, est. I know a couple of people who’ve had run-ins with Landmark, and though they practice some pretty dubious habits such as locking people into seminar rooms and refusing to let them go to the toilet (which takes me back to junior school if anything) they also have some more interesting things going on. Such as, getting group members to tell the defining stories of their lives and, gently or otherwise, pulling those stories apart.

Why would behaving so impolitely to someone’s stories be useful? Well, when it comes to the stories that define us, we often choose to play archetypal roles. Whether we’re hero, victim, fool or survivor, we’ve identified with a particular stance on life that, arguably, we play out in other aspects of our life, whether or not they’re the most appropriate ways to deal with the situations we’re confronted with. Challenge that role, by bringing other perspectives to the stories people tell, drawing attention to the necessary omissions or weighted descriptions, and that can help people rethink not just the content of their story, but the meaning they made of it and have carried forward since.

So, allowing a bunch of killjoys can be good for you, huh? Actually, done well — and I’m talking about the kind of interaction you can have with a caring friend rather than some of the clodhopping accounts I’ve heard from Landmark — and it can be a very useful experience. Realising that the cherished story in which you broke your mother’s favourite vase didn’t mean she no longer loved you, but was the start of a journey in which by paying for a new one you became a provider for the first time in your life, can be a therapeutic experience.

I’d suggest that one of the things writers do in creating their professional stories is, sometimes, reexamine some of their own fundamental stories. Which would explain the recurrence of particular themes in a given writer’s work. And, knowing that it’s possible to do so, would it be worth asking yourself what your own fundamental stories are and seeing how they relate to the scripts and prose you’ve already written, and the projects you aspire to tackling in the future?

Eek, we’ve finally got onto ‘writing as therapy’ some 90 posts in to this experience. Apologies if I’m coming across a bit Dr Phil — greater apologies still if I’m all Oprah. And mum…sorry about that vase.

3 Responses so far »

Jim Vincent said,

April 25, 2008 @ 10:50 am

Hi, Landmark Education, the educational company that offers the Landmark Forum has changed a lot of things from the est training, which technology it owns. In the est training, yes, the participants were required to stay in the room during the lectures. That is not true for the Landmark Forum. The sessions are 2 and a half to three hours long, and participants may leave if they need to at any time.

And while, yes, the participants engage in a conversation to identify their “defining stories”, no one is required to speak them publicly. They are “pulled apart”, but only in the sense that the “what happened” — defined by incident — is separated from “what it meant” — defined by meaning. This process is done honestly and respectfully.

If you haven’t already, I suggest you check into it and even do the course. I think you’ll find it fascinating and worth while.

If you want more reading, I suggest you head over to http://www.landmarkeducationnews.com or http://www.legrads.com.au for stories from people who are using what they learned to make a difference.

Anonymous said,

April 25, 2008 @ 3:39 pm

As someone who has been both a professional writer and and has done some of the Landmark courses, I found your post fascinating. I think stories can be immensely powerful in our lives. They can inspire us to new heights of achievement or contribution, or they can destroy us, depending on what story you’re telling.

I once read something fascinating that Clint Eastwood said. He visited a prison once, and he asked a question of the prisoners. When you watch one of my movies, are you rooting for me or are you rooting for the criminals? They all looked at him like he was crazy. We’re rooting for you, of course.

What Eastwood saw is that everyone identifies with themselves as the hero–No one, not even murderers, think of themselves as the bad guy. Everyone’s the hero, (or, if unsuccessful, the victim) of their own personal tale. Murderers feel justified in what they’ve done by the personal stories they create about what happened.

There’s also a great scene in Neil Gaiman’s Doll’s House where the Sandman encounters a meeting of serial killers and he lays a curse of sorts on them: That they will know exactly who they are, and how little that means. He still all their petty dreams of grandeur and importance.

Anyhow, this has gotten way of the rails, but I think it does relate powerfully to one’s own writing. For myself, doing the Landmark course (and by the way, that think about the bathroom must be some sort of urband legend) had me look my own stories in the eye and see which of them I wanted to keep around. By getting free from the idea of my unconscious personal story being true, I found I had far more flexibility in my writing. I’ve had an explosion of creativity inside of realizing that it’s all just made up anyway and there’s nothing I can’t say.