One Story is not the whole story

One Story is not the whole story

By Evie McRae | 21st January 2020 | Comments 0 Comment

If you have ever taken part in a workshop or perhaps even training at work you will be familiar with ice breaker sessions where you have to stand up and introduce yourself to the rest of the participants.

Love it or loathe it, I use this idea as an exercise to kick things off in my writing workshops. I introduce myself first and I generally use that time to outline some of my writing. I then invite everyone to write down what they want to say about themselves giving them 100 words to play with. We then go around the room and generally find out why people have chosen to attend a Memoir Writing workshop – and the reasons vary enormously. Sounds straightforward enough I hear you say.

After people have shared their introduction – we then come back to my earlier – resume-style introduction – and I then explain why I introduced myself in such a sterile manner. I want to reassure the audience they are in safe hands, I’m qualified in what I do, I have the necessary experience and I can help them write their story too.

But do they really know me? Do they know my story (or stories)? They know about the one and only story I have presented to them – and at that early stage in our workshop that seems to suffice.

I then go on to share around 4 or 5 more ‘introductions’ that I could have presented, each more emotive, personal and layered than the last. It’s in the sharing of these alternative ‘stories’ that we as a group ‘connect’ – because these are the ‘real’ stories that are often buried or ignored in the quest to present a more ‘together’ and polished version of ourselves.

It’s a very simple exercise demonstrating the framing of a narrative. There is also another lesson here – about being brave and raw when writing Memoir – because these are our human experiences that connect us all.

If you have suffered trauma or injustice in your life, it can feel like you ARE that story – you ARE that ‘abused partner’. You ARE that ‘beaten child’ or you ARE that ‘rape victim’ or you are that nurse that couldn’t heal the person you desperately wanted to heal most.

Sometimes, without even realising it, we absorb the energy of that trauma, and we become that story. If we are abused we become the shame and the unworthiness. If we are a mother or nurse or doctor, then we should be able to heal. If we don’t – then we can absorb and become ‘failure’.

One of the first steps to healing – and rewriting your story – is to realise you are not the sum total of that one story. You are more than one story. You are not the problem. The emotion attached to that external problem that happened outside of you is the problem.

Do you have a story you keep repeating to yourself about yourself? What story do you tell others about yourself? Does that story differ when it comes to relating to friends or strangers?

We all have more than one story. Sometimes we get caught up in ‘our old story’ to the point we forget or just don’t see our other magnificent and triumphant stories.

Perhaps if your mother was absent emotionally you could change your story from one of abandonment and rejection – to one of ‘resilience’ and ‘compassion’ – the tools you learned as a result of that thing that happened outside of yourself (that thing that isn’t you the human being).

This is the beauty of combining healing with writing – you can literally and figuratively rewrite your story – and it’s not necessarily a work of Fiction – the story is there – you just need to know where to look -or to have someone on your team skilled enough to help you identify it.

If you are interested in taking part in my upcoming ‘What’s your Story?’ Workshops which include Magical Memoir Writing and ‘Giving Trauma A Voice Through Writing’ do drop me a line so I can ensure you notified as soon as dates/venues are available.

evie@lightmygaia.com

Giving a voice to trauma through writing

By Evie McRae | 21st November 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

What images does your mind conjure up when you hear the word ‘trauma’?

Trauma was not a word I truly understood until fairly recently – which considering my own ‘story’ is rather ironic. For me, the word trauma was a bit like the word ‘stress’. In my world, stress was bandied about with such frequency and was attributed to so many of our less desirable behaviours that I failed to realise the impact actual stress had on us as human beings.

It wasn’t until I began working on a health publication in the UK, many moons ago, that my education really began around what actually happens within the body when it’s flooded with stress chemicals. I was surprised to learn ‘stress’ is not just something in your head, nor is it just something to say when someone is red in the face with anger or exasperation. It affects your mental and physical health and, yes, it can be a killer left unchecked. Which brings me back to ‘trauma’.

If your mind brought forth images of limbs being lost through war, or horrific incidents or death-defying accidents you’re not alone. The sad reality is, while yes trauma does indeed happen in these scenarios, trauma can often begin at home.

Domestic violence, sexual abuse, mental and emotional cruelty or neglect, serious illness, the loss of a loved one and suicide are all forms of trauma within the home. It can be a one-off event, or it can happen over and over, again and again. Trauma can take the form of an extreme event or betrayal or lots of smaller more insidious occurrences.

Research now shows how damaging trauma can be. In fact, trauma fundamentally changes the brain’s structure and alters its functionalities. Up until I committed to my own trauma counselling – I had no idea how much my trauma had shaped me – even though I thought I’d spent most of my life making sure it didn’t!

Recognising that you have lived through trauma can take many years, let alone how long it may take you to be brave enough to actually turn up at a trauma counsellor’s appointment. However, that appointment is just what’s required if you are to take the necessary steps toward healing.

I wanted to help a friend who was having some challenges, so in between writing workshops and healing sessions I was doing a bit of extra reading. I happened to come across an article about stress and anxiety being a by-product of trauma.

The article drew me in and suddenly a wave of emotion swept over me with the realisation that I myself displayed and felt the whole range of ‘classic symptoms’. I read further and further until I realised, those things I’d put down to my sometimes ‘feisty’ personality or extreme PMT, were actually the hallmarks of Trauma.

I didn’t go to war – not in the conventional sense – but my home-life growing up was my very own personal warzone where I was constantly under attack of enemy fire. This childhood experience propelled me into further abuses and ‘traumatic’ experiences. As I got older I observed my own reactions seemed to veer chaotically between the manifestations of fight, flight, freeze and ‘befriend’.

So yes it can take a long time to acknowledge you are a survivor of trauma – particularly if you have never truly understood what the word encompassed. However, gradually, you begin to realise life isn’t meant to be lived this way- and the best bit is – if you are willing to do the work – you can change your life!

And here’s where it gets REALLY interesting!

Trauma lives in a place that can be very difficult to reach with normal words and language or description, and might only be accessed, initially at least, through the ‘symptoms’.

At best trauma can manifest in indescribable anxiety, a sick feeling or a heavy, empty ache … either quite randomly or as the result of a smell, a place – or even someone’s expression! At worst, trauma can meet you through uncontrollable rage, addiction or life-limiting behaviour. Sometimes all of this and more …

In order to reach the trauma – to give it a voice – you must find a safe way to express it. This is where ‘expressive arts’ can come in very useful. Without getting too deep into the detail here, a qualified expressive arts therapist will combine psychology and the creative process to promote emotional growth and healing.

This intermodal approach to psychotherapy and counselling utilises our inherent desire to create, as a therapeutic tool to help the desired shift occur. The difference between expressive arts therapy and art therapy is that expressive arts therapy draws from a variety of art forms, while art therapy tends to be based on one particular art form (such as writing, painting, music or dance).

Indeed, when I look at my own family I am astounded to realise we walk the ‘creative’ art side of the track (in terms of our professional life and our personal lives too).

My brother and my sister are artists and nowadays they work as teachers in Art & Design – my brother also plays music (another expressive art form). My daughter designs brand identities. Now admittedly, my whole family inherited their natural creative talent from my mother who was also a gifted and talented artist. However, co-incidentally, having lived in an orphanage with her brother from the age of 5, it’s fair to say my mother had her fair share of trauma too. And then there’s me – a writer and practitioner.

Had we naturally found the tool within to ‘save ourselves from our trauma’? After all, the 3 of us had experienced what it was like to live in an abusive household – albeit from very different perspectives. By following our collective creative dreams we had the means to access that gateway to healing!

Who knows, as a writer and a healer – perhaps I knew on some level that I had the tools within to make sense of the events in my life – and have made sense of them through a lifetime of writing and the appropriate counselling – brought these learnings into my healing practice to help others find their way back from their own trauma.

Perhaps we three siblings had a strong survival instinct and dug into our inner worlds to make sense of the outer world …we just didn’t know it at the time.

The wonderful news is – according to the research post-traumatic stress disorder is reversible. The human brain can be re-wired. The brain may be a finely-tuned instrument but it is heartening to know that the brain also has an amazing capacity to regenerate and heal.

Under starter’s orders

By Evie McRae | 23rd July 2015 | Comments 0 Comment

So there I was ready to write ‘the’ novel. The one I have been living with in my mind for so many years.

I was excited, motivated, exhilarated – you name it – I was it! Until it hit me. Writing a novel is actually quite a daunting process (no shit Sherlock I hear you say)!

I don’t know why this revelation didn’t hit me before. I suppose because I had always written, whether it was poetry, short stories, or content for a website, I never had a problem with ideas or putting words onto a blank sheet of paper.

A novel, however, is more like running a marathon. I had done lots of training in short bursts for much shorter races, but I hadn’t done any preparation for a marathon!

Now that I was actually ‘serious’ and getting down to business as it were, it occurred to me that I hadn’t thought through a few of the vital elements … and what’s more… I couldn’t progress until I had the fundamentals clear in my mind.

Take genre for example. I had the ‘story’ in my head, but how was I going to tell the story? Was this going to be a historical novel, something more philosophical or could I do both? Were there any rules I needed to know – even if it was so I could break them?

As I trawled through websites looking for guidance and inspiration, I began ordering books left, right and centre to fast track my learning. I realised I had much to learn. At one point I even considered doing an MBA in creative writing but then I thought this may be too much distraction from the task in hand.

The good news is from what I have read thus far, there are many ways to skin this particular cat. Therefore my approach is going to be a blend of inspired creativity, gleaned information and teachings from my favourite authors, and a pinch of gut instinct.

If you are considering writing a novel, here’s a couple of little pointers I have learned so far.

You can find a million jobs that need to be done, like tidying the bathroom cabinet, or picking fluff off socks, but you can only drink so many cups of procrastination coffee.
Understand what it is you want to write and why you want to write it.
What genre is your writing going to fit into?
Actually writing down an outline, or even a story board, is a good idea when you are writing a novel. It helps you keep on track, but it can also help you identify where the weak elements are in your story.
Have you thought about character, settings and the plot itself?

Of course there are many questions you should be able to answer about your novel so over the next few posts I’ll expand on this planning phase a bit more. If nothing else it will give you a sense of what I have been wrestling with these last few weeks.

Still, it’s early days – and at least now I realise I am actually at the starting line of a marathon and not a 100 meter sprint. Excitement, exhilaration and motivation are still there, but now they have made room for endurance, perseverance and commitment!