Welcome Back!
Welcome back!
Its December and as promised - The Monomyth Through Trauma Series is returning.
I’ve had some time to regroup and recharge.
So - Recap of the Series
The Monomyth is a story telling format which has been central to mythology for thousands of years. It is a storytelling format of a quest. Scholar Joseph Campell pioneered the analysis of the pattern as is most famous for his work, “The Hero with A Thousand Faces.”
The Hero with a Thousand Faces (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell)
Why storytelling? How does it help us?
Storytelling is powerful and central to humanity. It creates courage, inspiration and empathy. Most people can name how a story changed their viewpoint, or prompted them to action.
Stories feature centrally in all belief systems, both relegious and secular. Business presenters are now encouraged to tell stories instead of just presenting facts and figures.
The science works like this:
Our human brains make connections like massive interstate highways. The topics we concentrate on get the largest highway systems. That’s great if you have a focus on what you enjoy… but not everyone does. In fact, 19% of Americans over the age of 18 have anexity disorders.
Facts & Statistics | Anxiety and Depression Association of America, ADAA
Nineteen percent is forty million adults.
So… forty million adults’ mental highway systems lead to worry, gloom and doom.
Anexity is telling yourself stories about things that have happened, might happen, or could happen… on a consistent repeat. These stories are not always accurate, because they’re being told while the brain is in survival brain.
Survival brain is awesome - because it saves your life. Survival brain is that quick automatic jerk of the steering wheel to avoid a car accident. Survival brain also gives you that emotional red flag outside a dark alley, or when a date is going badly and you need to leave.
The problem with survival brain is that its a horrible storyteller. Survival brain wants to save you, but it only kicks in when there’s a threat. This unfortunatly means that its storytelling is prone to threat analysis and not logical thinking. When anexity starts, it becomes an emotional and phyiscal mind body loop, so your information highways never stop repeating gloomy scenarios.
Telling yourself different stories creates new brain pathways away from that gloom scenario. You can make new highways toward empowerment by telling stories which take you from the victim of your created doom, into a hero.
An example:
Many women have taken self defense courses after dangerous encouters. They didn’t like their body’s reaction to the dangerous incident, so rather than replay the incident and what happened… they put their body and minds into action by learning how to defend themselves.
These ladies rewrote their survival brains through movement. Self defense also includes storytelling of a dangerous encounter, and then the motion of what to do to save your life in that situation. This storytelling is done in a safe enviroment, bringing empowerment with training.
Here’s a video demonstrating what I mean…
5 REAL Women's Self Defense Tips - Krav Maga
Note how she sets up a scenario and then gives the training to get out of it. The scenario is a story and the training is the new brain highway toward empowerment - not fear.
The goal of this series is to use the monomyth structure to not only heal and empower, but to teach you to tell stories which rewrite your brain highways from demoralized to heroic, and able to face challenges which come your way. You may not always be fearless, and it may not always be easy - but you’ll know not to fall into gloom, doom, boom. This is not doomsday - this is destiny.
Perpetual Disclaimer for this series:
I am not a counselor or a mental health professional. I am going to attempt to avoid things which will cause alarm or harm, but I can't know what will trigger each individual. If you need to speak to a mental health professional please know that there are resources available.
Your stories are amazing!
Chronic Writer
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