Tag Archives: therapy

Family Psychology Lessons in Memoirs

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by Jerry Waxler

Why are memoirs so popular? Read my book Memoir Revolution to learn the reasons for this important cultural trend.

Despite the incredible importance of the family as the social unit that ushers us into the world, our public dialog is mainly confined to examples that fit into half-hour television sitcoms. The Memoir Revolution has taken us beyond those shallow waters. Memoirs take us deep into profound explorations of real families, allowing ordinary readers to see complexities that until now were only visible to the members of one’s own family.

By reading memoirs, anyone can experience childhood development with parents who are drunk, (Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt), parents who are crazy (Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls), or parents reeling from the disturbing events of their own past. (Replacement Child by Judy Mandel and Breaking the Code by Karen Fisher-Alaniz).

Memoirs show families ripped apart by war (Eaves of Heaven by Andrew X. Pham, Zlata’s Diary by Zlata Filopovic, Learning to Die in Miami by Carlos Eire. )

They show families ripped apart by runaway teenagers, (Live Through This by Debra Gwartney and Beautiful Boy by David Sheff), kids undermined by parents who supply them with drugs (With You or Without You by Niki Ruta) and parents who love their kids but are too self-involved to raise them (In Spite of Everything by Susan Gregory Thomas).

In some families, the parents simply don’t have the time or skill to lead their children toward adulthood. (Dawn Novotny in Ragdoll Redeemed, Andre Dubus III in Townie), and some families are so torn apart, their kids are thrown into foster care. (Three Little Words by Ashley Rhodes-Courter.)

Intuitive Family Therapy in Action

The memoir Freeways to Flipflops, by Sonia Marsh provides a fascinating example of an important, specific type of family problem. In the Marsh family, one troubled teenager exerted enormous disruptive pressure on the family system, threatening to drag the rest of the family down with him.

In family-therapy parlance, the troublemaker is called the “identified patient” and most families quite naturally try to “fix” the offending member. Some try therapy, others ship the troubled one off to military school, or kick him out of the house. Identifying the patient might save the family at the expense of the member. But according to family therapists, to resolve the roots of the problem, the family system itself must change.

The memoir Freeways to Flipflops demonstrates just such a solution applied to the entire family system. Surprisingly, the sophisticated intervention is not administered by a trained family therapist but through the intuitive intelligence and courage of the mother. The family intervention she administers is as bold and far reaching an example of family systems therapy as any I can think of in literature.

When Mom sees her oldest son sliding toward danger, instead of trying to “fix him” or passively watching his train wreck destroy them all, she responds in a radical intervention that completely changes the rules of the game. She moves to a third world country.

The gamble pays off, resulting in an improvement in everyone’s life. So in addition to an excellent example of a family in trouble, Freeways to Flipflops provides an excellent example of a family that solved a systemic problem. Sonia Marsh turns her family’s psychological problems around, and in the process offers practically a textbook case of healing a family system.

Reenergizing the family by going through tough times together

When they move from Los Angeles to Belize, they certainly shake things up. Without their old friends and old patterns, they have to figure everything out anew. How to pass the time? How to find a store, or even get to the store? The Marsh’s use the unfamiliar environment of Belize to break out of old patterns, similar to the way wilderness rehabs help kids quit drugs. And like the wilderness rehab, it wasn’t always easy.

In this unfamiliar environment, Sonia snipes at her husband bitterly, asking him when he is going to get off the couch and find a job. Her nagging seems to have a reverse effect, apparently convincing him to dig in deeper. After this approach fails, Sonia decides she is being too edgy and combative. Similar to her attempt to resolve her son’s problems by changing the rules of the game she does the same thing with her husband. She tries an experiment, behaving toward him with more support, compassion. Before long, he too shifts gears, taking more responsibility and searching for his next step.

In my Family Systems therapy class, we learned that when one member of a family achieves a higher level of maturity, their increased level of functioning positively influences the rest of the family. Sonia Marsh’s approach offers a fascinating example of this principle.

For a memoir that provides a perfect counter-example of this approach, consider Boyd Lemon’s memoir Digging Deep. In this memoir, the author looks back on his three failed marriages, trying to understand what went wrong, and finding in each case that his own immature and self-involved approach to his spouse created the dynamics that ended in failure. Many of us learn lessons about ourselves after the fact.

Now that the Memoir Revolution is underway, more of us are writing about our real life experiences, and learning from each others’, offering examples of family dynamics that were formerly only available in academic textbooks. As these real-world lessons increasingly seep into our collective consciousness, they can help us improve our own situations through mature, informed action. And by learning to see our lives individually and together through the lens of our own memoirs, we are gaining an increasingly sophisticated tool to understand how our Stories all intertwine.

Writing Prompt
Write about a time when you did the same thing over and over, and kept getting the same results. Write a scene from one of those times, perhaps when you realized you were repeating a pattern, or simply when you felt the results of it.

Writing Prompt
Write about a time when you attempted to break out of a pattern. Write a scene in which you felt the courage, or unfamiliarity of trying something new. Perhaps you recognized you needed to change something, or you were desperate and ran away. In your writing assignment, include your feelings about this unfamiliar break in the pattern.

Notes
Another example of an author who broke a pattern is Cheryl Strayed. In her  memoir Wild, she goes for a hike in the wilderness to turn her life around. This breaks her out of her patterns with boys, friends, and drugs. It’s not about family change but illustrates a similar intervention. And it’s a great story.

For brief descriptions and links to all the posts on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order Memoir Revolution about the powerful trend to create, connect, and learn, see the Amazon page for eBook or Paperback.

To order my how-to-get-started guide to write your memoir, click here.

Fear of publishing: Try these ten (more) tips to increase courage

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by Jerry Waxler

Many writers are comfortable alone at their desk but nervous about going public. This anxiety can be used as fuel to motivate you to hone your skills and press towards goals. Or the same emotion can turn to fear, arousing demoralizing thoughts like “No one will like it,” and “Why bother?”

While much has been written about how to market your book, there is relatively little guidance for the emotional struggle. Because I have had to cope with my own social anxiety, I have been studying this issue for years, reading self-help books, and incorporating lessons from my formal training in counseling psychology, and trying the strategies myself. In addition, I have listened and learned from other writers who have struggled with their own variations on these challenges.

To unravel these negative reactions, I have assembled twenty tips that can help you break free of the restrictions place on you by shyness. Ten of these tips are listed below, and you can find an additional ten in part 1 of this article by clicking here

Shift your attention from judges to admirers

Many of us have a generalized fear that “they” won’t like me or “they” will judge me and my writing. These vague feelings can have power, until we think about them clearly. Ask yourself who are “they.” What if some people admire you and others don’t? Are you demanding that all 6 billion people on earth adore you? Anyway, why are you giving so much importance to the ones who won’t like you? In every audience there is a mix. Focus your energy on the people who like you. Take their compliments seriously. Write towards your admirers, not your detractors.

Laugh your way past rejection and keep going

To sell your book, you must convince an agent or editor to invest time and money in your work. Naturally some will say no, a response that will likely disappoint you. Use creative ways to inoculate yourself against rejection. For example, write a humorous story about how you opened your door one day to find an editor who hated your writing so much she came to plead with you never to write again. Brag about your rejections as badges of courage. Collect stories about famous writers who were rejected a hundred times. Instead of allowing rejection to derail your intention, approach publishing like a business. Line up your possible customers and keep looking.

Be kind to assertive people

Do you cringe when you see an ordinary person speaking out in public? If you hate assertive people you might be sacrificing your public voice at the altar of courtesy. Like the wallflower sitting on the sidelines, your refusal to be pushy allows everyone else to have their dance while you miss out. Life is a balance between pushy and shy, so be aware of where you have drawn the line. Challenge your own negative attitude about assertive people, and take into account the many benefits of becoming a more socially assertive person yourself.

Open your heart to sales people

We all know the stereotype of the crass, insincere salesperson who will say anything to manipulate you to buy. But like any stereotype, this impression ignores the nuances. Instead of feeling a generalized antagonism towards all selling, consider the fact that persuasion is a normal, healthy, and important part of life.

Flip your viewpoint. Instead of worrying about persuading them, look at the way they persuaded you. When you walk into a bookstore and weigh all the options, you are, in effect, the target of thousands of persuaders calling you from the shelves. Each one of those books has a blurb, a cover, and a position on the shelf, all aimed at convincing you to buy. When you like a book, you appreciate their effort. Their selling actually enriched your life. It was a mutually beneficial transaction. Allow yourself to perform this same service for your readers. By convincing readers and the gatekeepers who guard their door, you are actually seeking to serve readers with your story.

Overcome your hatred of shame

Shame is such a horrible feeling, naturally you want to avoid it. But instead of allowing shame to control you, take a closer look at the emotion itself. According to psychologist John Bradshaw, there is good shame and bad shame. Bad shame or self loathing results from child abuse and needs to be healed. On the other hand, good shame is healthy. Its purpose is to stop you from doing socially unacceptable things. If you feel this emotion, it means you are trying to do the right thing.

By overcoming your disgust with shame, you can explore aspects of yourself that you have been avoiding all these years. Under the stinky exterior, you will find that much of the shame resulted from your desire to be a good person. You will also discover opportunities for deep healing.

Heal from memories of harsh criticism

Many adults are ashamed of their writing because of the derision of a high school English teacher or two. Exorcise the ghosts of these childhood critics by writing a story about a teacher who criticized you and then went home to care for a sick child, or perhaps had a crush on you and didn’t want anyone to find out. Or take a more psychological approach and work through these traumatic memories with a therapist.

Throw off the remnants of the English Class system

Eliza Doolittle in “My Fair Lady,” needed to enunciate precisely in order to gain admission to upper class society. Nowadays, we look on the British Class system as a quaint relic. However, many of us still fear that a wrong comma or a poorly chosen word will expose us as classless commoners.

This fear derives its strength from unconscious whispers that insinuate your writing will expose you as a worthless human being. When you look more carefully, you will realize that society no longer measures us by our proper use of the King’s English.

Learn to tell your story in clear, compelling, and entertaining language. Your writing voice needs to be authentic and unique. Through practice you will discover this voice, constantly improving but never “perfect.” When you are finally ready to publish a book, you can hire an editor to weed out any remaining errors that might detract from the reader’s enjoyment.

Focus on your own generosity

One of the best antidotes to shyness is to switch your focus from fear to generosity. Instead of worrying about your own feelings, apply all that energy to making readers feel good.

Constantly improve your writing skills

It would be crazy to stop writing because you fear your book won’t be interesting enough. The book can’t possibly be interesting until you make it so. To create your best story, improve your language arts, practice, and learn to edit. Over time, your product will improve, and when you and your band of critiquers are pleased with it, you will be able to imagine that other people will be pleased as well.

In addition to being an expert about your life, become an expert about your memoir

To increase your sense of authority about your memories, do additional fact checking. Verify dates or street names. Interview other characters, and become aware of their perspective. It’s good to know in advance about any disagreements they might have. When appropriate reconcile their information with yours, or agree to disagree. Look up  facts or read books about the period. The more you do your homework, the more authoritative you’ll feel when you present your information to others.

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Notes
You can find an additional ten tips for overcoming shyness in part 1 of this article by clicking here

More memoir writing resources

To see brief descriptions and links to all the essays on this blog, click here.

To order my short, step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

To learn more about my 200 page workbook about overcoming psychological blocks to writing, click here.

Check out the programs and resources at the National Association of Memoir Writers

A leader of memoir writers tells her own story

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by Jerry Waxler

I have long admired Linda Joy Myers as a thought-leader in the memoir movement. In addition to writing an amazing memoir about her own journey, she is the founder of the National Association of Memoir Writers which brings resources and support to anyone who wants to develop the story of their life. Now she has added another contribution to the field with her book, “The Power of Memoir: Writing Your Healing Story.” In this interview, I ask Linda Joy to share more thoughts about her journey as a writer and teacher.

Jerry Waxler: When did you first become interested in writing your memoir?

Linda Joy Myers: At first, I wrote my stories as journal entries and poetry. My inner critic was very noisy and nasty, so I kept my writing small and private. For a while, I was confused about whose story I was telling. Because my story is about three generations, actually about five generations of mothers and daughters, I didn’t know where to start. I wrote two novel length versions that had to do with of the imagined story of my great-grandmother, born in 1873, three years before Custer’s Last Stand. And I wanted to explore the early life of my grandmother who was raising me. I knew her as an older woman, when she would tell me the stories of her early life, but her most interesting story she tried to keep from me: her elopement when she was 16! It caused quite a scandal.

My story? Well, it took one of my mentors to invite me to tell my own story, which I hadn’t yet claimed. I was raised with huge admonitions against “airing the dirty laundry” of the family, and my story would definitely do that. It was hard to break all those rules! So it took many years, lots of classes, and lots of “I’m NOT going to write this darn thing.” As I tell people, the memoir kept chasing me until I turned around and agreed to write it. When I did, the old ghosts became silent. I suppose it helped that those who would get upset at me for telling the family tales were dead. Well, most of them. Some of my extended family eventually freaked out that I had written a memoir, even though I left their dastardly deeds out of consideration and respect. Now I might write it all, as I have nothing to lose. So there might be another memoir someday.

JW: When you did you first become interested in teaching others how to write memoirs?

LJM: One day I stumbled upon the research that Dr. James Pennebaker and other psychologists were doing on the healing power of writing stories. Time stopped as I sat there at my desk, enthralled,  everything silent, as energy rushed through my body. I began searching for all the research on the topic I could find–this was in 1999-2000. I called Dr. Pennebaker to find out more, and I met him in person. Inspired, I began teaching therapists how they could use writing to help clients, using Xeroxed memoir stories from my favorite memoirs and articles about the writing as healing research. In these workshops I was blown away by the stories that came out of people who were not “writers.” I decided to write my first book “Becoming Whole–Writing Your Healing Story” to share the great news of the research and the amazing stories that came out of my workshops. Teaching people “the good news” was the most fun I’d had in a long time.

JW: You have said in interviews for your own memoir “Don’t Call me Mother” that you made huge sweeping changes, even throwing out a manuscript and starting over. It sounds like you were burning with creative desire to tell that story well. Could you say more about the sheer length and persistence of this effort for you? What kept you going?

LJM: I worked on the memoir for more than a decade, and during most of that time I was still trying to heal. I got stuck a lot, and quit working on it many times, feeling defeated and overwhelmed by how hard it was to write when the issue I was trying to heal was still being lived out. My mother continued her abandonment of me and her grandchildren, and I discovered how little she claimed us all when she was dying. None of her few friends in Chicago had any idea she had a daughter or grandchildren! So the situation of being denied and abandoned was a continuous wound. I envisioned my book as being able to help others with similar situations.

After my mother’s death, I had a new version of my story, finally feeling some resolution, and became serious about finishing the book. After many agents passed on it, I needed to see it published, so I and a couple of friends started our own publishing company, and we each published our work.

As I prepared the final versions and edits of “Don’t Call Me Mother,” I saw the through line of the narrative, and the theme became clear. I edited out all the pieces that didn’t fit the theme, which turned out to be about 56,000 words. Actually, it felt like a relief to cut it down to size, and I felt happy about finally finishing the story. The editing process and getting a completed book was as healing as writing it.

JW: I read an interview with Mary Karr, author of “The Liar’s Club” in which she talks about how vulnerable kids are. Typically, people only talk about this vulnerability in therapist’s offices. When the memoir wave started, people started to write and read about their vulnerable childhood in books. As a teacher of memoir writing, how do you feel about your clients “coming out of the closet” so to speak and writing about these exquisitely private scenes? Does it help? Is it scary?

LJM: These kinds of books about abuse were being written in the 1980s, but memoirs were not popularized as literature until Tobias Wolff’s “This Boy’s Life” or Mary Karr’s “Liar’s Club,” among others.

As a teacher and coach, I see people digging deep into truths never before shared with a living soul. We in the groups feel honored that we are allowed to witness this kind of courage–the  survival skills of our writing partners and the amazing spirit of determination that many people need just to grow up, to live, and to move forward in their lives.

I am humbled and moved each week by their bravery and willingness to put the truth on the page and share it with us. My students tell me frequently how their lives have changed because of this writing, along with the witnessing and compassion they received in the workshop. One woman tells me that she loves her mother now, but when we started, she could barely stand to be in the same room with her.  She wrote both the dark and the light stories about her family, and integrated a whole new relationship with her elderly mother. I love outcomes like this, and she is one of many.

JW: In your therapy work, what seeds do you plant that might help people use the medium of writing to help them organize their thoughts and emotions?

LJM: Most of my therapy clients do very little writing, but when they do, they find it helpful and are often surprised at what shows up in their journal. They focus on significant scenes where they’re stuck, the turning point moments of trauma that even after years of work keep haunting them. They sometimes write during the session, which helps them to focus, or they bring in their journal or dreams. The problem is that most people write very abstractly, but when I can convince them to use scenes, they really do write differently and with more healing power. I talk about the healing power of scene writing in “The Power of Memoir.”

JW: It seems that when someone first starts writing a memoir, they ought to have a background in psychology. By the time they finish their memoir, they need expertise in creative writing and literature. How do you steer through these two aspects of memoir writing?

LJM: When I studied literature it seemed so obvious to me that writing had a psychological component, but in the lit classes this was almost never acknowledged. I’d always thought I wanted to bring the two together somehow, but for a long time couldn’t see how to do it. I kept working on my own writing, and then the studies by Dr. Pennebaker and others were published. After I discovered that exciting research, I had a sense of how to integrate my version of healing and psychology with writing–through writing healing stories.

JW: In coming years, how do you see the memoir writing trend balancing between the two disciplines of introspection and literature?

LJM: It’s hard to predict if memoir writing is a brief trend or if the interest in other people’s stories will continue. Perhaps we are all voyeurs at heart. After all, in previous times, people were not cut off from each other the way we are now, in our boxy houses, in front of TVs or computers all the time. People gathered together and knew each other’s business, for better or worse. They helped each other learn from life and each other about how to live. Extended families and communities had a lot of interaction, input, and guidance. People knew what was going on behind most of the closed doors. I wonder if some of that is missing now. Perhaps memoirs throw open those closed doors and invite us all in to see what is going on, to learn how others are living. Perhaps memoirs are fulfilling some kind of universal social need. We’ll see.

JW: I love the “voice” of your book “The Power of Memoir.” For example, in the lovely sections on how memoirs relate to family and to spirituality, you offer a great deal of focused information in clear, easily accessible language. How did you find this particular voice or style?  Did you experiment? Did you workshop your nonfiction voice?

LJM: I am unaware of my “voice.” It just comes out the way it comes out. It is my voice I guess. I used to be confused about what “voice” meant, thinking that I had to do something special to create a “voice.” But we don’t. However, we do need to keep practicing our writing to get comfortable enough with our ideas and themes to earn the voice that really belongs to us. I don’t think writers should worry about their voice. They just need to write, to say what is true for them, and keep learning about grammar, syntax, and writing skills. And, it’s really important to read good literature of all kinds–fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Watch good films, and view real art. All of the arts feed our souls and influence our writing.

JW: What are you working on next?

LJM: I’m starting to put together a proposal for a book that will help young adults write a memoir. My agent Verna Dreisbach has created a wonderful organization called “Capitol City Writers” that presents programs for young people to help them learn about all aspects of writing help to give them a head start with their writing career. I used to work with families in crisis and loved working with the youth in those families. Young people already have so many stories they need to tell. You do not have to be old to write a memoir. Even a ten year old has stories. If we can create a book that encourages and helps young writers, that would be terrific. Right now the idea is still in the creative imagination.

For links to all of Linda Joy Myers’ work, click here.

Click here to see my review of “Power of Memoir”

Click here to read more about Capitol City Writers

More memoir writing resources

To see brief descriptions and links to all the essays on this blog, click here.

To order my short, step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

Memoir Writing as a Form of Therapy

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By Jerry Waxler

Read my book Memoir Revolution to learn how writing your story can change the world.

I sat in bed, beneath a six foot poster of Picasso’s Guernica taped to my wall. The book I held, Sigmund Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents, was probably not on the summer reading lists for most other 17 year-old boys in 1964, but I was on a mission. I needed to figure out how to become an adult. The book by the father of Twentieth Century psychiatry raised more questions about war, peace, and human nature than it answered. Over the next few years, I read many more books, delving into science, psychology, and social theories.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t figure out my place in the world. By my early 20s, I began to meditate, watching my thoughts flow down the river, learning how to let them go. I didn’t need to jump in after each one. In my 40s, I discovered psychotherapy. I became an instant believer, grateful to receive help on my introspective quest. I loved talk therapy so much, I returned to school to earn a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology.

Finally, by the age of 52, I was fully invested in adulthood and one of my first steps as an adult was to figure out how to help other people. I put out my therapist’s shingle on a busy street and nothing happened. Few people were willing to spend money to tell me their most intimate thoughts. It turns out talk therapy is not for everyone. Frustrated in my desire to help, I searched further, trying to understand how I could help. By this time, well into midlife, the center of my curiosity shifted gradually from knowledge of ideas to connections with people.

Writing gathers, shapes, and then shares

My transition from knowledge to  communication started many years earlier. I wrote regularly in a journal. The flow of words on paper soothed my agitated mind, an experience shared by many journal writers. Journaling allows sentences to pour from the cloud of unknowing, allowing you to verbalize what you didn’t even know you were thinking. Natalie Goldberg, arguably the most influential writing teacher of our era, suggests that powerful writing emerges from deep within our spiritual and emotional core. When such authentic feelings burst from their hidden places, we feel a lift and clarity.

Entering the Twenty First Century, I was stuck in this puzzle. Filling journals  pleased me, but without an understanding storytelling, I was powerless to please readers. Then I stumbled on the rumbles of the Memoir Revolution. I noticed memoirs appearing in bookstores and talk shows. I began to read them and my questions about therapy and life journey snapped into place.

Memoirs push us towards the heart of civilization

Each memoir taught me about the workings of an author’s life. I started looking into this system and experimented with it myself. By pouring my life into a story, I saw the boundaries and definition and shape of myself. And the most exciting thing about memoir writing is that I can share it with others.

When writing our lives, we have no therapist to offer feedback, to ask us to explain a feeling, or see more deeply into a particular situation. However, in a sense, we have a more natural resource than simply one individual guide. By writing for a broader audience, memoir writers follow the form called Story, with its familiar beginning, middle, and end. The broken thoughts that make no sense begin to take shape. Like assembling a puzzle, the pieces fit together into a continuous whole.

Once a story is on paper, any reader can say if the explanations sound complete. How do they know? Because by following the ancient principles of storytelling, memoirs push us to organize experiences into the structure civilization has been teaching us since the beginning of time.

Life into myth, life into literature

Until I read the work of the scholar Joseph Campbell, I never realized stories were so important. I thought books and movies were just for entertainment, the evening news was just for information, and literature classes just allowed us to admire the expressions of previous centuries.

Thanks to Joseph Campbell’s work, I know that stories are everywhere, and that we use them to discover fundamental insights into the human condition. Through his interpretation, I realize that memoirs are exactly the tool I’ve been looking for. By reading them, I understand the shape of another person’s life. By writing, I develop a deeper understanding of my own.

Perhaps when people write memoirs, they are participating in the original therapy. Sigmund Freud apparently thought so, since his technique consisted of asking clients to tell stories about themselves. Now as I learn to tell my own stories, I see how my life works, and finally discover the river into which my years have been pouring me all along. Memoir writing is a social form of therapy, joining us through understanding ourselves and our relationship to each other.

Note: This entry is a rewrite of an essay first posted on September 28, 2007

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Notes
While talk-therapy is studied in the psychology department, literature is studied elsewhere. So combining the form of language art known as “story” with the psychology art of healing the self does not fit nicely into an academic framework. But there are those independent thinkers within academia who make the bridge.

For a more literary explanation of how memoirs heal, read the fantastic book Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives by Louise DeSalvo, a literature professor at Hunter college. The book immerses you in the way memoir writing heals.
Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives by Louise DeSalvo

For more about research into the psychology of talking and writing, see:

Opening Up: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotions by James W. Pennebaker

For more about cognitive therapy, google for Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis, two of the founders of that movement.

For the brain science of cognitive work, see Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz book on combating OCD with cognitive methods.
Brain Lock: Free Yourself from Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior by Jeffrey M. Schwartz

More memoir writing resources

To see brief descriptions and links to all the essays on this blog, click here.

To order my short, step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here.

To learn more about the cultural passion for memoirs, and reasons you should write your own, read my book Memoir Revolution: A Social Shift that Uses Your Story to Heal, Connect, and Inspire, available on Amazon. Click here for the eBook or paperback.

Steve at work – life lessons arise from conflict

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by Jerry Waxler

(You can listen to the podcast version by clicking the player control at the bottom of this post or download it from iTunes.)

I needed to work with Steve on a project. Since we had never worked together, I went to his cubicle to break the ice. As I approached his face darkened. He reached over, lifted his phone, and slammed it down, accompanied with a curse to drive home his point. “Shit!” he said to no one in particular, then looked up. “What do you want?” I don’t know when Steve decided he didn’t like me, but from that moment the deal was sealed.

For the last few years, I had been attending graduate school at night. My study of counseling psychology was teaching me how to sit quietly in an office and help clients cope with their stress. My situation with Steve was different. I was the one who was out facing the world, and I didn’t understand how to handle my hurt and frustrated feelings. I made an appointment with a therapist, and from our discussion I realized I have been avoiding conflict my whole life. But this time I couldn’t run away. I needed to deal with it, and that meant developing a new life skill.

So I did what I always do when things get tough. I bought a pile of books. At night I read about conflict resolution and the next day tried out my lessons in the “laboratory” at the office.

The most basic principle was to quit putting all the blame on the other guy. Looking at this situation as entirely his fault left me powerless to change it. Breaking out of the habit of blaming required a strange internal debate. “Of course it’s his fault,” I thought. And then I countered, “but that attitude does me no good.”

The second principle was to try to put myself in his position and imagine what the world looked like through his eyes. It was a mind expanding exercise, and while I obviously couldn’t know his view, speculating about it provided insights. After thinking about the situation with an open mind, I considered the possibility that I represented some sort of threat. I tried to look less threatening by smiling more and asking what I could do to help him.

Another technique I learned from my books was to make deposits into an “emotional bank account.” I hoped that by asking him about his family, I could establish rapport and increase the trust. Unfortunately, Steve blocked my emotional offerings right from the beginning.

For a year I tweaked my conflict resolution strategies. Nothing worked. To survive emotionally, I said supportive things to myself, like “This too will pass”, and “I can handle this.” I used deep breathing and muscle relaxation. Except for a couple of bad days, I kept my nose above water. Eventually, for issues unrelated to me, he left the company. Life returned to the ordinary pressures of the office, and I forgot about him, until I started looking for ways to write my memoir.

It’s hard to tell stories about life in an office when years keep rolling by, with nothing more to show for them than wrinkled skin and gray hair. And yet, ignoring those years doesn’t seem right either. As I ponder this storytelling conundrum, I believe the scenario with Steve provides a solution. Not only does this edgy situation provide a glimpse into how those years worked. It also provides some powerful lessons about what makes life worth living. Here are a few lessons I found by exploring this particular situation.

The characters in my life are real people
In good stories, all the characters have reasons for their actions. To discover these motivations, writing instructors suggest you develop a portrait of every character. Where did they grow up? What do they want? When I stretched beyond myself to see the world through Steve’s eyes, I was being forced to learn not only how to reduce conflict, but also to portray richer, more complex characters in my story.

Not everyone likes me
A world in which everyone liked me would seem so bland. I can add texture by learning this profoundly simple lesson in life: There are some people who think I’m stupid, nuts, edgy, a poor excuse for a human being. Accepting this fact makes me a more resilient person as well as a better storyteller.

I’ve grown
As I tried to cope with this office conflict, I had to exercise patience, and some of the other good qualities that elevate humans closer to angels. He forced me to learn and grow. All those years of plodding through life may have looked like they were going nowhere, but on some inner dimension, my character was evolving. The inner development of the character lingers in the reader’s mind long after the book is closed.

I don’t see Steve’s eventual departure as a victory of good over evil. Rather I see it as a logical step in a longer story. He came, challenged me to grow, finished his work and moved on to help others find deeper meaning and greater strength. It turns out that Steve was one of my greatest teachers.

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Writing Prompt
Consider an endless sequence of actions in your life, such as going to work, or school, or gardening, or getting your hair done. One way to represent repeated experiences in your memoir is to look for peak anecdotes that will represent the activity. Look for any anecdote that jumps out. See if you can tell it as a good story. If so, there’s a good chance you can use it to stand in as an example for all the repetitions.

Writing Prompt
Think of someone who really didn’t like you. If you feel safe, try writing a story from that person’s point of view. (If it doesn’t feel safe, try this exercise in fiction, changing names, hair color, or whatever is necessary to gain some distance.) What did that person see when they looked at you? Why was it okay from their point of view to see you that way? Now, still in their point of view, write a portrait of someone that person actually did like.

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Note
For one of the best observations about the working life I’ve ever read, consider this passage from Robert Pirsig’s “Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.”

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“It was all those people in the cars coming the other way,” she says. “The first one looked so sad. And then the next one looked exactly the same way, and then the next one and the next one, they were all the same.”

“They were just commuting to work.”

She perceives well but there was nothing unnatural about it. “Well, you know, work,” I repeat. “Monday morning. Half asleep. Who goes to work Monday morning with a grin?”

“It’s just that they looked so lost,” she says. “Like they were all dead. Like a funeral procession.” Then she puts both feet down and leaves them there.

I see what she is saying, but logically it doesn’t go anywhere. You work to live and that’s what they are doing. “I was watching swamps,” I say.
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Recommended Books
“Resolving Conflict Sooner, The powerfully simple 4-step method for reaching better agreements more easily in your everyday life,” by Kare Anderson

“Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey

To listen to the podcast version click the player control below: [display_podcast]

Veterans seek healing by cycling through Vietnam

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by Jerry Waxler

(You can listen to the podcast version by clicking the player control at the bottom of this post or download it from iTunes.)

In 1998 a group of American veterans joined their former Vietnamese enemies on a bicycle ride from Hanoi to Saigon. They rode through villages and countryside, much of it unchanged since the war. The venture was documented in a recently released video, “Vietnam: Long Time Coming,” from Kartemquin Films. Villagers waved and children, who had been playing in the paddy fields, ran shouting and laughing towards the stream of brightly clad cyclists. These idyllic scenes highlighted the enormous shift in perspective between the past and the present.

Outside, in the world around them, the world seemed peaceful, while much of the real drama was taking place inside their minds, where memories boiled and occasionally erupted into tears. I empathized with the courage it must have taken to face the country where deep scars were burned into their psyche, and several times I cried along with them.

I first learned about this movie because of my interest in a memoir by one of the participants, George Brummell. In “Shades of Darkness,” George wrote about growing up black in the segregated south, coming of age in Korea, and being blinded by a land mine in Vietnam. Back in the states he learned how to navigate without sight, earned a college degree, and eventually became a director of the blinded veterans association. (Click here to read the essay I wrote about George Brummell’s book Shades of Darkness.)

George and the others who returned to Vietnam for this ride were reaching out towards a new relationship with this place where their lives had been changed forever. Through the documentary movie “The Long Time Coming” I was able to witness that experience and gain a deeper understanding of the psychological aftermath of war. This may seem like a highly specialized concern, but the pain spills out to family, friends, and the community. People are affected for decades when combat veterans feel that they have crossed over a chasm that can only be traversed in one direction, and once on the other side, they cannot find their way back. The existence of that pain in my fellow human beings stirs my desire to understand more.

The movie “Long Time Coming” illustrates that revisiting the past is one of the tools that can help heal in the present. Even though you can’t always return to the scene physically, you can create some of the same effects by writing. Visiting the past through writing can enable you not only to recreate the situation, but also to apply to those memories some of the wisdom you have gained in the intervening years. In some cases, building bridges backwards through time can create a pathway from pain back into hope.

While the most obvious healing strategy of the movie was simply revisiting the scene, there were other strategies being employed. One of the American veterans was a psychologist who conducted meetings and spoke individually with the American vets who were trying to cope with their emotional wounds. The discussions with each other and with a therapist helped them reorganize the thoughts and feelings awakened by this experience. And their connections, friendships, and warmth with former enemies soothed some of the war wounds, as well.

I’ve heard the claim that war is one of the greatest expressions of love, because soldiers must risk their lives for each other. The problem of course is that war requires a common enemy, and so it turns bloody and leaves lingering effects that are not loving at all. Team sports also have the ability to draw people together in a common goal, and that’s what the TEAM bicycle ride in Vietnam was about. These riders, instead of fighting against each other, were joining together to fight the common “enemy” – moving their bicycles towards Saigon. As their focus shifts from danger and betrayal to beauty and friendship, one of the American veterans says, “I feel like this happiness now, riding this bike in Vietnam, is pushing out some of the hatred that had been filling my cup.”

The camera followed bikers up a long mountain road in 100 degree heat. The hand cyclists struggled most because the arm levers did not provide the same mechanical advantage as the foot powered ones. As these slower riders reached the top, those who had already gathered there rushed forward to offer hugs and celebratory whoops. After this outpouring of affection, one of the Vietnamese hand cyclists said, his voice filled with excitement, “This is something both disabled and able bodied people dream of. This experience, though exhausting, is what gives meaning to life.”

He didn’t mean just climbing a mountain on a hot day in a bicycle built for someone without legs. He was surrounded by loving new friends, the honor of being part of a team, the rapprochement of former enemies reaching out to each other. It was a healing moment for him, and for me.

Podcast version click the player control below: [display_podcast]

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Writing Prompt: Write about a time when working together towards a common goal made you feel closer to someone.

Writing Prompt: Select a memory that you have bad feelings about, and pretend you are writing fiction. Applying your wisdom and imagination, reorganize the events so that this character learns some powerful lesson, or accomplishes or triumphs in some way.

Note, links and resources
The ride was organized by a non-profit group called World TEAM Sports –http://www.worldteamsports.org/. The documentary was produced by another non-profit, Kartemquin Films, best known for the award winning documentary Hoop Dreams about inner city youth looking to basketball to elevate their prospects in life. You can help the organization by shopping at: http://www.kartemquin.com/

An excellent book for understanding more about PTSD is “Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character” by Jonathan Shay. Because of the profound effects of PTSD, neurologically and on the very foundation of character, many of the methods in psychology are not sufficient to unravel the damage wrought by combat. And yet, there is much research and compassionate work that has helped veterans suffering from PTSD. In addition to helping them cope with their specialized needs, I believe these therapies and strategies can help other people who suffer with an irreconcilable relationships with painful memories.

For an example of one person’s successful strategy to channel inner directed shame into bicycle racing read the moving memoir “Ten Points” by Bill Strickland. Another memoir in which a soldier seeks healing by revisiting the past is William Manchester’s “Goodbye Darkness.”

For more about revisiting the past, see my essay about the movie Pursuit of Happyness, which portrayed Chris Gardner’s life. For him, it was a return to the trauma and triumph of his youth.

To learn more about how two groups can join to become one by sharing a common task, see the famous sociology experiment by Muzafer Sherif et al (1954) The Robbers Cave experiment. For example, see the Wikipedia entry here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muzafer_Sherif

More memoir writing resources

To see brief descriptions and links to all the essays on Memory Writers Network, click here.

To order my step-by-step how-to guide to write your memoir, click here