Strategic Storytelling 101

Virtual She’s Geeky August 8th, 2020

Session 1 / Space F

Convener: Kristin Powers

Tags for the session – technology discussed/ideas considered: 

• #strategicstorytelling
• #narrative
• #storytelling
• #brainscience
• #motivationaldesign 

Notes: 

Lots of quiet time. 

Embraced scientist side. 

Documented and response to different types of story. 

How could I use my personal narrative to change how I thought about myself. 

Brains and experience. 

Two discoveries:

• The story that you tell and the story that gets heard are two separate entities.
• The brain is wired to respond to stories, so behavior change is connected to storytelling.

“If I thought myself in, can I think myself out”

Mantras, reframing my day, eliminating words (that were particular the narrative that you’re trying to reframe, for example talking about pain/identifying pain perpetuated feeling the pain), talking about if you improved today.

Example of word use having power: Listerine brought the word “halitosis” into the public consciousness, created a story that you want to avoid halitosis.

When someone goes “how was your day?”, do you start with what went wrong, or what went right?  Growth mindset.  Combine with a plot diagram, like what was the rising action and climax of your day?

Cynics will avoid future pain if you make that a possibility.  Other people respond to having a shared goal.  Find out who your champions are, then find out who your collaborators are, and get them telling the same story.  If you have enough people telling the same story, other stories won’t gain traction.

Reframing can be as simple as going from “I am anxious” to “I feel anxious”.  Write the thoughts you want to reframe, and rewrite them in the new frame. 

Journaling and meditation!

Other things to check out: 

Future of Storytelling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHeqQAKHh3M

 

Dr Nicole LePera. She takes a holistic approach to psychology and therapy and has a “self-healing” reframing journal template you might find helpful

https://washingtoncenterforcognitivetherapy.com/cognitive-defusion/ scroll down to the “technique” section – these are the prompts I initially used. also really into the “morning pages” or brain dump method a la “The Artist’s Way”


The Broaden-and-Build Theory supports this too: https://positivepsychology.com/broaden-build-theory/

Is there a journaling prompt or template that folks like to use for practicing reframing?

‘Stuck’ exercises in Social Presencing Theater is very powerful

Lol, in the beginning I journaled “I don’t know what to write” until I got angry, and started writing about being angry, and then asked myself why I was angry. The words, “I don’t know what to say about this” probably occur more than anything else.

^ Check out Dr Nicole LePera. She takes a holistic approach to psychology and therapy and has a “self-healing” reframing journal template you might find helpful

https://washingtoncenterforcognitivetherapy.com/cognitive-defusion/ scroll down to the “technique” section – these are the prompts I initially used. also really into the “morning pages” or brain dump method a la “The Artist’s Way”

https://www.presencing.org/resource/video/social-presencing-theater–stuck-exercise

I Love that – “hijacking the chemicals”


 

So now that we’re aware of this technique, what’s going in the world/a story we are being inundated with that could benefit from a collective reframing?

Media – how are we distracted from telling our own stories. 

Limit news and media use – inundated with stories that are not yours. 

Chapter 5 of The SoundTrack of Now (coming out in the next week) is about noise https://now.perchancemusic.com/ and includes reflection on the media “noise” and “signal”


Also want to acknowledge that this work takes TIME — it’s a reframing and shift of mindset and it’s ok if we don’t see the effects overnight or after a few times journaling


 

Was teacher – worked for a climate justice organization. 

Thinking globally and acting locally. Storytelling has so much range – local level and community level. 

What do we want as humanity 

With media we experience narrative transformation. We can get so engrossed in media and stories that we forget our surroundings. This makes us more vulnerable to persuasion. This can be positive and negative. Awareness of it is helpful in distinguishing

Stories coming in and going out. 

What stories are you trying to accomplish and what goals you were trying to share, objectives trying to accomplish. 

What level you are acting on means that you need to tell.

Woman sharing  a story about having cancer 10 years ago. She is now better and shared how she went from calling “My Cancer” and shifted to “I was diagnosed with cancer” and “I’m fighting cancer”.