Story Sage, Part Three

This week on the podcast, Dan concludes his conversation with Cathy Loerzel, Executive Director, and Rachael Clinton, Assistant Director of Program Development and Admissions, about the art of meaningful conversations and the process of developing our new online course, Story Sage.

Cathy: “Your freedom is dependent on your capacity to name truth.”

Story Sage will offer a second course in which Dan engages the particular story of one brave woman live on camera, interspersed with segments of him, Cathy, and Rachael discussing his process and reflecting on how he was seeing themes and developing a narrative as he was engaging this story. That engagement opens the door to discuss what is perhaps the most volatile and precipitous terrain in this work: family of origin.

Rachael: “When we use words like attunement, containment, repair, we’re talking about attachment. And we know that our family of origin is where our primary attachment structures get developed. Therefore they have deep implications for how we relate to the world around us and make sense of our abuse.”

Cathy: “Abuse never happens in a vacuum.”

Dan: “There is harm that every child is going to experience, no matter how perfect the family.”

Rachael, Cathy, and Dan discuss how considering the environment and dynamics in our families of origin is essential to engaging our stories of trauma and abuse, even if the harm occurred outside of the home. But even beginning to wonder about that, for many people, feels like betrayal—meaning we will encounter suspicion, defenses, and deep fear.

Dan: “Part of what it means to be a story sage is to know how to walk through minefields without blowing yourself up or the person that you’re walking with. It’s not easy.”

As the conversation unfolds, they share their hope that Story Sage will be an opportunity for you to grow your own unique gifts and calling. This is not about learning to do what Dan does, but about gaining tools and theories to build your own capacity to engage stories with freedom, fluidity, and power—and in a way that only you can.

Rachael: “That’s one of the things this course offers: a lot more categories, and a framework to even be able to build an imagination around how you could possibly move into someone’s story with a little more wisdom.”