Let Go and Be Free Podcast: Episode 15 (Tell Your Story to Heal)
Welcome to episode 15.
Healing from growing up in an alcoholic and dysfunctional family takes many paths.
Storytelling is a tool that can help you process what happened to you, grow from the event, and heal.
In this week's episode, I discuss my own story and share how we can using storytelling to heal ourselves and lead lives filled with love and hope.
Exercises:
Attend ACOA meetings.
Write in a journal.
Go to therapy.
Talk with a trusted friend.
Write music, a play, draw, sculpt, or use the power of creativity to heal.
Want to learn more? Check out the Let Go and Be Free book series.
I’m not a medical expert. If you need help, please reach out to a medical professional.
Listen to the podcast on:
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Transcript
Welcome to the let go and be free podcast, A podcast for those who grew up in an alcoholic or dysfunctional family. I'm your host, Ron Vitale, author of the Let Go and Be Free series for adult children of alcoholics. On this podcast, we'll talk about everything from dealing with ruminating thoughts, just stopping dysfunctional behaviors that you learned as a child. Together, we'll shine a light to dispel any shame you might feel about your upbringing, and learn practical tips that will help you live a healthier life. If you'd like to learn more, feel free to visit, let go and be free.com.
And welcome to this week's show. I wanted to do something a little bit different this week. And first, before we get into that, I do want to thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast, I do ask that if you find this a value, please share it with your friends and family. We're trying to get as many listeners as we can to kind of get the good word out about you know how to kind of help you ourselves from what we grew up with. So this week's episode is telling your story to heal.
It's a little cheat for me and that I've shared before on this podcast that when I was at a very young age, I realized that I could escape my you know, everything that was going on with my family that divorce and divorces I should say, after my mom remarried, she did get divorced a second time. And in the first time when I was young, I would just use you know, creativity as a means of kind of escaping. And then as I got older, you know, when I started reading fantasy science fiction, back when I was growing up, Dungeons and Dragons was popular for the first time I find it interesting that it's had a resurgence since then.
And you know, I was able to as the Dungeon Master to create stories, and then have my friends go through adventures. So it was a way of me to be able to take my creativity, and to use it in a means for good. Whereas I could, you know, put the the heroes on a quest to fight a bad guy. And, you know, the heroes would come together and team build, and find solutions to you know, save the day, rescue the princess, whatever, get the magic item, whatever it was, and I had a lot of fun doing that. And it was a great way for me, you know, to, I guess act put like a barrier up between my real life, which was, you know, going through all kinds of difficult things at the time and have a safe area where I can use my creativity, but can't live in a made up world all the time. I found that, you know, it didn't solve all my problems, it was just a means of, I guess, you know, like eating candy, you know, it was a way of just experiencing a means of, of escape of rush of energy.
But then at the end of the day, you know, you'd come back after friends would go home and have to deal with what was really going on, you know, in the family life at that time. So, for me, telling my story meant a lot of different things. You know, I started journal writing, when I was, I guess like an early teen.
You know, I just started writing in a computer I had at the time, I was lucky enough to have a Commodore 64 computer, this is obviously dating me back to the 80s. And I just would sit down and put my fingers to the keys and just start typing and typing and typing and typing. I mean, I did hundreds and hundreds of pages. You know, just every day, I would spend some time before I went to bed, sit to the computer and just type away. You know, the reason why I think it's so important that we tell our story is that and I actually have this on my website when I first you know, launched my my fiction writing career. You know, I wanted to have you know, the about us page like who am I and you know the things I've done this and that but I wanted to kind of share like the core essence of like, why I write and the little bold message I have on that page. I'm going to read the quote says I believe that no matter how difficult our childhood, we can use imaginative stories to heal ourselves and lead lives filled with love, and hope.
And if I even go back further in time, before I started, you know, publishing fiction, I think back to right after I graduated from college, I had an opportunity to go into graduate school. And I decided to study English literature. I am an English literature major and a French major. I love art, I love writing, I love culture. And I wanted to kind of throw myself into understanding and interpreting, you know, the masterpieces of the world and literature. And I wanted to, you know, grew up to be a novelist, that was like one of my, you know, major goals, either novelist or astronomer, and I took the path of being a novelist. I do love space and astronomy, but I tended to more naturally fall into the creative, you know, arts in the humanities, just because of my upbringing.
And what I, you know, lived through, I decided that I can interpret and understand other people's works in a way that would help me place the own struggles that I went through, and then crystallize as a means of finding that identity to grow and to heal, and to move forward. So when I went into graduate school, I didn't know, you know, what I was gonna write about, I just took various classes. And I, again, was lucky enough to have the scores to get in that I had done the work, you know, through my years of college to be able to get to that point. And I wanted to be a college professor who wrote novels, that was my goal. You know, when I was in my early 20s, unfortunately, I did not know at the time how difficult it was, to get a full time professor teaching job, I would have had to move to another part of the country that I didn't want to leave my family here, I didn't want to have to, you know, basically uplift everything just to, you know, to chase that goal. Knowing that it was really difficult to find full time work, you know, as an English professor and writing novels, I found was not as easy as I had expected, the writing part, I should say, was easy.
It was the Getting Things published and making money off of the writing, which was harder. So at the time that I was finishing my graduate school career, I had an opportunity to write my thesis. And in the my thesis, I had to decide, you know, what was I going to write about the the first piece that I wanted to write about, and I share this with you to give you this historical background of, you know, why, why I decided to do the things that I that I did, and how you can apply these resources, these tips, and how they could affect you in your own life and how you can take these ideas, and use them in a way that will help you. So for me, what I decided to do my went to my advisors at the time, and I told them that I wanted to study and do a thesis on Tolkien and CS Lewis, I was a big Lord of the Rings fan and growing up, I love the fact that the message of even someone who had, you know, the, the simplest of beginnings, you know, Frodo, the Shire, a hobbit, a halfling, that he became the hero that was able to save the world.
I really liked the message that, you know, in each of us, we have the ability to do great and wonderful things and overcome any obstacle on our way. Love the message, you know, that that's there in The Lord of the Rings, one of the messages. And I was told at the time that because the works of CS Lewis, the fantasy works of CS Lewis and Tolkien, were not in the canon.
And for those who are not familiar with the Canon, it's simply quote unquote, acceptable works within literature that are considered worthy of study, such as Shakespeare. You know, Chaucer, you know, Homer, you know, those kinds of things. Because I wanted to do something a little different. I was denied and told that I couldn't study that. I kind of regret that and kind of think back that maybe I should have pushed harder.
So I went back to the drawing board, and I decided to do I wanted to study the works of Alice Walker, and Margaret Atwood, and for those of you who you know, are paying a little bit more attention these days to TV shows and what's going on in the world. Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, very popular these days. As with what's going on in our culture, you know, in the world and you know, very popular, but I wanted to study her two books, Catseye, and surfacing, which are stories about women that are, you know, going through difficult times and grow out of those into something more. And Alice Walker did the color purple, and temple of my familiar. And I wanted to again, talk about the female characters in those the heroines in those stories, and how they used the ability to storytel as a means of coming to terms with their own past trauma, and to grow beyond that. So I pitched this idea to my advisors, they rejected the idea I had kind of not argue, but go back and be like, Look, I really want to do this made my case.
And then they kind of gave in, and I guess they were like, well, we got other things to worry about, let this do do whatever he wants. And so I wrote my thesis, graduated with, you know, my masters, and I decided at that point, I didn't want to go on to get my doctorate and become a teacher, because I was going to be even more in debt than I was currently with my undergraduate and now my graduate school loans, I needed to find a way to get a job and start paying off those lovely school loans. But the core message, you know, that I learned from my my thesis studies, is I wanted to do a youngin psychological interpretation of the works of Alice Walker and Margaret Atwood. And for me, you know, this may not be as in favor in psychology these days. But again, taking you back to the early 90s. What I wanted to study is, you know, with youngin, psychology, it was like, look at different aspects of yourself, like your shadow self, your, you know, the, the Animus and the Anima part of yourself, like the opposite of your male, your feminine side, you know, like, look at all those different sides of personality?
And how does that kind of play out in who you are. I did that with these characters in the four novels from Alice Walker and Margaret Atwood. And that was my way of also interpreting my own history, my own background, you know, Jungian interpretation, a very, you know, simple understanding of like, dream interpretation was like, if you're, if you're having a dream, and let's say, you're sitting at a desk, and someone's coming up to you, and putting all these books, you know, on top of the desk, you know, what does that mean? In the Jungian interpretation is kind of, again, a very simplistic, you know, reading of the youngest interpretation is, take a look at what's happening in the dream.
And imagine that you are the books that are being stacked on the table, or you are the table with the heavy weight of the books being put on your How do you feel, as you know, the person sitting in the chair looking at these heavy books, and you feel weighted responsibility? Do you feel fear? What are you feeling? What are you going through as a means of, you know, interpretation and understanding. So for me, and dabbling in that psychological overview of literature, that was my way of discovering, and kind of unearthing my own internal feelings of what I had lived through what I had gone through. And I again, realize, way back at a young age, you can take your imagination, and you can create stories, and you can even roleplay those stories in like, you know, when you play Dungeons and Dragons, or any game like that, you could pretend that you're something else. And you can bring other people on these journeys with you. And by the power of your words, and persuasion, and creativity and imagination, you can have fun together, and team build, to solve problems, to you know, win the day, whatever the adventure is in the quest.
So I realized that I had all those abilities as a kid and growing up. But, you know, what do you do with those things? You know, like, how is that going to help me or, you know, or solve any of my problems? And that's when I, you know, started studying literature and just getting a better sense of what authors had done over the course of history. And what did those pieces of you know literature mean to me mean to the world?
Why were things popular? Why are things memorable? What are We looking at when we see something like in Hamlet, are we identifying with Hamlet, are we identifying with Ophelia? What, what is really going on in these works of art. And so that's what I wanted to study, you know, by looking at the works of Alice Walker and Margaret Atwood, is that there were, you know, similarities in the stories of their their heroines of what trauma they had gone through, and how they overcame those circumstances. So it was a way of me studying, what do other people do to get out of these past horrible times that they had? And growing up? How can I learn from that and apply that to my own life. So, you know, for me, when I think about tell your story, there is power in words, there is power in the truth, there is power in taking what is the most frightful or shameful memory that you might have.
And in a trusting, safe environment, of opening up and sharing that, that is a way that you release yourself from that past, trauma, and heal. And so at the very core, you know, quintessential part of, you know, what was going on in my brain at the time is, I wanted to tell my story. And by telling my story, I can own what happened to me, and I can become responsible for the steps I wanted to take to move forward. You know, whereas I know, you know, finance being important, and, you know, being a doctor being this mean that, again, there's a zillion careers out there. But I wanted to go down a path of, you know, studying literature, teaching about art, you know, through the humanities, and I wanted to write books, I never did fall down the teacher path. You know, officially, I've done teaching, like, taught people at various points of my career, you know, through trainings and things of that nature. But I have written books, you know, again, I've written I forget 15 books said, a lot of books.
You know, and each, each time I write, I'm trying to discover or explore something different, you know, something that I want to better understand about people that connections, and, you know, with telling your story, just because I'm a writer, or just because I found that writing is helpful for me, that doesn't necessarily mean that that's going to work for you. Telling your story can be done in many different ways.
You know, we've talked about some of these and you know, in the past, you could go to start attending adult children of alcoholic, you know, meetings, you can go there and start sharing your story. You know, as I've talked about, in the past, when I first went to those meetings, I would listen, because I think listening is a really key essential skill, you know, if we don't listen, and what I mean by listening, listening to the others around us, as well as listening to ourselves, what are we really thinking and feeling inside? And coming in touch with that? What are we trying to hide?
What are we trying to repress or deny, to come to terms with those feelings, admit them, and then kind of share in again, a healthy, safe environment, you know, what we learned from those circumstances or, or the pain that we're feeling the sorrow or the grief? So, you know, I've found, you know, in the past, that the adult children of alcoholic meetings, they were very powerful for me, because I can one, listen to other people's stories and learn and see the thread that connects many of us that grew up in those same type of circumstances. I mean, you could sit there and listen to somebody's story and be like, Yeah, I've been through something similar. Or I can see, you know, and understand how that person is feeling because I have felt that way, or I am feeling that way.
And the power that's there, of someone owning their story and sharing their story and growing from that, and then releasing that. I think the challenge is, is that many of us we get stuck in the past, we get stuck into if only this would have happened. If only I could have done this, if I could only what if what if what if, again, it's a ruminating thought that gets us into our neural pathways of a cycle of, frankly, stagnation and destruction, because it doesn't allow us to kind of get beyond that, and to grow, to heal, to utilize what we've learned and overcome it. Instead of, you know, we get trapped by what we went through in the past and it owns us, it controls us and We try, you know, again, if you read the laundry list that's listed on the ACO a site, we try and act in ways of reclaiming our past by either repeating the patterns, because this time, we're going to do something different than what was done to us, which never works.
You know, or we, you know, are fearful abandonment, or we have control issues or anger issues, there's a whole again, laundry list of things, that if we don't come to terms with our past, we are then controlled by them, and we become stuck. So one of the ways to tell your story is again, attending, you know, an ACO a meeting, another one, we've talked in the past, and you may have tried this yourself, is going to therapy, you know, when you go to a therapist, I've always said this, it's not, it's saying you just go to a therapist, and that person, you know, tells you what to do, and you just follow along, or you tell your story. It's a relationship that you're building with that person, if you go somewhere for help, professional help, and you know, with your health care plan, and you're talking to that person, and you're spending the time, if you don't have that connection with that person, leave and go to somebody else.
I think a lot of times people just think like, oh, well, I'm going to go to somebody because they're going to help me, yes, you are trying to get help. But at the same time, you kind of want to interview that person in the sense of like, you want to understand, what is their background? What, what kind of psychological training have they had? What are the various psychological philosophies that they follow? You know, do they? Do they actually listen to you? Or is it just like, you feel like you're wasting your time there?
Is there a bond there, one of the best happened to be the first therapist that I had, would give me some exercises, you know, at the end, like, Hey, you might want to try this, you know, he'd said to me, you might want to go to adult children of alcoholics meeting, you might want to read this book, you might want to that, I got a lot of value out of that, instead of you know, sit in a chair and talk to 15 minutes, and someone says, Yeah, that's great. See you next week, and you're like, Well, what just happened here? Like, what, what did I just do? Remember, it's a two way street with a therapist, you know, it's not just one way to weigh in the sense of you choose that person, and that person chooses you. If you feel that the relationship that you're building with that person, isn't helpful for you, you just kindly say, I don't think this is working out, I'm gonna find a different therapist, by audios, and you move on.
And I think a lot of times, especially those of us who grew up in dysfunctional family backgrounds, it's hard for us to stand up for ourselves, even in a situation where we go to get help, we just think, well, we reached out for help, this person is going to be the person that's going to help fix me. Whereas if you don't have the chemistry or connection with that person, or you don't like the way the person is working with you, you can stand up for yourself and to move on. So again, it's about telling your story, in a safe, and helpful, you know, environment. If, if, you know, if you don't feel like a person is trusting you and you don't feel that it's safe, or you don't feel like you're getting something out of it, you have every right to be able to move on. And to do find someone you know, a different therapist that you can work with. So I share that because, you know, telling your story isn't that easy. And telling your story just to tell your story is also get you back into that, you know, cyclical trap, you know, oh, I'm going to bare my soul to somebody. You know, there are people that I have met where you're, you're introduced to them, and in the course of the first hour, you know everything about them because they just, they just tell you everything, there's no filter there.
And they're they're going through that process of making wildly as many connections as they can with people without taking the time and the energy to build a relationship, a friendship over time with someone where you test the waters, about what is appropriate to share what is good to share, you know, good in the sense that you are both in the same committed understanding of trust that slowly is built over time. So, you know, going to a meeting, an ACOA meeting, go into therapy is a great way I did talk about you know, writing in a journal that's worked for me in the past.
You know, you can get up in the morning and you can have a journal by your bed and you can just write into it. You can sit as I've done down at a computer and just type in a computer. You can do all sorts of things. One of my favorite ways, and I've mentioned this in the past is like free association, I love sometimes just sitting down closing my eyes and add a touch type, and just type. And just just whatever is on my brain, just type it out.
And don't restrict myself on whatever I'm going to read about, and just be free. And then when I'm done, don't even save it, just turn the computer off, you know, or write a letter, you know, by hand, and then put it in an envelope and whatever, burn it or put it in, you know, the mailbox, but no address on it, and that the symbolic feeling of getting it off your chest, getting it away from you getting it, you know, out, getting it off, so that you can, you know, you can then say, I took what was in me, and now I am choosing to move forward and go beyond this. writing in a journal can do that, you know, for you can give you that sense, you know, of freedom, of hope, of discovery, and of healing.
You could also talk to with a trusted friend. And again, I say this with caution, that, you know, if you meet somebody, and in the first five minutes, you tell them everything about you, I would say it's important to have boundaries, and to build those boundaries over time, and test those boundaries. It's a normal part of a relationship. You know, by having no filters and sharing everything, what else is there, you know, to talk about in the future, if you're not really counting, taking the time to listen to who that person is, and what would be good for you to share with that person. If you have someone that's a trusted friend that you've known for years, then make some time to listen to them as well as to talk with them.
So this last tip, I do find, you know, important because again, I like to write, but a lot of people don't like to write, a lot of people don't like to read, I like to read, I like to write, that's how I like to learn, I'm very, I am a lifelong learner, you know, that's just my personality that I like to learn constantly like to, to take in the information that's around me, and see how I can grow beyond who I currently am. Like for you. Maybe it's writing music, or playing music, or acting in a play or singing in a musical, you know, your local community theater. Or maybe you just want to have charcoal and some white paper and you'd like to draw, or maybe you're a sculptor, what can you do?
That is a means for you to tell your story to heal, it could be gardening, it could be any sort of thing, which is helpful and calming to you. So I put this all out there. Because if we don't tell our stories, then our stories own us. They trap us, they keep us, you know, in that mindset of when we were kids, and we saw and we experienced and we live through whatever hell we went through. And that the fear and the shame, and the weary meant and the grief of thought that time. And now we've zipped forward so many years into the future. If we don't come to terms and resolve those issues from the past, then they will forever just be stuck in our mind. And we're repeating the same unhealthy behavior patterns in every relationship that we have, because we don't know what to do with what we went through and what we live through. So actively working to find a means to heal from that past. It takes time. It takes energy, and it takes skill. It's not just the flick of a switch or snap of a finger. So want to put all this out there of the importance of telling your story. And that takes time. It takes time for each of us to understand how to do that, again in a trusting, safe environment.
It takes time for us to process what we live through and how to get beyond that. So I do hope that this has given you some ideas and giving you some concrete takeaways of like, well, maybe I can go to therapy, maybe I can go to a COA meeting. Maybe I can start drawing. You know, as long as we keep moving a step forward, we will get onward on the path toward healing. If we are resistance and refuse to find ways of overcoming our past, then I hate to say they is the, the, you know, the popular phrase, then we're doomed to repeat it. And I'm hoping that because you're here, and because you're listening to this podcast, and because you're taking the time to listen, that you are willing to take that next step. So I'm going to challenge you, take a moment, take some time, pick one of those tips that I recommend it and act on it.
Even if it's just simple thing, you write a paragraph, or you haven't drawn and you're going to try something. This isn't meant to be a perfect thing. It's meant to be messy because it takes time to learn these things. And that's okay. So, I hope that this week has been helpful to you. I want to thank you again for tuning in and listening. If you're new, you can check out let go and be free.com. You can sign up for the newsletter and you'll get a free ebook that's there that will also help you with some daily reflections. And also there is the let go and be free series available on all basically look at any online bookstore and type in my name Ron Vitale, let go and be free and you'll see the books that are there. So thank you again for taking the time to listen. I sincerely appreciate it and as always, be well.