24. Second Chances: How Guided Autobiography Transforms Life Stories Into Published Legacies

Episode Description:

Ever wonder what happens to your life stories after you write them? What if they could become part of a published book shared with readers around the world?

Join host Lisa Joworski for an inspiring conversation with Dr. Cheryl Svensson and Sarah White from the Birren Center for Autobiographical Studies as they discuss the newly released anthology "Second Chances: Lives Change One Story at a Time" and the transformative power of Guided Autobiography.

In This Episode You'll Discover:

• How guided autobiography differs from traditional memoir writing and why it's accessible to everyone 

• The story behind the "Second Chances" anthology and the remarkable personal narratives it contains 

• How students and instructors can submit their stories to upcoming anthologies (including "Moments That Shape Us" - deadline April 30th!) 

• Practical tips for interviewing older adults and creating space for meaningful storytelling 

• The research-backed benefits of guided autobiography for personal growth and legacy preservation 

• How the Birren Center has trained over 800 instructors in 35 countries

About Our Guests:

Dr. Cheryl Svensson has been with guided autobiography for more than 25 years, training instructors online since 2009. As founding director of the Birren Center, she's helped build a global community of storytellers.

Sarah White is the Executive Director of the Birren Center for Autobiographical Studies. A former marketing entrepreneur, Sarah discovered guided autobiography during a midlife transition and found her calling in helping others write and share their life stories.

Resources Mentioned:

• "Second Chances: Lives Change One Story at a Time" anthology (available on Amazon) 

• Birren Center Instructor Locator: Find a guided autobiography class near you 

• Upcoming anthology: "Moments That Shape Us" (submissions close April 30th or at 100 entries) 

• Episode 15: Cheryl's first appearance on the podcast

Perfect For: Anyone interested in life story work, aspiring writers, guided autobiography students and instructors, family caregivers, and those seeking meaningful ways to preserve their legacy.

Connect With Lisa: Email: awestruckaspirations@gmail.com

Thank you for listening!

Do you have a question or a topic related to "capturing essence for care" that you would like discussed on the podcast? Text the show using the link above or send Lisa an email: awestruckaspirations@gmail.com

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Intro and outro music with thanks: Upbeat and Sweet No Strings by Musictown

Lisa brings over 25 years of experience working in healthcare settings with older adults. The perspectives shared on this podcast are her own and do not represent the views of any past or current employer. Patient/resident stories are shared only with explicit permission or as anonymized composites for educational purposes.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Guest Introductions
• 2:05 Leadership Shift At The Birren Center
• 5:20 Birth Of The Anthology Project
• 7:50 Timeline From Theme To Book Launch
• 9:45 What Guided Autobiography Is
• 16:20 Inside The Group Process And Trust
• 20:35 Choosing “Second Chances” And Curation
• 24:00 Writing Hard Chapters And Healing
• 28:10 Humor, Redemption, And Editorial Choices
• 32:30 Multilingual Essays And Global Reach
• 36:30 Why Groups Beat Solo Writing
• 41:30 Family Audiences And Motivation

Transcript

Lisa 0:04

Welcome to Capturing Essence for Care, where we discuss the importance of incorporating personal life stories into healthcare and share ideas to help you on your journey. I'm your host, Lisa Joworski. Welcome to Capturing Essence for Care, everyone. Today is a good day. We get to have Cheryl Svensson back from the Birren Center Guided Autobiography. You might remember back in episode 15. Cheryl joined then. Thank you, Cheryl, way back when. It's really not that long ago, but I'm it's nice that you've come back. And she's joined by Sarah White, and she is also with the Beer and Center. And today we are focusing in on a conversation about the fourth anthology called Second Chances. And so I just want to first welcome both of you for joining me today for this important conversation about that wonderful book that I know I can't wait to read. And I haven't yet, but I'm excited to .

Speaker 2 1:08

Thanks for the opportunity to be here.

Lisa 1:10

Yeah, this is going to be fun. And I was mentioning to Cheryl and Sarah before pressing record that this is the first time for me that I've recorded a conversation with two guests, not just one. So that's going to be fun too, just to see. They both have wonderful and different things to share. Cheryl sharing more about the Beer and Center, probably in general, and the research behind guided autobiography. And Sarah's done a lot of work on second chance's the anthology and the other anthologies as well. So it'll be fun to kind of hear both of your experiences and what this has been like. Well, Cheryl, maybe I can just give you a quick moment to reintroduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you and the Beer and Center, if you don't mind.

Leadership Shift At The Birren Center

Cheryl 1:59

Well, how much time do I have? Because I I can go on for a long time. But the short version is I've been I've been uh with guided autobiography now for more than 25 years. Um I started training online in 2009. We've now trained guided autobi instructors in 35 countries, and we're up to over 800 uh GAB instructors, so internationally. Um I have uh yes, so we have been a nonprofit for three years. I am now turning over the reins to Sarah White. There couldn't be a better person to take it over. Um, so we've been working closely together. I'll never leave, but I'm now the founding director and in a non-voting uh board member. So I can keep tabs on what's going on, but not limit their vision because I'm not a visionary.

Lisa 2:49

I don't think you give yourself enough credit, but that's exciting news. Congratulations and congratulations, Sarah.

Sarah 2:56

It's an important uh moment of transition for both of us. And uh it's exciting standing it up. This week we had our first, we've hired a virtual assistant. She's already whipping us into shape. It's great.

Lisa 3:09

Wow, that's really exciting. Well, I can't wait to continue to be a part of this as it evolves. I know it's a wonderful community and very supportive of one another. So, Sarah, maybe you could share a little bit more about you.

Birth Of The Anthology Project

Sarah 3:21

Yeah, how I came to discover guided autobiography was um I had been a um working in marketing and advertising, an entrepreneur. I owned a graphic design business, grew it into an ad agency, sold it, and was just I needed something other than the industry of advertising. I reached that midlife crisis point. And someone introduced me to a personal historian, someone who works as a biographer for hire, um, helping families and individuals publish their life stories as opposed to seek commercial publication just privately for family and friends. I said, that is absolutely the career. That is what I want to do. But I realized that it takes rich people to buy that service. And here in the Midwest, we're really do-it-yourselfers, and that I would find more success in working with people who wanted to write their own stories. And that's where I discovered Dr. Beeron's book. I had no idea Sheryl existed or that there was going to be a thing called the Beerin Center or any of the academic uh underpinnings of it. I just uh started teaching writing workshops out of the book, like a new bride with a cookbook, you know. And I found that I really loved doing it. Um I succeeded in making my business pivot. I help people publish their life stories, but I've always kept teaching as a component of what I do. And I met Cheryl Svenson at an association of personal historians conference in 2015. I was uh ending my fourth year as president of that organization and kind of doing my final lap at that conference, and I was introduced to Cheryl, and we just hit it off immediately and began looking for ways to collaborate. Ended up presenting at a conference in Oxford, England. We had we had some good times together. Yeah, we're and so when Cheryl started figuring out how to build a nonprofit and create something that could outlast her and carry on Dr. Beerin's work, I was among the people that she tapped for that advisory

Speaker 2 5:20

board and then took a role. I'm currently, well, uh segueing from secretary of the board of the Beer and Center to the executive director position, and we'll see where it goes from there.

Lisa 5:33

Uh my goodness, it just yeah, so many changes. And I love that you've been a part of it for that long. And I know that it, Cheryl, I I like that you want this to continue on past oh yeah, you you know, the legacy of Dr. Beer. And I love the way that it's moving and that you're still going to be a part of it. And Sarah, the fact that you two have had quite the relationship and built that trusting bond, I think just helps going forward, right?

Speaker 1 5:59

Yeah, absolutely.

Lisa 6:01

It does.

Speaker 2 6:02

Um, to bring the anthology into the conversation, I'll just say so. It was Emma Fullenwider who had the bright idea that there should be an anthology, brought the idea to Cheryl.

Lisa 6:13

Um that was And Emma's part of the Gab community as well, right?

Speaker 2 6:17

Yeah, I was had recently completed her uh training as an instructor, and she saw the potential for publishing an anthology, brought the idea to Cheryl. Cheryl said, you can do it, but only if you build a committee. I'm not going to let you take this on as a solo project, which was very wise of you to start.

Speaker 6:37

Yeah.

Speaker 2 6:37

Um and we got quite a few people involved, uh um reviewing the essays, and then there's the editing and the publishing that comes after that. Emma had to step down as managing it after producing the first three, but other we entered an MFA program actually and sort of pushed the time off of her calendar and she I I didn't want to let it die. You know, I was this is too important. It is um I've seen the the joy and pride that our students have when they are accepted for publication in a real book. You know, yeah. Um and I was like, no, we are not letting this drop. And because I have experience in publishing, going all the way back to my advertising days, you know, doing annual reports and books and things, um, I felt perfectly confident that I could manage the workflow of it and I did. And so we have second chances.

Speaker 1 7:30

And moving into a new one, not only the fourth, moving into the fifth. Moving into the fifth already.

Lisa 7:35

Yes, yes. Okay, first, maybe I I want to ask, how long does it take from so you're mentioning the fifth book, how long does it take from the idea to actually getting the book out there?

Timeline From Theme To Book Launch

Speaker 2 7:48

What's that process look like? It's a 12-month process. At the moment, we're launching the book, which we have always done in November so as to be part of kind of the Christmas giving. Um we need to be choosing the theme for the next book to be able to communicate it out to our people and get them writing. And the submission period has always been open on February 1, close on April 30th. So to have people writing and writing well, they need time to produce a draft, workshop it with people in their gab groups or with their gab instructor or whatever their writing community is, or sharpen it the uh smooth out the rough places, sharpen up the dull places and submit it. So it uh and then we spend the summer, you know, um first evaluating, choosing which ones are going to be in the book, then communicating with the authors. Uh often there's some editing that we request of them. We just see a way maybe one is a little too similar to another, but if we coach that writer to take a little different spin, um or other kinds of editorial advice. So there's a lot of tweaking of the essays that goes on over the course of the summer, and then by fall we're in layout and production and um publishing through print on demand with Amazon and big book launch in the fall. And then we recruit all of the people who are in the book to help market, you know, get the word out on their social streams and so forth. Some book sales happening.

Lisa 9:21

That's very smart. It can't just be up to one person, it's everybody, right, promoting it. So to back up a little, Cheryl, I wonder if you could explain a little bit for those who haven't heard episode 15 with you and definitely go back and listen to that if you haven't. But can you share a little bit, just a brief synopsis on what guided autobiography is entails? Yeah.

Speaker 1 9:45

Well, Dr. Bearn started it back in the 1970s when he was dean of the School of Gerontology at USC. It's basically a group writing process and it's built on life themes. So you have um a class, you know, that want to write their stories. They come in, they want to write their story. So with that, there's a sense there's nine themes in what we call the Beer and Bible. Um, it's now been toned down to five themes, six themes, eight themes because nobody has time to sit down and do ten sessions, but there's nine original themes. They go branching points, the role of family, the role of money, uh, life and work, health and body image, gender identity, and you'll notice that the theme topics are getting more sensitive or deeper as you go along. And then they go into deaf and dying, spirituality, and the last theme is always goals and aspirations. So with each theme, there's a list of questions. So you have your class, you know, you're um getting the class, you may have 15 people in the class, you know, getting to know one another, um, working with one another so that they know that there's uh compatibility among them. You introduce the theme, and everybody writes on the same theme. They're all given these questions, and they do the writing at home. So they do the writing at home, they come back with what we say two pages, uh 900 to a thousand words. So anybody can write two pages. I had one woman who came in, she wrote a letter, it was a re letter to her son, is how she wrote it, her adult son. And uh Shirley at that time was in her late 80s, and her son was delighted to get this letter once a week from his mom about her her family, you know, her thoughts about money, etc. So then they the class then shares or reads those stories within a small group of never more than six people. So you begin to know each other in that and that group stays the same throughout the whole class. So that small group gets to know you, know your stories, you know them. You you step away from being worried about how your writing is, and you move into, gee, I wonder what Lisa's gonna write about this time. Her story was so fascinating last time, I can't wait to read it. You know, you just begin to see the other people in a different light. So the beer in process really is writing, it's not just talking, it's writing on a theme. Everybody's on the same theme, and the questions within each theme, they've range from being very general to being very more sensitive or deeper. So it's not that, you know, and you choose which question you want to write on. Nobody's saying, okay, come on, Lisa, you really know you want to write about your relationship with your dad. You know that was fraught with tension, you know. Nobody's saying that. They're going, no, I'm gonna write about my brother, you know, you know, and tell that story. And the bonding builds up within the group over a period of time. So it doesn't happen all at once. By the fourth session, nobody wants to end the class, nobody wants to lose those people that they've gotten to know and they want to keep going, but they don't want new people coming in. They want the same people because they know those stories. So you write your story at home, you come back and you share it, and you get supportive feedback. You get the sense of really being listened to, maybe for one of the first times in your life that people have really listened to what you had to say. You don't give advice, you don't give writing criticism or say, you know, you could spice this up a little bit if you just gave a little more dialogue or something. Nothing like that, because it's all within it's writing from the heart, is what I call it. So then the group stays the same and they all grow and they don't want to leave and they go out and then there ends up being gab two and gab three, right? Absolutely. That's right. Oh, they do.

Speaker 2 13:36

It's very common for groups to continue and just self-organize and meet and write together. I've spun off a number of writing groups, you know, uh people who met through a gab class and then become each other's writer community. It's important they've had it modeled for them how to do it. They can, you know, it doesn't, it's not rocket science to pass the facilitation from one to the next.

Lisa 13:58

Yeah. Once they have that structure and they've built those bonds, then it makes sense to continue on when you have that community, right? Of people who like-minded who are interested in the same thing. I like that. Okay, thank you for that, Cheryl. So, on that, then, this fourth anthology is called Second Chances: Lives Change One Story at a time. If the Gab group has the different themes that they do, how was it decided what would be included in this anthology? Was it, did you start with a theme and then people, you know, come forward with their ideas and apply? Like, what did that all look like, that process?

Speaker 2 14:39

Um, the process of selecting the theme is a small team effort who brainstorm ideas, put them out there, sort of evaluate. Um, is it not too duplicative of anthologies we've already published? Um, is it juicy enough that people are likely to have something to say about it? Something usually rises to the top and it tends to have um resonance with the beer and approach, the the branching points or turning points in a life being such a um important or foundational thing stone of the beer and approach. So something like moments that shape us. You can see that that's got a branching point quality to it. Yeah. Um and then unlike the class where we have a sheet of prompts with, you know, from 10 to 13 questions, um, we have generally just put it out there with here's the here's the idea, and maybe one line that expands on it a little bit. I'd have to pull up the wording to see exactly how we phrased it. But we do find that some people, because they're so used to the Biran method, are saying, but like where's the prompting questions? We're saying, well, you're welcome to write prompting questions and share them with each other. But uh so far we have not provided a lot of coaching on what we want people to write because we want to see where it takes them.

Lisa 16:00

Yeah, yeah. That's the whole fun of Gab, right?

Inside The Group Process And Trust

Speaker 1 16:03

And then when they all come back, the stories come back. I mean, if you look at the book, then I mean they're all different. Just like every single story, they can write on the same theme, they could write on the same question, and their story is going to be different. So when they write on the topic, like for second chances, we ended up we had and I I think it's worth noting that it was a juried submission. We had a hundred and we capped it at a hundred. We selected fifty-two or fifty-four or something like that. So, you know, there there were some that we couldn't take. They either didn't fit the theme or the writing wasn't strong enough, or there were too many in that category, or whatever, but they didn't make the cut. So then we look at it, the editorial board, and so we ended up with okay, new beginnings. You know, we've got many in the new beginnings part, families rewoven. How many second chances, you know? I stopped talking to my brother, you know, 10 years ago, but then you know, he got sick and I went back and made amends, those type of stories. Uh, redemption and purpose. You know, how did you how did something give you a purpose after going through one of these second chances? So it's really, it's um right. We yeah, we don't know, we don't know what's gonna happen because we don't tell them what to write. Again, it's just like death. We don't tell people in guided autobiography, I'm not telling you to write about your father. You know, I'm telling you to write about what you want to write about. So it comes back in, and it's it's really a fascinating process being on the the editorial board when you start grouping them and you see that yeah, they do group together.

Speaker 2 17:36

There's some interesting tussles of like I think this one groups with this, and no, absolutely no, it belongs over here with this other group. People have different reactions, right?

Lisa 17:45

So, how how do you decide then? It's collaborative, majority. Just a vote majority rules. Okay. So maybe you can walk us through. I'm wondering if you can walk us through the emotional journey of deciding which difficult chapter to revisit, like and what surprised you most about how writing and sharing that story would affect someone.

Speaker 2 18:09

Well, I decided that question should definitely go to Cheryl because you have an essay in this book that really speaks to that.

Speaker 1 18:16

Oh, interesting. Yeah, I do. I I wrote about my journey with cancer, uh, which now has been 2017, so you know I'm I'm up to now just a CAT scan once a year. But I think for me, it took time. I couldn't have done it earlier. I wasn't ready. I think some of the because just as you've uh intimated here, you you revisit it. You revisit lying in that hospital bed, you revisit, you know, being on the brink of death. So it's like uh you have to be ready to be able to do that. And I think I've heard something, I don't know if it's true, but with PTSD, it's the same thing. You can't go in too soon and start revisiting those traumatic memories that you're helping the person to get over. There's gotta be a space. So I think a lot of that, and I think like I wouldn't have been ready to r to um write this for the first anthology, you know, but now we're up to the fourth, so it's been a few number of years. And I don't know, those are the ones that are more traumatic. Some of them, I mean, we have funny stories too. So you can't say that there's a you know, that that you have to wait for that. So it really depends on the author and the writer and what they're gonna write about. But when you write about things that are emotion because it is emotional. I mean, even if you're writing about your father that I don't want you to write about, Lisa, no, please don't.

Lisa 19:37

But anyway, and you're making that up, by the way. I just want everyone to know.

Speaker 1 19:41

I know, I know, I know. Please, yes, I've just pulled that out of the air. But even so, you go back to that period and you remember, you know, whatever it was about that relationship, the things that were wrong. So it does affect you. And you just have to know when to be ready to because then the other part of that is that once you do it, it's like it's like a relief. It's a release of emotion. It's like, gosh, I held that in all that time and you know, it wasn't that bad. I mean, you don't want people to feel sorry for you, but you just, you know, you thought so long that you had to keep that so close. Um, and you don't, you don't. It it's really uh it's a gift to have somebody say, Oh, I'm so sorry you went through that, you know, my heart goes out to you, that type of thing. But there's distance and you can get through it.

Choosing “Second Chances” And Curation

Lisa 20:32

Yeah, it goes back to that trusting environment, right? And feeling like you're in a safe place to be able to share a story too that that maybe maybe you wouldn't have been able to share because you didn't have that outlet before. But I think being in that environment helps you to be like, huh, maybe maybe now is the right time. I don't know.

Speaker 1 20:52

I should have mentioned that because that's a key part of the guided autobiography. It's the trust that builds up when you share your stories. Everything that's shared in the group stays in that group. You're not you don't mention it to anybody else, you don't talk about it with others, you don't share the stories. It so it builds this bond, you know, with the other people. Um, in fact, we heard in our meeting last night, our town hall, the Beer and Center had a town hall meeting, and one of them was a Gab instructor, and she was responding to how she was impacted listening to the stories that was bringing up memories in her. And that was there another writing group or opportunity for her to be able to write out some of the things that she was going through. So just like what you're saying, you know, you can hear a story from somebody else and be triggered or remember something and and need somebody else, another way to share that. And writing to me and having somebody listen to it is the best way.

Lisa 21:49

I agree. Any chance that people will listen. Sarah, you were gonna say something too.

Speaker 2 21:55

Well, um, a number of the stories in second chances are what we gave the shorthand of medical miracles, you know, the recoveries, the unexpected, the um so that certainly is um an invitation to revisit something that was very difficult, but that you're a survivor of. And and those stories are powerful. But Cheryl mentioned that some of them are funny too. And I Tony N narrat's story about if you don't get it right the first time came to mind right away. Again, it's I'm sure it was difficult for him to decide to revisit that chapter of his life because he did an absolutely humiliating thing as a young journalist. He showed late showed up late to cover the story of an award being given and the person giving the presentation at the award was not the original awardee because he had just dropped dead hours before. But he didn't know that when he published the story written as if that woman was the awardee. And then of course the next morning his editor is calling him on the carpet and he had to apologize six ways from Sunday as we say in the Midwest. So he can laugh about it now and it makes a very funny story in the book. But oh my God, that must have been a painful thing to go through.

Lisa 23:12

That yeah oh my goodness that's funny I'm gonna have to read it and I've been meaning to I haven't yet but that's funny and I I I think it's so important that humor can be added in because it again I think it helps with that the processing and not even in heavy situations are very stressful and I'll add caregiving situations where things can be very heavy and deep and sad but you need to rely you need to have some humor along the way to to have that lightness right and to be able to carry your way through absolutely you need to be able to see the the humor in things sometimes.

Writing Hard Chapters And Healing

Speaker 2 23:48

Yeah well we like every story in the book to to hit at least one of three notes it should inform it should inspire and andor it should entertain. So the inform piece is our stories have a chance to shine a light into corners of the world that our readers would never know about otherwise, you know by reading Tony's story you find out what it's like to be a young journalist by reading um Leslie Bennett's story of she was English, she married an Argentinian she moved to a country where she didn't speak the language and had to try to find work. What a challenging thing to go through to shine a light into the experience of being an immigrant like that. We want the stories to shine that light into a corner um to inspire by what you find there and maybe to give you a good laugh about it.

Lisa 24:38

I like that.

Speaker 1 24:39

And you know that same thing happens Lisa you know yourself having been in guided autobiography it it takes place in the same little microcosm of the gab group you find yourself in. You know we had one group there were more international students than there were American students. So we had two from China two in uh Singapore you know one in Germany it's like and you realize once sitting in there and listening to those stories that you're more alike than you are different. You know you kind of bridge that diversity. So the same thing happens you know reading the stories but when you're in the groups you know you begin to um change yourself and get different viewpoints.

Lisa 25:18

Yeah you're right because our our life stories are we're more alike than we are different aren't we? Oh yeah absolutely all very different and unique but bottom line we we have very similar core values and passions in life so I noticed that this is the first Biran anthology to include essays in both Spanish and English and since we're talking about you know all parts of the world that the stories come from what does the multilingual approach tell us about the universality of second chances? Like how do life stories help bridge not just the generational divides but cultural ones as well have you noticed any any unique pieces there's no difference.

Speaker 1 26:01

I don't care if you're in Singapore if you're in Argentina or if you're in uh costa rica you know and you you write your stories and you still have the same basic the same basic themes and it still plays out the same I don't know Sarah maybe you have a better idea how to answer that.

Speaker 2 26:16

Well I was I was so moved by reading the stories because several of them came from Central South America where there have been really challenging political situations, coups, economic collapses, people who need to emigrate um stories from people who are now living in Canada but who came from South America to to hear about things people surviving such difficult, such existential challenges is just that's the inspiring part of the stories I felt that the the Spanish language stories brought a level of inspiration about rising to the challenge of difficult situations that really added something to this. Now of course we've opened our how are we ever going to manage when we want to include all the languages in the world into our ideology. I'm not sure how we'll answer that in the future but it was as always you don't know what you're getting yourself into when you add a new initiative it had uh challenges that we hadn't planned for but we as a team pulled it off and our Spanish language team was great. We had special Spanish native speakers who did the evaluation on the Spanish stories and then they recommended their favorites to the English team and did rough translation of them so that we could understand the stories. And then the ones we selected went through a more exacting translation process.

Humor, Redemption, And Editorial Choices

Lisa 27:42

What a fantastic idea I love that it's across generations across languages you know it's open to really anyone I guess I know the benefits and we've already touched on it quite a bit but I'm wondering for those who might be listening who are interested in writing their life stories whether it's two pages at a time or wondering where to start what would you say the difference is between writing on your own or writing in a group like does it matter if somebody's just picking up and deciding to write I think like my initial thought is it's hard to get the motivation to to continually write um and I think you get that I think you can bounce ideas off of one another in a group but what else do you two think?

Speaker 1 28:33

Well that's that's one thing that's one part just you know have the um accountability to write that's part of it. But I think the biggest part is that I've journaled all my life nobody reads my journal you know I could say anything in there you know I could say I'm gonna do this or do that and then never do it and nobody knows because it's in the journal. Somehow when you are reading with a group and plus they're you're getting not just their feedback but you're they see they get some insight into you that you don't see they see you in a different way and that adds something to your not only self-esteem but the fact that or or it'll trigger a memory that you hadn't they'll write read something that they've written and it'll trigger memory in you that you never had before. So I truly believe in the process of I'm not Catholic but there's something with the Catholics going into confession and you know talking to the priest, you know I don't know. I think there's something about sharing sharing it that is very, very important that you can't get by just saying okay I'm gonna do this writing and nobody's gonna see it or I'm gonna publish my memoir later. It's the fact that you've got this small group of avid listeners who are going through the same process at the same time you are writing their story, sharing it with you that you don't get on your own.

Lisa 29:52

Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 2 29:54

Yes I absolutely believe that the small group is the most powerful way to get started. I think people can stay motivated and keep going on their own if there's certain kind of people after they get started but it's really hard to start on your own you know I can't tell you the number of the blank books I've seen of those grandma books that have questions you're supposed to fill the pages. The first three are filled out nothing else.

Lisa 30:18

I'm so glad you said that Sarah I got I got one for Christmas and I'm of course I'm thankful for it. I am and they know like I got it because they know I love this life story stuff right and that I see the value in it for sure. But you're right I I'm looking at it going first of all I need more lines than what's in that book and next it's like I'm not sure they they actually want to read it. I think it was for me because they know I like doing those things but I'm not sure I'll write in it. It's nice to think that somebody else is looking forward to hearing about it, which is why Gab is nice because you bring it back and share it with that small group that you've developed relationships with, right?

Speaker 2 31:01

Well that brings to mind something I want to bring up um so I've been teaching you know since 2004 I've taught probably over 120 guided autobiography you know individual workshops by this point. I often start by asking you know what's your motivation? And is it to get stories down because your kids' grandkids are asking you for it or is it more for self-development and self-exploration show of hands? And it's nearly always 50-50. It can be one motivation it can be the other but I think that sharing your stories with your kids is a pretty delicate moment and I hear a lot of people say I gave them to my kids and they didn't say anything or they say they haven't read them yet and I, you know, they're coming to me going like is this okay? Did I write bad stories? What? And I say, you know, you grow into the point in your life where you're interested in your parents' stories and they're not there yet.

Multilingual Essays And Global Reach

Speaker 1 31:56

I have to tell you at the opposite end of that because I've hurt my shoulder and I've been in physical therapy. My physical therapist one of them is from the Philippines he has a daughter now that's two years old. His parents are from he was born he was actually born in the Philippines and came here but his parents were immigrated from the Philippines. He gave them one of these books and he's so up so when he found out what I do because you know you're lying there in a table and they're doing all these things you know so I'm talking about guided autobiography of course right anyway he goes I gave them a book they won't write in it they haven't written a thing so I'm trying to hook them up imagine this with Alice our guided autobography instructor in the Philippines so I've already made a connection but they haven't bit and done it yet so there are adult children who want these stories but the parents are and they're I go well how old are your parents he goes well then they're they're in their sixties I go well that's still pretty young but still they don't you know and the if they don't and they're teaching the grandchild I can't remember what tongue whatever this Philippine language is they're teaching the grandchild this language but they're not giving her the stories of their life there how they came here. Anyway I think guided autobias is the only way to get at that it's not going to be one of these fill in the blank books.

Lisa 33:15

Yeah unless you're capturing their voice right and then somehow writing it out yeah I yeah I don't know but to but to do it without somebody like being there to encourage you or ask the questions like I'm just seeing this written down what am I gonna I don't know.

Speaker 2 33:31

Yeah yeah the energy just isn't in the room in the same way. Yeah that's and I just want to say something about the connection that you see happening in these classes. We've been talking about how they want to keep meeting with each other but it as we get older we lose friends and it's very hard to make new friends. Our society doesn't offer opportunities to connect with people in a way that you would even find out if you want to be friends with them. Yeah. And that's what guided autobiography does. And you know when I see two people you know when class ends and they just don't want to leave and they're standing there talking to each other and I'm listening in and one is saying you were a nurse in Vietnam I was a nurse in Vietnam and then one is saying to the other well let's go get coffee and I feel like ah yes it's heartwarming right your mission accomplished right yeah yeah exactly yes I completely agree with that you're right and perfect I think to mention about the social isolation and loneliness and how this just gives a reason to connect and go deeper with our conversations not just well it's a real here it's a really cold day outside you know yeah being able to talk about something other than the weather is really important and getting to know each other. Yeah this is why I believe you know why I refer to this as a movement more than than just a a thing. It can change the world we have a modality here that can we've move people a little closer to being kind and accepting of strangers because we get to know that behind that stranger is someone you could be friends with.

Lisa 35:05

Yeah I completely agree. What do you we're getting near the end I want to ask about if you can think of any practical ideas like do you have one or two small storytelling practices that someone could start this week either themselves or maybe with an aging loved one but it doesn't even have to be an aging loved one it could be really anyone do you have any ideas like any good takeaways for the people listening?

Speaker 2 35:34

Well I want to leap in on that and talk about the anthology of course um because these are example stories uh what Cheryl was saying earlier about when you hear someone's story it triggers your own memories about something related to that you could simply read a story aloud these are all under a thousand words you can read them in under five minutes you can brew a cup of coffee while you're reading a story but visit you know if you're a caregiver bring the book read a story and say did you ever go through something like that you know did you have a second chance that's a good idea um you could you could keep busy for a long time with just sharing stories and then exploring what it triggers in terms of someone's memories.

Why Groups Beat Solo Writing

Speaker 1 36:16

Yeah I like that I think I think uh being a listener you know just wanting to listen to wanting to hear the stories I think that's I love listening to all the stories. I've never heard a bad story. I mean I really haven't um I think if if caregivers or anybody that's and that's the thing because in the health at least here in the United States they don't have time. You know now we've moved into narrative medicine where hopefully we're gonna have more time doing things but not everybody does. You've got an X number of so many patients per nurse etc but I think just listening and giving them the opportunity to tell that story is a real gift.

Lisa 36:53

Absolutely I think that's an important message yeah thank you both of you the anthology like reading the stories out and just being a good listener and asking questions and waiting for the answers is really helpful but not filling in on your own question too soon.

Speaker 2 37:09

That's something you learn with time is to sit with silence. We're kind of programmed to be uncomfortable and to start leaping in and filling and burbling along instead of just sitting with the silence because often a person will say something, pause and then go deeper. And this is your invitation to go with them.

Lisa 37:29

Absolutely and it takes time and that I would say I'm noticing especially for me but the people around me too and that I work with it takes it takes longer to process information and then be able to express yourself verbally. So the person might be going through how they want to respond but there's going to be that silence between that moment and the moment that they get their words out. So yeah as we age we need more time just to process and express ourselves you know through through what we want to say and say it effectively so yeah great tips yeah thank you to both of you is there anything else you want to share definitely we want people to pick up second chances lives change one story at a time and that anthology with so many great stories in it I know it's going to be a good read I can't wait to start it is there anything you want to share before we end any final messages I maybe you could tell people where to find it as well as um if they wanted to I bet people are thinking okay I do want to join a guided autobiography group you can first contact me but also where else can they find a guided autobiography group?

Speaker 2 38:41

Yeah well the book is available on Amazon it's not something you'll find in your local bookstore because anthologies simply aren't the the kind of thing that your local independent bookstore is going to stock um but all you have to do is go to Amazon second chances it's um it's selling well enough that it's coming up well in the search results I'll tell you that um and as far as finding an instructor and taking a class um our website has an instructor locator and Cheryl maybe you want to talk about that.

Speaker 1 39:12

Yes you know and there's also if if you can't find an instructor well if you want a live class or an online class Zoom classes it doesn't matter where you are in the world there's instructors. So they're listed on the map locator and there's also a place on there where you just reach out to us and ask a question. You know where can I find somebody I'm in uh Missoula Montana is there a class here somebody will get back to you I promise.

Lisa 39:35

Thank you to both of you this has been so informative. Sarah you look like you want to say something else.

unknown 39:40

No?

Speaker 2 39:40

I was just going to say the anthology is open to instructors and students to submit to it. So if the idea of being published as an anthology is exciting to someone listening to this podcast the first step is to find a class so that you become a student. As soon as you're enrolled in that class you're eligible to enter the anthology.

Lisa 39:59

Yeah good point that's very exciting and I think for some people probably especially in the guided autobiography world that you're starting to write these stories and then it's kind of like a well then what? You know what do I do with them? Do I want it to become a book? Who do I want to read that book? And so on. So there's lots more that I know there's a wealth of information in this community.

Speaker 1 40:22

We could ask you that question Lisa because you did take the guided autobiography and now you've got somebody giving you a book to fill in the blanks and also you know you can also submit a story to the next anthology. I could in fact I've I've already forgotten the name of the next one it's Moments that shape us is that it yeah okay so moments that shape us think about that I know you've got moments in there Lisa Moments that shape us so I just have to think about that what the story might be.

Lisa 40:49

All right I might have a little project on the go then when's it due by Sarah?

Speaker 2 40:54

Um April 30th is well or well it closes if we reach a hundred submissions and that has happened a day or two before the deadline occasionally wow really okay but we're such generous people we generally allow people to submit right up to midnight on the 30th. We're just too kindhearted.

Family Audiences And Motivation

Lisa 41:09

Oh yeah okay April 30th I'll see if I can think of a story and have it into you by then perfect awesome well thank you to both of you this has been a real pleasure and I'm glad that we are able to really acknowledge the work that you're both doing and this incredible book with so many wonderful stories in it. So thank you so much for your time. Thanks Lisa thank you Lisa thanks for the opportunity thanks for listening today if you enjoyed this episode take a minute to look at the show notes for resources and links and be sure to leave me a rating and review. And also you can follow the show so that you get notified of when the next one comes out. And lastly if you can think of somebody in your life who you think would enjoy this podcast I hope you share it with them as well so that they can listen in on the conversations and ponder how to capture their own essence. Take care and I look forward to the next time