Redemption or Contamination Stories and the Influence of Cultural Narratives

Let's start by defining these two types of stories.

Redemption sequences are described as narratives that transition from negative emotion toward positive emotion, while contamination sequences are narratives that transition from positive emotion toward negative emotion.

Imagine how your life might change if you could harness the power of your personal narrative to influence your mental health and overall well-being. In this thought-provoking discussion, we draw on the compelling research of Jonathan Adler to explore the transformative potential of turning pain into purpose. We uncover the fascinating contrast of redemption versus contamination narratives, and how one's life story can significantly shape their reality.

Life is composed of alternate realities and the paths we choose to follow. One such journey took a woman from the precipice of military boot camp to the unexpected discovery of motherhood. Her narrative, stretching over a decade, helps us to understand the weight of our decisions, and how they can redefine our personal stories. Moreover, we venture into the realm of cultural narratives, investigating their major role in shaping our identities, and how therapy can help reconcile the expectations born from these narratives with our personal experiences.

Finally, we navigate the concept of agency, considering how it can guide us toward making the right choices in life. We reflect on the impact of leadership changes within a company, and how these can cause a drastic shift in the work environment. The allure of 'golden handcuffs' is another facet we explore and how this can create a barrier to leaving a job, even when it might be the best course of action. We close by acknowledging that our hardships can be woven into redemption narratives and that we can choose which parts of our stories to emphasize. So, join us for an enlightening conversation that may inspire you to see your own story in a different light.

RESOURCES
Hidden Brain Podcast 

Chapters

• 0:02 Stories' Impact on Mental Health
• 10:36 Digging Deeper
• 17:34 Navigating Identity and Cultural Narratives
• 22:23 Stories of Growth, Communion, and Agency

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

You're listening to the what Women Want Today podcast. If you love the idea of being part of a community of women or looking to thrive, not just survive, you're in the right place. Join hosts Terry Cullums and Amanda Keeper each week, as they bring you topics and guests to help you improve your relationships, your health and your emotional and spiritual well-being.

Speaker 3: 0:38

I'm your host, cull host, amanda Keeper, it's not bad at all.

Speaker 3: 0:53

Actually, this week is supposed to be 60 degrees and sunny for the next three days. So, yeah, I was outside this morning and I'm like, oh, my walk is going to be so nice. Yesterday my walk was beautiful. I went to Clim Arboretum, it's like, and the flowers were so beautiful bright, yellow and greens and I was just loving the whole fall vibes of living in the Midwest. I'm not going to lie, I was just and I'm so sorry I'm making you jealous right now, Terry, because I know you love fall in the Midwest yeah, but I was just like I don't know, I felt so grateful to be living in the Midwest yesterday.

Speaker 2: 1:32

Oh, that's good Not to one-up you, but I went hiking this morning at that place I've been telling you about that same Pedro house and we saw two deer, two deer cows, two deer cows. That was pretty cool. So, yeah, I we do get some color change down here in Southern Arizona, so I did see a lot of it when I was in Kansas City a couple of weekends ago. So, yes, I do love the Midwest, I love the color change. It's amazing.

Speaker 3: 2:03

My sister-in-law was like I just, you know, my husband just went and got some apples from the apple orchard and her son just had some dental work and he can't eat and I'm like you should have gotten him the apple slushy girl.

Speaker 2: 2:15

Oh, the apple slushy. That must be a new thing.

Speaker 3: 2:18

They have apple slushies. Now it's all the. It's all the fun stuff.

Speaker 2: 2:22

So yeah, whenever I'm out somewhere and they have, like you know, pumpkin white chocolate frappuccino or something like you know, that sounds good in theory, but I will not want something that sweet in my coffee.

Speaker 3: 2:36

I love it. Well, I'm excited for our podcast today because this is a topic that I know Tiri and I we both feel very strongly about. We talk about it a lot, and the topic that we're going to jump into today is about the stories we tell ourselves and how the stories we tell ourselves impacts our mental health or our mental well-being. So Tiri and I are always thinking of new topics and a lot of times we get topics from all their podcasts and we use that as yeah, we use that as inspiration for our own podcast. So today, what inspired us is a podcast from it's called the Hidden Brain. It's one of my new favorites and this podcast is all about stories of redemption or stories of contamination, and specifically, the interviewer is interviewing in a researcher named Jonathan Adler and he talks about his research, specifically from a study called Living Into the Story Agency and Coherence and Narrative Identity Development and Mental Health Encyclotherapy.

Speaker 3: 3:49

And you know, tiri, we have looked at Brene Brown's work, we've looked at John Maxwell's work and people use different words to talk about the same concept, but I really loved how they jumped into stories of contamination versus redemption and how we make meaning of what happens to us in our lives, and so the premise here is the theoretical premise is that things are going to happen to us, bad things are going to happen to us, and the people that fare better in life are people that can tell the story in a way where they come out on top as victorious and turning their pain into purpose, or the universe was playing out for them, not against them, and they can integrate what happened to them into their identity in a way that is positive and that is going to serve them in the future. And so I know I asked you to take a listen to that podcast. What was it like for you first of all listening? And then did things pop up in your mind from your own life experiences where you're like, yeah, I've done that.

Speaker 2: 5:01

Absolutely so. First of all, audience and my friend Amanda, I love you so much but I hate that podcast. I think it's so funny that you and I are like so on the same page about, like you said, life. And then you sent me that podcast a few weeks ago when we were going to talk about savoring and I was like we're don't really like this podcast, love the content, I don't love, I don't love the podcast. So when you sent me the second one, I was like holy crap, we're gonna listen.

Speaker 2: 5:35

So but I will say I will say in all fairness, like the first time I listened to it through I thought, well, how is this different from reframing? Like that's what I hopped in my head. How is this different from reframing, which is something I try to do a lot, you know try to take a negative and reframe it and try to look at like how the positive you know can come out of that. But the second time, when I knew that we were going to actually talk about this and I wanted to be able to apply it to my own life and to how we might bring value to our audience with this topic, it is a very interesting, it's a very interesting study. And then you know, like the universe always does, as soon as you have something that you're thinking about, you're kind of, you start to attract all these stories into your life and, like everyday conversations become. Well, was that a redemptive story or was that a contamination story? So I've had many like over the past few days to both think about my own life as either one of those or different parts of my life, as either one of those and also just different things that people have said to me. So I have, I have something I want to ask you about.

Speaker 2: 6:47

So so this morning and this is a conference, me, my husband, has the most morbid conversations sometimes, but one of the conversations, if you're scared, one of the conversations we got in the past, and one that I brought up to my friend Jen this morning when we were out on our very beautiful walk, was would you rather have your mind go first or your body go first? Like, would you rather have all of your faculties know everything you know going around? You know that's going around on around you and not have your body to like, follow suit with your mind, or would you rather have your mind to sort of go but your body be okay. Have you ever thought about this before? I'm like throwing this at you.

Speaker 3: 7:36

I think that the way that we experience. I feel like I know what your answer is going to be and I think we're going to have different answers, but I think I would rather have my mind and have to have how other people help me get my body around, because through our minds and through our awareness we're able to perceive what stimuli is around us. And I would hate to like lose moments with my grandkids and my husband and my students, and I savor those moments and just I would not want to lose that. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 8:12

I'm going to be surprised then that that's exactly what I say. I say I need my mind, I need to be able to, because I do get so stimulated by learning new things and talking to people thinking about this. This weekend we had Brian's cousin and her husband visiting us and you know like it's very enjoyable for me, like it's just as enjoyable for me to sit at home, have very stimulating conversation, just throw something on the grill, bring out the wine or whatever, as it is to go out to eat somewhere, because I feel like almost like staying home, you can get more intimate and you can have conversation that you might not have if you're out in a public place. So I need that kind of stimulation in order to feel good about the world around me.

Speaker 2: 9:01

But Jen, she had the opposite. She's like, hey, if I don't know, I don't know If my mind's gone, like I just I have no idea my mind's gone, so it's all good. But the interesting part about that conversation is you could almost frame either one of those as a redemption story or a contamination story. So I'm wondering for you have you, over the last few days since we've been talking about this topic, have you come across any situations where you could see how it could end up being an either or or? Do you think they're always usually fall in one box or another?

Speaker 3: 9:43

I think life happens and there are objective facts and it's the meaning that we make about those objective facts that influences the quality of our lives.

Speaker 2: 9:56

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 9:57

Yeah, it's great. So I'd say, and I'd probably say in most situations, that it's a cumulative effect, but in all of situations, I think that, yeah, we're always thinking, and I think that's what's so beautiful about the human condition is I don't know that there's any other being out there. That's what separates humans from every other species, is that we are meaning making creatures and we think about ourselves and we think about existential questions like meaning and purpose, and it's a source of suffering, but it also can be a source of great joy.

Speaker 2: 10:36

Yeah, I wrote down a couple of things when I was trying to dig in a little deeper to our content today. One of them is that stories are how we make sense of our lives, right? So in that particular podcast that we both listened to, he talked about how it depends on where you end the chapter, right? Yeah, which I thought was like super fascinating. So I, like I tried to think of a story in my own life where you know, if you just move the chapter a little bit, the ending of the chapter a little bit, how it makes a different story. And so I came up with one example yeah, so I'm getting my hair done the other day and I've only gone to my stylist probably this particular style is probably I don't know three or four times.

Speaker 2: 11:22

So we're still at that point where we're asking each other a lot of questions, you know, making small talk and all that, and she's thinking about having another baby and she said you know, how did you Find out you were having twins? Like, were you totally shocked or was this like something that ran in your family? And you were, you were kind of like Wondering if it might happen to you, and I said, oh no, you know, when I got pregnant with my twins. You know we didn't find out until much later that my grandma had twin brothers that were still born. They didn't talk about that kind of stuff back then you know so, so I'm telling her the story.

Speaker 2: 11:56

So I said, um, it's kind of a, it's kind of an interesting story. I said, um, I was actually Going to go into the military. I was gonna go in and oh Gosh, I've lost the word where you go in and you don't. You're not full-time, you're just sort of like reserves, thank you. I was gonna go into reserves because I I was not happy in my marriage. I had already had one child who was going to be turning three and I knew that I was not gonna stay in my marriage. And I I'm kind of a planner. I thought I can't just leave and not have a way to support my daughter. Like I'm not gonna leave and not have a good life for her, and I'd already kind of been down that path when she was Long story, but anyway, I think to the point. So I was gonna have a plan. So I enrolled in the in the reserves, and the place that you leave from to go to bootcamp it's called a mep center and that mep center, where we lived, was like three hours away. Now my husband was already in the military, he's in the Navy and so, leading up to me going to bootcamp, I was a mess. I was a hot mess. I was gonna be leading my almost three-year-old daughter for six weeks to go off to bootcamp and I kept telling myself it's for the greater good. It's for the greater good Like this has a purpose to it.

Speaker 2: 13:19

And the very day that I was going to leave from the mep center, they routinely run a pregnancy test on All women, and I was pregnant and so I could not go into the military. At the party is this you know, this was August 26, on her third birthday. In April, I had gone to my doctor because I was having a lot of problems with my cycle. He put me on the pill and so Somewhere between going to the doctor at the end of April in August 26. I managed to get pregnant on the pill. So I know, crazy, right. And then I, I, you know I. So August 26. I realized, okay, my plan is is crap, I can't, I can't do this right, so I'm just got to figure out another way.

Speaker 2: 14:04

So couple months pass and I go in from my ultrasound, like all women do, and they asked my husband to leave the room and they said you know, they move the little scanner on one side of your belly and I like, do you see this? And I was like, yeah, no, oh, just for some context, I am like 19 years old at this point, about ready to have my third child. So I'm still, you know, I'm still a young girl. So do you see this on the right side of my belly? I'm like, yes, they roll it over to the other side and they say, do you see this? And I'm very confused at this point and I say, yes, I go, what is it? And they're like, well, this is baby a and this is baby B. And I was like, uh, what? Oh, you're having twins.

Speaker 2: 14:55

So not only was I not going to be able to leave and go into the military, I was about to become a mother of three children. And so if I, if I ended the chapter right there, don't you think that's, that's a contamination story? Because that's a story that turned out Positive, that turned into a negative, right? Because now I'm, you know, like the character in the story could be hopeless, she could feel like she had no hope for her future, right? But if you?

Speaker 3: 15:25

will A mirage. You just said you're getting ready to get a divorce. So right, I'm feeling pretty hope. Now I'm like, oh my gosh, now I'm trapped.

Speaker 2: 15:34

Yeah, and perhaps no solution to this problem, no way to support myself. Now I have three kids. How am I ever gonna get out of this? So, yeah, if you end the chapter there, that's a contamination story. If you pass forward the story, I don't know. I don't even know how many years, I'll say 11. Let's say 11 years total. Now I'm the owner of an insurance agency. I can support myself, I have a great job. I have, you know, I have book club friends, like I have this amazing life and you know I'm. I'm in a whole different situation. So I really liked that part of the podcast where he talked about like, just move the chap, the ending of the chapter a little bit and you might turn a contamination story into a redemption story.

Speaker 3: 16:20

Yeah, absolutely, it's called punctuation. It's like where do you wait, right? And so I? You know, I so many stories and so many examples are playing out in my mind right now. I can tell you that Oftentimes when I'm working with clients In my office for counseling, a lot of people come into counseling because they are stuck in a contamination story.

Speaker 2: 16:47

Oh yeah, I can miss him.

Speaker 3: 16:49

Yes. So, for example, one person that I worked with in the past had these really great dreams of becoming a lawyer and he went through all of the prep work to become a lawyer. He went through all kinds of schooling, sleepless nights, didn't get to go out and party like the rest of his buddies did. He was so immersed and obsessed with his identity of being like an overachiever, and he was super proud. Everybody had, you know, coined him as, like the golden child in his school. He was the valedictorian of his class, and then he didn't pass the bar exam.

Speaker 3: 17:34

Imagine, right, right, like. Imagine how disorienting that is when your whole identity and years and years of sacrifice and you get to this point in your story that what you thought was going to come true doesn't come true, right, right. And so we worked for a long time, actually in therapy on identity integration and having to get to a point where he realized that I have to let the identity of becoming a lawyer die before I can let anything else new come in, and that is a whole grief process. I mean, you talk about this, talk about the stages of grief, like denial, like there's no way that this is possible.

Speaker 2: 18:21

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 18:23

Anger, you know, all different kinds of depression that were in there for months and months.

Speaker 3: 18:28

So then we get to a point in the therapeutic process where we start talking about different avenues and what he could do after that and he started talking about how, when he was in law school like there was a certain case that he had or not law school.

Speaker 3: 18:41

When he was in undergrad, he had worked on a case where he was trying to help a nonprofit organization because he had had a physical illness when he was younger and he ended up going back and connecting with the organization that worked in the nonprofit to help him for his physical illness and he ended up being like a project manager and helping people who were facing like really scary diagnoses, helping them and their families get through that horrible, horrible time, and like becoming an advocate of resources and all sorts of grants and programs that people don't understand to help save lives and then save families' mental wellness. And there's absolutely like nothing he could ever imagine himself doing now, Like he's in his bliss, he's in his joy and had that door not closed for him, he would have never had the opportunity to walk through another door. Yeah, Because they've been looking for it.

Speaker 2: 19:47

Yeah, that's amazing, and I'm thinking about another thing that they said in the podcast. They don't know if I truly had time to process enough to wrap my brain fully around it, but I started to process it a little bit. And that is the factor of how cultural narratives play into the stories we tell, and the only one that I could like really, you know, kind of like try to try to place myself in the story was so the cultural narrative in America is probably one of you grow up as a woman. You grow up. You either seek further education or you don't. You get married by a certain age. You have children by a certain age. So that's the cultural narrative, right?

Speaker 3: 20:36

So if you're a woman, it's also a generational narrative because it's changed now.

Speaker 2: 20:43

True, very true. But if you end up in a situation where you can't have babies, yes, so then like you could almost tell yourself that you failed because culturally that's what's sort of the normal thing to do, and so you can get kind of caught up in that cultural narrative and your story can become of one of I'm not valuable, I did something wrong, you know I'm. There's something wrong with me because I can't do this thing that I'm supposed to quote, unquote, supposed to do. Can you think of any other examples of like cultural narratives that come into factor in the stories that we tell ourselves?

Speaker 3: 21:28

Yeah, I mean it goes back to career, because I have other clients that are from other cultures, and in a lot of other cultures specifically, I'm thinking of like Indian culture, sri Lankan culture, like you're either a doctor or you're a lawyer.

Speaker 2: 21:43

Yes, that's what Jay Shetty talks about.

Speaker 3: 21:46

Yeah, like you're a lawyer and so if you don't become one of those things, like you have a contamination story that not only are you putting on yourself, but you're whole and three it's projecting onto you as well. Yeah, absolutely, and you have to negotiate and integrate the fact that you're going to be a disappointment to your elders and your whole vision that you had for yourself is going to be thrown off course. And now you're totally disoriented in searching for an identity and feel like a failure at the same time.

Speaker 2: 22:21

Yeah, absolutely. One of the other things that I wrote down was people who believe their lives are meaningful tend to tell stories defined by growth, communion and agency.

Speaker 3: 22:35

Yes, I love the word agency.

Speaker 2: 22:38

I do too.

Speaker 3: 22:40

Agency means I wrote this, I worked on this with a client and I wrote this down. The universe isn't happening to you, the universe is happening for you and people that, and people that feel like they have agency. They are more likely to go downstream and to let life unfold and then sort of see where they can pivot and twist and turn to make the next right choice for them, and not go upstream, which is decide that somebody else is the sort of author of their story and they're just like a character in the play and they have influence over the outcome of the story.

Speaker 2: 23:19

Absolutely. Yep Love that.

Speaker 3: 23:22

Yeah. So, like I do a lot, I keep thinking about career counseling, like a lot of times, people will come in and there's new leadership and I'm sure you can totally relate to this, terry. Then there's new leadership in a company and people have enjoyed these like glory years where they had this brilliant leadership and everybody, the culture was so like fulfilling and it was healthy and people had psychological safety and people were appreciated and acknowledged. And then you have new leadership come in and all of those things that you enjoyed as part of your reality are now changed.

Speaker 1: 23:58

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 23:59

In many ways, it is very real. Your day-to-day life and environment has been contaminated.

Speaker 2: 24:08

I've actually experienced it the other way as well, where life was very stressful when I very first became an operations manager for the theme insurance company that I owned my agency through. When I very first became an operations manager, the woman that I was in charge I kind of give her credit for a lot of my stomach issues and the beginning of my sleep issues because you felt like you walked on eggshells around her all the time. You never knew when she was going to go off about something and your life was not your own. I would travel to Madison, wisconsin, from Arizona, at least once a month and oftentimes, because it was so close to where I grew up and where you live and my daughters and other friends and family, I would make plans to see people while I was there.

Speaker 2: 24:58

It was kind of a perk of the job. I mean, I had trouble a lot, but I also had some perks and I would never know if she would say we're working till 10 o'clock tonight, be at the office from 7 or 8 o'clock in the morning till 10 o'clock at night, because she would not allow for any kind of work-life balance or agency to make your own work schedule and yeah, so I've had the opposite to be true as well, and then a new leader come in and you're I mean, it was like a fairy tale suddenly, because you had this leader who really understood how to motivate people and how to make a different type of culture in the workplace.

Speaker 3: 25:39

So it's interesting that you use that example because those are very objective facts and I don't want people to think that we are just like oh well, stay in that environment where you end up with ulcers and your boss wants you to work 10 hours a day and just think positive. This isn't about like, this is not think positive and be Pollyanna, this is okay. Something's happened in the story that's punctuated. The story your agency is. Are you telling yourself I can't leave this job, I'm never going to make this amount of money. I have to have this amount of money. I'll totally lose my identity, I'll never be happy. Are you pigeon-wielding yourself into like I have to stay in this particular job, or is this a story of redemption?

Speaker 3: 26:25

I took my authorship back and I was like I have a choice whether or not I'm going to work here, and I decided I'm not going to work here. That's just one example. And I ended up for this company and I ended up more fulfilled than I ever thought I was. But agency is when you know your own value and make meaning and purpose because like, okay, the objective fact is this woman is not a kind boss and not an emotionally intelligent boss, and those are the objective facts Now. What I do with that information and how I make meaning and what my next move is speaks to if I feel like I have agency in my own life.

Speaker 2: 27:06

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3: 27:09

Now, that's easier said than done. It's not easy just to leave.

Speaker 2: 27:14

But it will, especially if you you know you have what they call the golden handcuffs. You know, like my husband is three and a half years away from retirement, if he suddenly got new leadership and at his company, the chances of him leaving or us moving again are small and much smaller. So I'm glad you brought I'm glad you brought that point up. And also it's interesting that when we do tell a story it's not all fact. There are objective things in the story, right, and we can choose as we look back on our life. So you know, not as recent past but like look back a little farther in our life, we can choose what parts of the story we want to emphasize so that we can either create the contamination story or the redemption story, right.

Speaker 3: 28:08

Yes, yeah, yeah, you know, actually I think of you in a lot of these different situations. Like you have really faced a lot of hardship over the last I don't know, I want to say like eight or nine years, right. Like you have, you've basically had to recreate, redefine your home, what you even call home Many times, and it's not easy.

Speaker 2: 28:34

No.

Speaker 3: 28:34

You know you went from like this magnificent house that you built together and got married at, to moving out into a piece of property or a piece of land that you put up, a makeshift barn that became you know something that didn't have windows, that you had to make do right. I remember as you were going through that moving process you were selling a bunch of your clothes you're getting rid of like the vast majority of your material belongings.

Speaker 2: 28:59

I did. I think I got rid of like 75% because a lot of my clothes were, you know, business, professional clothes and I didn't see a need for them where we were calling. So you know, and a lot of decorative things, because my mindset was who knows if they're going to work in the next place I live, so I'm not going to drag these things all over the place with me.

Speaker 3: 29:20

So yeah, I think that's a really special to you. Like you carefully choose your things, you're an aesthetically like, very aware person, so I know that there was attachment to those things as well. And that's the thing about contamination and redemption stories is like there are real attachments that come with those choices of making meaning.

Speaker 2: 29:42

Yeah, and so. So that's great, because that's that that makes me think of this. So this is a little bit of a reframe, but it's also a story that we tell ourselves to is like so if you were to put me and Brian in this story and ask us to tell it, his story would be well, we can always get more things. We will always make more money. Well, we can always just get new things. Where my story comes from, a lot of things that have happened in the past and that feeling of lack, like well, what if we don't have enough to get new things? What if this is the last time I have this beautiful, you know, whatever vase or whatever it was? So even putting people in the same story but asking them to tell it is can be very, you know, redemptive versus contamination as well.

Speaker 3: 30:35

Right, I absolutely love that. You just said that, because when you, when you counsel someone and you ask them to tell their story, usually their story is actually not even the current story, it's the childhood story.

Speaker 2: 30:50

Oh, I just heard that from somebody else recently too. Like your marriage, your marriage can be a lot about. Like just things from your childhood just placed into the. You know the current story right.

Speaker 2: 31:01

Yeah, so go back to your story so my story was grew up yeah, grew up with lack and not knowing if you're going to have things and kind of hoarding things because you didn't know if you were ever going to get them again. Like I wasn't the kid who got their Halloween candy or their Easter basket and ate it all really fast. I was like no, I got to stay this because I don't know when I'm going to get this again. So you know, as as much as I feel like I've grown and I have some of that still sticks with me, you know, and so you know what you said is I'm I'm very choosy about what I select from my home. Part of it is the aesthetic and part of it is am I willing to spend the money on that, you know. So, yeah, there's always a little bit more of the story.

Speaker 3: 31:48

Yeah, and in those feelings that come up in the situations in our adult life, the feeling of like, when that boss came in and she like was you know, you're here 10 hours and that's it, and I don't care if you've eaten today or what you had planned for the weekend or any other plans, like it's, it's my priority and you're going to follow mine. Did that feel like anything from your childhood? I know you probably didn't think about it, but did it feel like any other relationship from your childhood that you can connect it to?

Speaker 2: 32:20

I mean, you're right, I probably didn't put two and two together at the time. But yes, I've always just kind of like, didn't speak up for myself and didn't ask for that boundary, you know, and so I didn't feel like it was even possible to ask for what I needed, and that's that's a repetitive theme, you know from my childhood Not to just to silence yourself and and stay out of trouble. So just don't ask for what you need or what you want.

Speaker 3: 32:44

Right, Right, so it's so much that we could dig so deep into it. I really loved all the research that they cited. If the listeners are interested in listening to this podcast or checking out the transcript, what I really love is that they also look at how people who have really bad problems with alcohol, how they tell the story of taking their last drink. Yeah, Some of the research that they cited. They actually looked at people that were alcoholics and how they told the story of their last drink as either contamination or redemption. They also looked at chronically stressed adults who had children with special needs and how they told the story of, you know, basically losing their life to take care of their special needs child or is it something that empowered them?

Speaker 3: 33:35

One person that they cited it was really interesting. One person that they cited it said for one person her special needs child taught her a lot about who she was as a person, how she was open, how she was not open to people and things and how she felt like having this challenging parenting experience really helped reshape who she was as a person, what it meant for her to not only be a parent but also a human in relation to other human beings that she loved dearly, and what happened was through that her empathy for other people, and what used to be an awareness of and a focus on self, really started becoming focus on others as just a way of being in the world, and she was very proud of that.

Speaker 1: 34:19

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 34:19

So I guess what's the message for the listeners today? What would we say as a result of this? Be aware of the stories that you're telling yourself and where you put the intuition where you're putting the punctuation and be aware that where you punctuate your story impacts your mental health and well-being.

Speaker 2: 34:41

Absolutely yeah. We started talking about doing something together years ago and we said there is power in your story, and that was in like 2018. And you know we're at that end of 2023. And it's just as relevant today as it was in 2018. And we first started talking about it. You know our story could have been, our story could have ended. You know the full book could have ended. You know we're. We grew up in a trailer park, we grew up in abusive homes, we grew up with some level of neglect, but the power of our story is that that wasn't the end of our story. Our story continues and continues and I love to say this, like you're the author yeah, you get to write the next line, you get to write the next chapter and you get to write the ending of your book. Don't let somebody else hold the pen.

Speaker 3: 35:35

Absolutely. I love that quote. Don't let somebody else hold the pen of your story. That's right.

Speaker 2: 35:41

Well, I'm going to encourage listeners, even though I said I don't like the podcast, I'm going to encourage them to go listen to episode. I'll make sure to include it in today's show notes. I think this is a really important topic. Probably to reflect on a little bit is you know where have you ended the chapters in your story? And if you just moved the chapter ending just a little bit differently in a different spot, you know, can you reframe that story and turn it into a redemption story versus a contamination story? That's my challenge for the listeners today.

Speaker 3: 36:15

Absolutely, and please go to our Facebook page and other ways of connecting on Instagram, and if you have a story of redemption that you'd like to share with us, we'd love to hear it. Have a great day.

Speaker 2: 36:26

Have a great day. Amanda, I don't know if this ever happens to you, but I sometimes will learn something really cool on a podcast, on a YouTube video audiobook, whatever, I think I'm going to remember it and then I forget. Does that ever happen to you?

Speaker 3: 36:42

Yeah, I call it brain after 40 all the time.

Speaker 2: 36:45

Well, that's what we'll officially call it. When we come up with something, do you want to introduce it?

Speaker 3: 36:51

Sure, it's from an app called Quick Jim Quick, and it's an acronym called fast.

Speaker 2: 36:57

Yeah, and the F stands for Facebook. So we're inviting you officially right now to come over and join us on Facebook. Get involved with the community, share your favorite episodes with your friends on Facebook.

Speaker 3: 37:07

Yeah, the A is go ahead and take an action, so you can't remember anything if you don't act.

Speaker 2: 37:13

And F is for subscribe. Make sure you're subscribed to our YouTube channel.

Speaker 3: 37:18

And then T is teach. Teach what you've learned to somebody else. Share the love.

Speaker 2: 37:22

All right, we hope that works for you. Thank you for joining us. We'll see you next week, so bye.