Master My

Stories
Mckensey Roberts, Troy Davidson, Jennie Merrill, Kate Lyn Whitaker, PJ
Davies, Samuel Pond

Skills for mastering our stories:

EMOTIONS JUST DONT HAPPEN

Claim one: Others dont make you mad

Claim two: You cant act on emotions or be acted upon by

your emotions.

How Feelings Drive Actions

FEEL
hurt
worried

ACT
Silence
cheap shots

Stories Create Feelings

SEE &
HEAR

Tell A Story

FEEL

ACT

*Even if you dont realize it, you are telling yourself

stories.
*Any set of facts can be used to tell an infinite
number of stories.

Retrace Your Steps

Act
Am I in some form of silence or violence?

Feel
What emotions are encouraging me to act this way?

Tell story
What story is creating these emotions?

See/Hear
What evidence do I have to support this story?

Notice your behavior:

We need to practice what we learned in chapter 4 and learn to look. we can't analyze everything we
do, so we need to look for times we are acting in violence or silence. We need to be honest and admit
if we are and not make justifications. being honest is extremely important in getting in touch with our
emotions

Get in touch with your feelings

Understanding why we are angry, frustrated, or sad identify to us what exactly is wrong. for example
we might be angry because we are embarrassed and surprised. If we can admit these things we can
better analyze your stories.

Analyze your stories:

Stories are our own invention so we need to keep them in check. Although our stories can be made
up the feelings behind them are very real. The stories we create can heighten or desensitize our
emotions. The point of analyzing our stories is so we can separate fact from from what we have made
up.

Get back to the facts:

Avoiding hot words like "scowl", Notice the difference when you say instead " Her eyes pinched shut
and her lips tightened". It creates a different story. Describing more in depth the behaviors we can
draw a more accurate depiction of what the other is going through.

Types of stories that we create:

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Our Stories
Nothing in this world is good or bad, but thinking
makes it so ~ William Shakespeare
*Stories provide our rationale for
whats going on.

Transform your stories

Why do we tell stories?

They match reality

Get us off the hook
Keeps us from acknowledging our own sellouts

Tell a useful story, not just a clever one:

Turn victims into actors

Am I pretending not to notice my role in the problem?
Turn villains into humans
Why would a normal, rational person would be doing this?
Turn the helpless into the able

Conclusion
Therefore what?
Therefore, we are in control of how we react and feel in
situations. We observe, tell a story, feel, then act. If we can
master our stories, we can become excellent
communicators. - Kate Lyn Whitaker

This is what we can do:

NO ONE can make us feel a certain way

We choose how to react
We can transform our stories