 What is the power of story in our lives? What is the power of the stories we tell ourselves in our lives? I am a life coach for elderhood. I engage people who are wanting to pursue their lives into the best, most extraordinary elderhood of their life. We each of us have a childhood, we have a teenage adolescence, we have an adulthood. And then now we have an elderhood, become much more of an acceptable and useful concept since the 90s. What are you doing in your elderhood? What stories are you telling yourself in your elderhood? And how do those stories impact the decisions you make? In my book, Don't Just Age Engage, Life Coaching for an Extraordinary Elderhood, I explored five spiritual tasks, which I think are pertinent to and certainly prominent in our elderhood experience. So in continuing to grow up, if we approach these with intelligence and with a willingness to explore them and to resolve what sometimes some challenges they present to us. The first one is grieving and we addressed that last, the last program we had, lots of grieving when we get to elderhood. We sort out our stories, sorting out our stories as we go through elderhood. What are those stories that we want to keep? What are some of the stories we want to change? What are the stories maybe we are through living one of this card? Forgiving is the third one and then we go on from forgiving to preparing and on to letting go. And we'll explore those in future programs every two weeks here on Think Tech Hawaii. And I'm so grateful for the partnership of Think Tech Hawaii that allows and enables me along with so many other great and wonderful hosts and programs to bring critical considerations to my viewers, to our viewers in the Hawaiian Islands here where we are and beyond throughout the world. So welcome to this. Aloha, your friends that I just haven't met yet. So glad you're here. Today to look at the power of story, I am inviting one of my dear friends who is a life coach for lifestyle and health. Mary Steck in California who's come on to us in the Zoom platform. Hello, Mary. Good afternoon, Larry. I'm so pleased to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me. You're so welcome and thank you for being willing to bring your expertise and your insights and your sensitivity to people, kinds of changes we go through. I'd like to invite you, if you will, to share a little bit about yourself. However, you would like to introduce yourself to the viewers. Well, you know, we, you and I had a lovely conversation yesterday and I have made a few notes, but I forgot to make notes about myself because that's usually how it is. I am a health and lifestyle coach, and I've been a studier of spirituality and self improvement, self development for most of my life. And I'm the best of the mother who had me in an alternate alternative thinking thing. So it's kind of who I am. I'm, like I said, I'm very, very happy to be here and this subject is one of my favorites. Yeah, I thought it might be. Yeah, I've seen you work with people. So what are the changes that they come about from changing of stories. So what is the power of story in the lives, Mary? Well, you know, I as a health coach, I've been working for several years with people who are challenged with with weight issues. And they have their own particular stories but I want to go back from the beginning as I said I've made a few notes you know you're in Hawaii. Most of the I'm sure all of the people watching this know the the the two words talk story. And I've kind of been, I've been thinking about that. What does that really mean talk story. And I spent this this afternoon actually dividing that up into three different categories of talking story. The first category that I've identified is the category of experience. And those are the stories of our memories and the cultural stories that have been passed down through the ages, those stories of teaching those stories that enlightened and instill love and inspire and make people laugh. Memories of vacations and family and pets those are those wonderful experiential stories we cherish. The second grouping of stories are the beliefs. Now this category are kind of are the ones that are self inflicted. They're the ones that we pick up as children. You know we hear the word no. I think it's 5000 times before we're three years old. And it starts building a self image and in that self image we we we start adopting stories like I can't. I can't do this. I always fail. You know if somebody says, you're a bad boy, that's a story that's a that's the seed of a story. And those stories we take with us it's their manufactured stories. I can't, I can never make money. I can never save money. I can't get out of debt. Nothing ever works for me. It's just my luck. I'm a loser. You know, I'm bad at marriage, or I can't lose weight because I'm big boned. That's that's one of the ones that that I've experienced with in my work with people who are losing weight, or I'm just too old. Excuse me let me interrupt you just a minute because I have a trigger to remember memory I have of my grandson, Ethan who is six years, six years old, and he was talking with his mom. One day she reported to me and she said, you know, mom, he said, you know mom sometimes I just make bad choices. I'm not a very good boy. And I don't know where she picked that up I'm sure he did I mean I'm he sure he didn't pick it up from his mother because she wouldn't say something like that. I don't know where he picked that up and so, in my response to him. I next time I saw him on Facebook, or on FaceTime, or was zoom actually I said, Ethan your mom. Sometimes I make mistakes, but that's just mistakes. And even you make mistakes too and you're a wonderful boy. And it was so funny Mary because he just glowed with this concept that that I think he's a wonderful boy. The power of that go ahead Mary. Yeah, I mean can you imagine being raised by parents who are consciousness conscious enough to enforce that positivity and a self image in you. Yes, you go to school and you, you don't get picked for the team therefore I'm a loser, you know, but the problem with this is those experiential stories actually start dominating the talk story, the memory stories. You know, we kind of live on scales, and then you run your life based on these false stories, and they're false. And I'm going to give you a little tool because I realized that a lot of times on programs like this we tell you all the things that are wrong but we don't give you give you a tool to fix it right. Let's go with it. So the third level that that I came up with is the someday story. As we mature, and we reach retirement, or it's a it's a dream state it's a fantasy state. Someday, I'm going to get up and, and play, you know, learn a new game. Someday, I'm going to take a vacation someday. And that does that begins another loop that is it reinforces the I'm not, because if you don't take action. It's a fantasy state and the fantasies never come true. Therefore, oh I knew I couldn't do that. You see, so you self inflict again, a story of failure, because you set yourself up in the someday routine is that what you're saying. That's exactly what I'm saying it's based on the fantasy wouldn't be wonderful if I took a trip around the world. Yeah, that would be wonderful. But if you don't get into action and make it happen, then you have another failure to deal with and it's just this endless loop, you know. So, like, So as a coach, what do you do to move people through that. Yeah. You know, that this is again, as I said that we always give the problems but not the solutions. I'm sure most of us have had an aunt Tilly, who when we get together for Thanksgiving we sit down or whenever dinner and we sit down and until he starts her old stories over and over again it's like. Okay, here we go again here's aunt Tilly, and wouldn't you like to just in a very nice way just cut it off. Stop her story. Nice way. I mean I'm talking. Not. I'm not. This is virtual. So there is a tool that you can use and it's it's actually it's it's like the, it's a karate chop tool. So, when you when we start feeling stories, you know come up. The first thing is a gut check a body check is what I'm thinking true. You know, Byron Katie asks herself, you know she she teaches three questions is this true. Oh yeah. Yeah. Is this really true are you absolutely sure. Alright, I, I'm unlucky in love. Is that true. Is it really true you know and go through that and you really get down to really answering that. And then you have a, you can kind of feel it in your body, are you constricted when you when you make a statement about yourself. I'm a bad piano player or I'm whatever that's negative. Do you feel a constriction in your body. And, or do you fill an expansion. If you do an affirmation, I am strong, I am clear, you know, actual body feeling, you know. And so when you can that constriction start happening, you can actually and the thoughts running, you can actually do a karate chop. You go, stop. Stop. Exactly. And you, you, you wake up. Oh yeah. Great. That's a great tool to be alert to what's going on to change it then stop, consider what it is and then change it. That's right. So how, how, when you work with people as a coach, do you recognize some of those stories that they've been telling themselves and do you know when the pause, what do you do when you hear those stories. Well, a lot of times I asked them to leave their stories on the, on the door before they enter the room. They're allowed to have them. You know, if they want them, that's fine, but they can, they can park them outside the room. And then pick them up on the way on the way back if they choose, you know, and we've got choices. And empathetically listen without judgment. And that's as a coach, that's a whole other dynamic. As you know, we are, we listen without taking it on. Empathy is something that's kind of a dangerous trap. You can hear it and then start wearing it or you can hear it. Feel it and hand it back if you know what I mean. But I also ask people to seek tiny little victories, tiny little victories, even if it's one push up against the wall. I'm too heavy to do exercises I can you do one push up against the wall. I can do one a day. And that starts developing the serotonins because of the success. And it starts feeling good and it starts breaking that addiction to the cortisol that's created when you're feeling bad and sorry and you're in the negative spin. And your body starts going in your brain starts saying I like this part better than the other I like feeling good better than I like feeling bad. So little tiny successes. And as seniors, you know we don't have to grow old. I decided a long time ago I'm old. I'm rediscovering myself I'm 74 and I'm rediscovering myself all over again because I've decided I can. And those are the decisions to make. And if you can take one tiny action step, if you want to paint for the first time in your life as a senior, just go by a brush. Right. I have an older brother, right. My older brother Randy is in California Southern California, as well Mary close. Well, Dan and San Diego, San Diego area, and Randy's just stating great shape he's doing really well. And we've been talking a little bit about elder hood. And, and he essentially is saying he's not, he says I'm not not really an elder. Well is is more than a river in Egypt. And, but it serves him well to be able to keep telling himself that he's going to stay vital he's going to stay younger and he's not going to. He says if you lose it, you know, if you don't use it you lose it. These are kind of some of the story snippets of his story that he keeps bringing up to himself. And, and, and, but it's, it speaks about the story that people have about elder hood to what do you notice in elder people, you work with elder hood people people in this stage of life. What are some of the stories that you hear from them about aging. I, a few years ago I met a gentleman who was in a memory care unit. He was quite he had pretty advanced dementia. And every time I would see him huge smile on his face. How are you. I'm fantastic. We would walk outside isn't the sky beautiful. Look at that beautiful flower that everything he saw everything that he allowed in his mind was beautiful. It was fabulous. And I spent a little time with him a few days you know just visiting and then I finally had a chance to take him home, drive him home and I, and I went, I took him home and I, I, his wife came out and I said, may I ask you a question. I said, I've noticed that his world is perfect. How did you do that. He said we cultivated it. We planted only positive affirmations and feelings for years, because there were, there's Alzheimer's in his family, and he knew that, you know he was losing some capacities. And I realized that what we plant in our, in our subconscious and cultivate and feed is what we will be left with when our mental capacities start diminishing. So, to make a choice as we enter elderhood of of priming your 90 year old mind. How do I want to live do I want to be that curmudgeon that, you know, the guy that nothing pleases him and life kind of sucks, you know, or the guy that isn't this wonderful. The primary neuro linguistic programming people who had had known a woman who was in attendance at their one of their conferences seminars and knew that this woman had been abused as a child and really severely abused and afterwards they talk with her and this is so wonderful that you're here and you're doing so well and how. How is it that you became such a great success in your life after what you've experienced as a child and young adult and young, young person. I said well I decided I was going to rewrite my history and I wrote my story of my family as though it were the perfect family that I could possibly want. I rewrote my story and that's what I live by the power of story. Our histories are really not records of incidents. Our histories are impressions of our experience. They are ways in which we do that memory. They get filed in that hippocampus in that middle. Range of our brain that middle brain where all the feelings of belonging, longing of loving of caring of wondering of fear of fear. They get, they get launched in there and our response which often is a reaction to circumstances. So how can a person who has their story about themselves lodged there so strongly how can they deal with that story and get rid of it or how can they get beyond its grasp into something that's creative and life affirming. Well I think life affirming is is a magical affirming your life every day gratitude every day. I have stories we all have stories. I don't know that they're going away but I know I've got better stories that I refer to you know my mind my, my brain is a is a library which book do I want to take off the shelf today and read. You know, I just, it's overriding it's over it's constantly you know when, when you wake up in the morning, and this I do every single day. Wake up in the morning and say, I want to, I get to, and I choose to. Right, whatever task you have ahead of me of your of you. Today I'm facing a new day and I want to, I get to and I choose to make this the best day of my life. That must, must every day, awaken you, you awaken with a sense of power, strength, what else. Gratitude, and gratitude, or being able to make a choice. And that's the thing I think we forget is that we, we have a choice to live. Our old stories over and over that old record they never wear out and they get scratched but they never wear out or change the record. Yeah, I am. I'm so saddened by our society which looks at elderwood as a place of victimhood. You get to elder and you become a victim. And certainly if I surrender to all the changes without feeling as though I have a choice, or knowing how to make those choices, having a community that wants to support those positive choices. And in fact, I do go into depression and victimhood and my gosh, especially with coven 19 how many elders are sitting at home, isolated from their family isolated from their communities. And what what dominates what story then dominates their mind when they wake up. And very few of us probably have this. I can I what was the, what were the phrases I want to, I want to, and I choose to, I want to I get to, and I choose to, but you know, elders are. If you, if you look at the Native American culture, the elders are the wise ones, right are the wise ones. We go back to the stories we go back to the talk story part of my little, you know, scenario. Write them down. I'm writing memories down. I'm writing little little stories in my life. And I'll just take one example one experience and I'll just write it out I'll relive it. We have creative intelligent wise individuals who've reached a point in our life where we may not have to work any longer we have time to create and to share to talk story and to teach and to enlighten and make people laugh. Don't give up on your stories don't put them away. Absolutely. Absolutely right. And that gives a kind of purposefulness to all those experiences can you because you can pass them along. Oh yeah. And I recommend also doing a video, doing a video of those and making the video available to the grandkids. Five years from now 10 years from now and they wonder, what was grandpa really like. Right. Right. What did grandpa do during the war. And but we did do we mean we've gone through our generation has changed the world. And we need to own that we're using 70s kids. And, and there's value in that you know, Ag Mandino wrote this, and I love this says week is who week is he who permits his thoughts or stories to control his actions. Strong as he who forces his actions to control his thoughts. Very good. Who's who's was that. Yeah, that's great. So take action and control your thoughts don't they're not, they're not real those old beliefs those old stories aren't real. Yeah, there, there are two reasons that I've been a church person I know there are two reasons in the belief systems that we believe belief systems one one reason is because they no longer fulfill our personal needs. We have to look elsewhere for personal strength, personal nurture. I mean there's some horrible, horrible individuals, individual beliefs about individuals that have perpetrated abuse and self self flagellate self abuse and or so it may not fulfill the needs of the individual. The reason is because we have a vision of what can be, and the system of belief doesn't move us up. It just wants to keep us locked in. So many people feel locked into the belief system that they have, and want to get beyond and match themselves up into something new and visionary. Well that's part of what coaching is about to certainly what's part of what a nurturing family experiences about help you change your story. What are the stories that you viewers use in your life to tell yourself. What are the stories that you start with I always because nobody always does anything. What are the stories that you say I never can. Nobody never can. You always have an exception. There are no absolutes in that sense. So I encourage you please take a look at your stories. Mary thank you so much for this I am really really enjoyed of course, the opportunity to be with you in this context. reflection. And I thank you for being there we have one minute left. Okay, I'm going to say I'm going to interrupt you this time and I'm going to just say that you are doing such a service for the community and of the world by by by bringing this gift to them and recognizing this part of life that's so valuable and precious. You're a gift. So thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you, Mary. Eric, would you bring up that website. Here's my website a global community for your extraordinary elderhood and under that if you would like to purchase my ebook. You can go to the digital resource center and you'll find don't age. Just don't just age engage. Don't be a victim empowered to make an extraordinary elderly. And aloha see you in two weeks will return with the third piece of aging extraordinarily and that is forgiving. Come back aloha. Thank you.