On today's episode I am joined by my first male guest, Geoff Mead. Geoff is a storyteller, writer and educator. He is the author of two books on the power of stories and storytelling and he has also published several volumes of poetry, a memoir and an illustrated children's book. He has taken his work on narrative leadership onto the shop floors and into the boardrooms of blue chip companies, charities, universities and government departments.
📚Learn more about Geoff :
His website: https://geoffmead.blog/about-3/
Read his books : https://geoffmead.blog/books/
Narrative leadership : http://narrativeleadership.org/
✨Things we talk about in this podcast:
Doug Lipman's book: https://tinyurl.com/3hvy3b6r
The Soul's code: https://tinyurl.com/wwsm7chj
James Hollis: https://tinyurl.com/mwuawefu
Get notified when the Silken Mirror membership opens in 2023 : http://eepurl.com/dxzCk9
Follow us on Instagram @moonlitpathchannel
This podcast is hosted by Laure Porché: http://laureporche.com. You can follow me on Instagram @laureporche
If you're enjoying the podcast, consider sharing it or leaving a review on Apple Podcast :)
On today's episode I am joined by my first male guest, Geoff Mead. Geoff is a storyteller, writer and educator. He is the author of two books on the power of stories and storytelling and he has also published several volumes of poetry, a memoir and an illustrated children's book. He has taken his work on narrative leadership onto the shop floors and into the boardrooms of blue chip companies, charities, universities and government departments.
📚Learn more about Geoff :
His website: https://geoffmead.blog/about-3/
Read his books : https://geoffmead.blog/books/
Narrative leadership : http://narrativeleadership.org/
✨Things we talk about in this podcast:
Doug Lipman's book: https://tinyurl.com/3hvy3b6r
The Soul's code: https://tinyurl.com/wwsm7chj
James Hollis: https://tinyurl.com/mwuawefu
Get notified when the Silken Mirror membership opens in 2023 : http://eepurl.com/dxzCk9
Follow us on Instagram @moonlitpathchannel
This podcast is hosted by Laure Porché: http://laureporche.com. You can follow me on Instagram @laureporche
If you're enjoying the podcast, consider sharing it or leaving a review on Apple Podcast :)
[00:00:00]
[00:00:00] Laure: On today's episode I am joined by my first male guest, Geoff Mead. Geoff is a storyteller writer and educator. He is the author of two books on the power of stories and storytelling and he has also published several volumes of poetry, a memoir and an illustrated children's book. He has taken his work on narrative leadership onto the shop floors and into the boardrooms of blue chip companies, charities, universities and government departments. He has performed traditional stories at international festivals and storytelling clubs, and run story-based workshops in the UK and as far field of Spain, Canada in Japan. I am honored to have him here to talk about the power of stories and how it can shape the different stages of our lives. So welcome.
[00:01:00] Geoff: Thank you.
[00:01:01] Laure: Thank you so much for coming. And I will dive straight in and ask you the first question that I ask everybody who comes on this podcast: what is your favorite story or one of your favorite stories, and what do you think it says about you, who you are?
[00:01:18] Geoff: There are so many and they change. I have a favorite. I can tell it to you. So an old wood cutter and his wife lived in a hut in the forest where they spent all their years and every day the wood cutter went out and cut wood and brought it back and sold it in the town. And wife cooked and kept house and looked after their two boys. They never had two pennies to rub together, but when the boys grew up, there were then three men to cut the wood and three times as much wood, but three times as much food to buy. And so they still didn't make a bean. And by the time we meet them, the sons have grown up married and they're long gone.
[00:02:00] And it's just the wood cutter and his wife. And he, every day goes to the forest with his little pony cuts, the wood loads, the pony takes it home. And one day he comes home and he says his wife, you know what? I've had enough. I'm stopping. In fact, I'm going to bed. And he hangs his axe on the wall and he goes upstairs to bed and his wife can't persuade him to come down. But you know, they've ran a long time. So she doesn't starve him. She does feed him, although they complain about each other. And after a while, this is being going on for a while there's a knock at the door. And there's a stranger who says, I notice you have a, a pony out the back. And he doesn't seem to doing anything.
[00:02:42] Can I rent the pony? Can I, you know, borrow it and give you some money? Certainly says the wife and the husband calls down: "yeah, make sure you get a good deal." And so they agree a price and the stranger goes off with the pony. Now this stranger happened to be a wizard, and the wizard knew the exact whereabouts of a mighty treasure that was buried deep in the forest.
[00:03:06] So he took the pony with him and he dug up the treasure and he put the treasure in bags on the pony's back and just about is about ready to leave A trooper, soldiers in the king's army came through the forest looking for him, looking to run him down and do him to death. And so he ran off leaving the pony in the clearing with bags of treasure on his back.
[00:03:30] And this wizard was never seen again. Not in this story. Well, after a while the pony did the only thing that it knew to do, which was to trot home and the pony trotted up to the cottage and the wife said, oh, Pony's come back and it's got something on its back. I dunno what it is. And the husband calls down, will you have a look then?
[00:03:52] So she opens the bag and she says, actually this time you do need to come downstairs because just come. So he does come downstairs and there is a mighty treasure. And they give a third of it to their sons and another third to the needy and deserving poor. And the final third was more than enough to keep them comfortably for the rest of their days.
[00:04:17] End of story. Why do I love the story? It's that tiny detail of the horse going home. It's an elder tale, it's the promise of a life's labor rewarded. It's the daily grind, the small things that can in elderhood produce the magic. For me, that daily grind, I suppose, in all sorts of professional context was writing. That's what I did. I wrote, I put words on paper, and now I'm, I mean, I'm not quite a wood cutter, , well, I wouldn't mind living in a cottage, a forest. But that gift has come back and it fills my days and weeks and months with joy that I can do that. So I like this idea that there's potentially a treasure in the ordinary. The extraordinary in the ordinary. And as I'm, you know, at that sort of, probably not disimilar age to the wood cutter, it suits me rather well to believe that possibility.
[00:05:17] Laure: Thank you for this story. It's also good for me to hear it right now cuz I'm struggling to see the value of the deli grind where I am at my life. Right? You know, 40 years old and I'm like, Ugh, . Yeah. Is this all there is. And yeah. So it's good to hear it, you know, to have that sense of maybe at some point the horse will come back with the treasure
[00:05:41] Geoff: And of course the other thing about it, it is lovely and I, I mean it's not quite retirement, but he just says, I've had enough, I'm not gonna do what I've been doing anymore. And then there's a space for something else to happen. And what, it's quite radical. I mean, just say, I'm gonna take it easy, so I'm going to bed. But it's a story you can exaggerate the point. There is something about making the space, I think, and perhaps in later life, having the opportunity to make the space.
[00:06:05] Laure: Kind of letting go of a sense of identity that you've had, and being like, you know, Nope, not happening. I'm at a little early, but I'm in that stage right now. So it's, yeah. Yeah. There's a whole lot in this story that's really interesting for me. Yeah. Thank you for that. So kind of the first thing that I wanna ask you, and I have an idea, but it's kind of for our listeners Yeah. Which is you're a professional storyteller, right? You would say that ?
[00:06:32] Geoff: In a sense. Yeah. In a sense.
[00:06:34] Laure: And so like how do you become a professional storyteller and what does it entail for you and however you wanna say it, you know?
[00:06:41] Geoff: I mean, I think I probably would say I'm a story worker rather than a storyteller. I mean, I tell stories, but I work with story more than I tell them. And I think there's something about finding your own unique path. What is the work that is yours to do with story? There are many people who simply want to tell stories to an audience, to entertain, to educate, to inspire. And that's a great thing to do. It was never what I wanted to do. And I did train as a performing storyteller and I do sometimes perform and I love it. And it's really important that I do it for myself. But I decided very early on that I did not want to earn a living or try to earn a living as a peripatetic storyteller. I mean, it's extremely difficult. Mm-hmm. to do. I think in the UK there are, I dunno, a dozen or more or so, really top class storytellers, maybe two dozen who can do that. And it's a life on the road and it's not what I wanted to do. I never wanted to put the burden on storytelling of having to earn a living from it because I wanted it always to be joyful and something I could do for the hell of it and cause I loved it. And I decided I would earn my living in different ways. So I did what many people do to create something. We bring two things together and I don't think there are many brand new things in the world. I think a lot of creativity is finding interesting collisions.
[00:08:05] And I found a collision between leading and storytelling and how story is how we make sense of things and the skills of storytelling. And I created something, well, 20 years ago, I suppose, best part of, that I called narrative leadership. And I began to offer that to the world in different ways. I have to say 20 years ago, the world wasn't terribly interested. It took a while. , it took a while. I, I would knock on the door of these great, you know, institutions say, hello, I'm a storyteller, can I help you? And they'd say, not today. Thank you. But over time it's fascinating how the awareness, the narrative turn, you know, shifted into the business world.
[00:08:44] And I don't knock on any doors. People come and ask me, you know, I get emails, I dunno how often, but often enough, you know, would you be interested in this? Would you be interested? In fact, next week I'm flying to Bordeaux to work with the chief exec and board of large company. And they found me and what the work that I do so I earn my living with story and sharing stories, and helping other people connect with their intrinsic capacity to tell stories. That's kind of how it, how it works out.
[00:09:15] Laure: I'm really surprised that you're coming to Bordeaux, cuz French people are notoriously not open to that kind of thing. So how exactly, if you will, does that work? If you come into a company like a corporate setting what are they expecting from what you're doing?
[00:09:37] Geoff: Well, it varies quite widely. What I don't do, what I'm not interested in is kind of they call it narrative marketing. You know, let's create a good story and sell more widgets, doesn't interest me in the slightest. Let's find a good story to spin what we do and make it sound better, not interested. What I am interested in is what's the kind of deep truth that those people are holding about their sense of value and purpose?
[00:10:01] What is the world calling for? And how do those meet? So what are the stories that they want to live and tell that have some value in the world? And so my work is always a bit provocative and challenging but it's intended to help people connect with their sort of deeper human values. Get out of the kind of corporate mindset a bit. Discover how sharing personal stories with each other can really deepen a sense of connection and open up. And if you can bring the life world into the system world, there's a possibility at that level anyway, of opening people up to making more humane decisions. The kind of decisions that they would make for the sake of their families and children and the planet rather than by the strictures of a typical kind of results driven, stakeholder, shareholder driven, quarterly return public company. And over the years, you know, people have made significant shifts and attempts to change what they do, but it's not just about telling a good story. It's connecting the story that's lived with the story that's told and the story that they yearn for. Really.
[00:11:15] Laure: Sounds like you are helping reconnect people to life, to the living. When I say life I mean to the living world around us and in us, in settings that are notoriously disconnected. As a therapist, I see a lot of people from the corporate world. And those settings are not conducive to being a human being. That sounds really important, that you would do that.
[00:11:43] Geoff: That's why I tell myself, and on a good day, it's great, and people get lots out of, on a bad day I go home and I think, well, you know, I tried , but I try not to take on gigs. I don't wanna take on something that's pushing water uphill, there's no point in that. I'm very clear about what I offer to people, if they don't want me, that's absolutely fine.
[00:12:01] Laure: I don't have that bravery to go into those spaces that are inhospitable in a way, and try to pull out the humanity and pull out the life and kind of like reconnect.
[00:12:12] Geoff: It's just below the surface. I suppose that's, you know, I've chosen my ground. Yeah. I do know that world. I can move in that world and I have held a senior leadership role in the past, and I, I have an empathy of some kind with people who feel as stuck and want, you know, part of them absolutely wants to be more human and humane and caring. It tends to get suppressed, but I I'm finding these days more and more, I'm finding around the boardroom table people are wanting to be on the right side of history. And you know, even three or four years ago, I would say for most people it was kind of a fad. Let's look at this. You know, it's interesting. And that's serves me, gets me in the door. But what I'm finding these days is more is, they're often, not always, but often men, people in midlife usually often with families and their kids are saying, what are you doing about this? . What are you doing about our world?
[00:13:10] And it's, you know, tremendous. It's very difficult systemically to turn the tanker. It's extraordinarily difficult. Yeah. But it has to begin with an intentional. A desire. I think like all good stories, we know that stories need desire to work, without them, nothing happens. So we have to kind of tap into the bit that holds that desire, which I would call... you made a distinction between the kind of organizational world and the natural world. I think it would be, for me, a a connection between the, the logical mind and the storied mind, which is more of a soulful activity, I think it's about touching soul and I think stories are one of the languages that soul understands and speaks.
[00:13:53] Laure: Yeah. Yeah. And does that mean that you help people to kind of reconnect to their own true life force and soul through their own stories so that they can start envisioning new stories than the ones that permeate our culture and their, and their environment? Do you have to come back in a way to your own ability to see yourself or see your life's trajectory in an imaginal sense so that, that you can open it up to something new or something bigger?
[00:14:29] Geoff: Oh something bigger is really important. Because I think these worlds have a tendency to make us small, driven, you know, on tracks and channels. And it's often a real relief for people to step outside that and discover that the world doesn't fall apart. You know, they can actually meet and talk in different ways. And simply sharing a few small personal stories is a great way to change the feel, the quality of the way that they engage with each other for a while at least. I mean, the pressures come back. Of course they do. I can't deny that. That's my hope anyway, and my intention, and that's what I'm seeking to do.
[00:15:08] Laure: I studied acting in New York a while back, and I was lucky enough to be taught by Alan Langdon, who was a great acting teacher over there, and, so his idea was that before we do a scene, we would tell personal stories. Mm-hmm. that pertained to what our character was gonna go through. His idea was that if we told personal stories, it would help us have a sense of truth, of what is true in our body uh, so that we could recognize it in acting. I kinda like that idea of helping people tell their stories so that they can get a felt sense of what is true for them. Does that make sense?
[00:15:54] Geoff: Yeah. That's important. I happen to know not very well, but I happen to have known for a number of years, the actor Sir Mark Rylance, who's a leading Shakespearean actor in, in uk and I, I have spoken to him about, I was fascinated by how he learns his lines and yet delivers them a fresh every time. I can't do that. One of the reason I tell stories, I never remember the words, I don't remember the script. I couldn't do it. It would completely freak me out. And so there were a couple of things going on: One of them was, he said, I learned the script so well that I forget it. That when I walk on stage, I don't even know that I know the words.
[00:16:28] So I can be there and respond to it. And he talked to me about a notion of authentic performance. And it's a great metaphor for not just for acting, cause in a sense we act our way through life, we are in action through life. So we are performing in the sense that we are bringing skill to it and judgment and consideration and yet unless we can connect somehow with the authentic self, it's wooden or it's detached. And I think that notion from acting is a really powerful one. I think it's very similar for storytellers too, which I regard as an adjoining, but different discipline to acting. I've, I know one or two actors who are very good storytellers, and I know a few are absolutely terrible. Cause they want to enact the story in front of you, . And you think, no, no, no, no, no, no. Thank you. Doug Lipman, who's written the Storytelling Coach, a really good book for storytellers, talks about three relationships the storyteller must have in performance.
[00:17:28] One is with themselves. What's their bodily experience, their emotional experience, what's going on for them? Really? A deep connection with the story. How does this story connect to my story? Those kind of things. Those sort of awarenesses and a, a vivid and lively presence and connection with the audience. And he says, the one thing you can't control is the relationship between the audience and the story. You work on the other three and you hope that that one comes off, but it comes back to this similar thing that the connection with self is really significant in any field of endeavor really. And story is a way of practicing it and rehearsing it and discovering it.
[00:18:11] Laure: Yeah. And I think, the paradox that I discovered when I was acting and when I, I wrote a solo show about my relationship with God and my great-grandmother's immigration to France. So it's like parallels. And what was interesting, and I really kind of applied in that show was that, the more personal you make it and the more people could relate to it. And that was mysterious because the writing that I use, which quite poetic and spoke to very, very specific anecdotes or stuff that happened that nobody else but me could know what I'm talking about basically.
[00:18:52] But people could really connect, because it was so personal the connection to the story happened. I think that was partly it. And that's probably the same, you know, in storytelling, like what I read in your book was to that degree of the more that you can create your own connection to the story and make it personal to yourself and to your imagination and your experience, it's gonna help that relationship between the story and the audience basically.
[00:19:18] Geoff: Yeah. I quite often think about, sometimes talk about that the story telling draws on what I call the power of the particular. And it's that which gives it a relatability. And it's important that it's your story, but it's important that it's a particular story. And that's paradoxically, that's I think what enables us to say, oh, that's interesting. Cause it creates a little bit of distance. We're not being told as the audience, this is your story. You know, I think when that happens, that's pretty abusive in a way. And we're not telling, it's the only story and any time there's only one story that's the kind of fundamentalism, whether it's religious or political, social or whatever it is, or philosophical.
[00:19:57] But we're saying, here's a story. It's not every story. It's not this story. It's not that story. Here it is. Here's the story I'm telling you. And, and it kind of sits there between the teller and the listener. Provided we set the contract up. Right. You know, it's a Willie, we're not telling it at them. We're telling it to them as a gift in a sort of generous sense. And it allows people to kind sit back and say, oh, that's interesting. You know, how is that story part of me? How am I part of that story? Yeah.
[00:20:27] Laure: That "particular" thing, I think that's also, in a way, it's kind of what happens a little bit in constellations. Right? Cause I know you know family constellations pretty well, is we take one person's particular story and we set it up and then suddenly everybody can see themselves or, you know, be a part of it.
[00:20:47] Geoff: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, that does happen in constellations that there's a kind of universality in the particular, which is we talk about the story of every man. It's not an average story. We don't try and neutralize it or smooth it out. It's there, but there's something in it. Maybe it's a feeling or uh, an experience of loss or distortion or connection or love, or whatever the feeling is that we, they're universal human feelings and we can connect them. You mentioned uh, constellations and I'm very interested in the therapeutic capacity of stories. And I'm not a, a therapist although I've worked closely with therapists and I'm very interested in that world, and I've trained in various things, but I'm not a professional therapist. Mm. But it seems to me that the profound move... Nearly all therapies, all talking therapies are in a sense, an effort to re story our lives. We have a version of our life, an interpretation of events. You know, things happen. We can't change what has happen or the memories of them will shift, but our interpretation and the significance we give them, we can change.
[00:21:50] And that's what forms the story. Eventually, whatever's happened has passed, we are left with a story. And until those stories are articulated, they're within us. Sometimes they're even unconscious, but putting the story out creates a modicum of separation, and I think that's a fantastically important move. It's the key move because it says, this is a story I have. This is not a story that has me. This is a story I have, and then in constellations, when we put it out, that story, then we can cooperate and work in the moment, you know, with a skilled constellator to explore how that story might otherwise play out.
[00:22:35] And even to experience a more generative interpretation of events or understanding of events or layering of events. So you know, stories for me is a phenomenally important aspect of I suppose our being, that it goes right back to who do we think we are, how do we move through the world? And they're kind of narratives, you know, there, there are stories that govern who we are, that we sometimes are trapped by, and that we can explore and loosen a bit, give ourselves more space, more options to work with. I think narratives, as well as being great fun, there's something pretty, pretty profound, I think I said in the book, the Coming Home to story book that to tell a story is close to the heart of what it means to be human.
[00:23:23] Laure: Yeah, I agree with that. And I really liked in the book when you were describing the workshops that you led where people would offer up a story of their life that would then be turned into a fairytale by the group and given back to them. That's exactly the kind of work that I like to do. Cause it's not just telling it cuz you can, you know, go to see a therapist for years and tell the same story over and over again. And what's important is to start having conversation with the story. And kind of change it or see how you feel and, what's great is you can do it both ways. I used to run those workshops with an art therapist friend and we would do workshops around one specific fairytale. And so the first thing would be people would draw the tale or draw like the part of the tale that spoke more to them.
[00:24:15] And we would look at the drawings and we would talk about the drawings and what showed up in the drawings. Very interesting. Usually. And then they would pick two elements from their drawings of the tale and we would constellate that .They would place them as representatives and themselves and incredible things showed up. Like they had profound experiences with placing, the fish and who did the Little Mermaid and like some person that had drawn like two fishes and she placed the two fishes and it was like completely amazing. And one person, she placed things in her drawing and it kind of like evolved into a constellation around her grief for Rwanda, that she had lived when she was a child and she had never, a part of her stayed there, basically um, standing with the victims. From pieces of a drawing made from a story. So yeah, I, I really enjoy that idea of having a conversation with any story, whether it's yours or a typical fairytale or whatever story it is. You can have a conversation with it. You can find metaphors in your life that start resonating and so many things can happen.
[00:25:31] Geoff: Yeah. You used a phrase about talking to our stories, and I, I love this idea and I think there's something really important, the difference to highlight between having a conversation about our story and having a conversation with our story. The first one, we can go round and round and round and round and round and round because we are invoking our logical, rational mind to make sense of it, our propositional mind to talk about it, try and interpret it. And when we're engaging with the story somehow, I think that's when we enter the imaginal space of the story. And we haven't used that word, I don't think yet. But you know that it's a fascination of mine. And I know it's a fascination of yours, that there's something about that imaginal space in which the life of the story is given room to breathe independently of the teller. Yeah. And that's an extraordinary space to explore.
[00:26:24] And it's a place which can be very wise in strange and rather inexplicable way.
[00:26:31] Laure: Yeah. And it's also a space I feel, where there's space to invite other people in the story. Like when you're working with a group. Very often we are enmeshed with our stories, right? We're really close to them and in a way we're alone in them. And that's what can create the loop, "this is my story and this is who I am and this is..." but when you start entering that imaginal space and kind of opening it up, suddenly there's more space for people to be in it with you. And that's kind of what happens in constellations cause like literally bodies in space, right? Mm. I've never done a storytelling workshop or therapeutic storytelling workshop per se. But I feel like there's, there's something that could happen there. And that's why I really loved the idea that you had where people would tell their story and then that story would be worked on by other people and then given back to them. And I thought that was as powerful as the final product, the fairytale, whatever, that brought them a new insight. But just the fact of giving that story, like letting it open for other people to enter it, suddenly you're not alone anymore in it. Yeah. And that's so important.
[00:27:42] Geoff: Yeah. No, I, I absolutely agree with you. Very interesting experience doing that particular process. I did it quite a few times in different groups and I love it, you know? And for some people it's fun, for some people it's curious and for some people in the group, it's really profound. I've never had an experience of someone feeling disrespected or uncared for or damaged by the story they've got back, you know? At worst it's been neutral at best it's been pretty amazing. I like processes which are nice and solid and kind of work .
[00:28:17] Laure: For me, stories are profound in general. There's a connection to something larger in almost all of them. As soon as you put something in story terms it connects you into a larger understanding of the world, I guess. And so do you find that when you're working on a particular story suddenly your life kind of starts matching, the metaphor starts leaking in other ways into your life?
[00:28:46] Geoff: That's a very interesting question. Not always but sometimes When it's one of those stories, you know, the ones that tap you on the shoulder and say, "hello, you may not even like me, but it's your job to tell me", those kind of stories. I think there's a way in which I quite often draw this kind of figure eight, like the infinity sign. That when we resonate with the story, somehow we find the story in us and us in the story. And so there's a kind of process that goes on in which the story begins to tell us if you like, and that's too grand. That's about cliche expression. But what I mean is it starts to influence how we think about ourselves in the world.
[00:29:28] So I would give an example of that. There's one in the book, which for many years was very profound to me. And that's the story I call the Furthest shore. It's originally collected under the title of the Three Princesses of Whiteland by Asbjørnsen and Moe back in the 19th century, so sort of Scandinavian, Norwegian Wonder Tale. And it's one of those wonderful double cycle stories , runs through the Hero's Journey. And then like in the name of my book, you know, what Happens After Happily Ever After. And what it gave me was a way of making sense of what I was going through in my life.
[00:30:07] And it gave me an understanding of what was important in this case, how different the second half of life was from the first, not just in terms of what I wanted, but what it takes, what it demands to live that part of life well. And it demands something different, it's not just about gung ho getting out and fighting monsters. It's something about you've gotta really connect with what matters to you. If that second half of life. Those heroes journeys start with some outgoing, uplifting call to adventure and expansion. But the post heroic journey, the midlife journey begins very differently: you've done your best, you may even done really well in your heroes journey, got somewhere and you've got it, and then it goes wrong. Then something is profoundly wrong. And those stories offer a different notion of the quest that's needed at that stage of life to sort of find yourself anew.
[00:31:01] And the journeys always really arduous and long. And the destination isn't known, but finding it is vital. And very often they're involved a, a deep connection with the world. So those stories often have a connection with the creatures of the sea and the air and the earth. And they also, some are quite often have little trickster element in it. If you're really gonna claim yourself, you have to sometimes step outside the rules, do everything right. Be a good little boy and girl. Ain't gonna get you there. ,
[00:31:34] Laure: I thought that was also something that I really enjoyed in your book. That was kind of really hopeful for me to hear, to read that you had found profound calling towards stories pretty late .
[00:31:51] Geoff: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:31:52] Laure: There's such a pressure to find, more now in the age of social media where everybody's telling you, you gotta find makes you wanna wake up in the morning. And I'm in this stage where I don't feel like that right now. And so it was really hopeful to be like, oh, wow, this person found it like really late for me, really. Obviously, I'm sure when I'm, when I'm 50, I'll be like, I'm young. Like, what the hell?
[00:32:14] Geoff: No, no, it's, I agree.
[00:32:16] Laure: And made a life out of it, you know, in this second part of it of life, which is, I think it's still, even if it's getting better, cuz obviously, you know, 40 is the new 20 but still there's a, this image in people's mind that you couldn't possibly like, make a whole new life for yourself after 50 I mean, not just personally, but professionally as well. It's not something that's like wildly understood or, accepted in a way. Uh, And I thought that was, that was quite wonderful to read about so thank you sharing that, but I wonder Yeah, So one of the questions that I ask also of people: if you thought of your life in terms of the hero's journey and maybe in two arcs of the hero's journey and then the other arc of what you were talking about, that kind of story, what would be the quest or quests? What you know is the thing that kind of drives your life and that you think at this point in your life that you've come to experience basically.
[00:33:23] Geoff: It's a big question.
[00:33:25] Laure: Yeah, it's huge question . Sorry about that.
[00:33:29] Geoff: No, it's fine. I've come to the conclusion there are really only three questions. Who am I? Where do I belong? What do I serve? Mm. And I think story is very helpful in trying to get some answers to all those. So I suppose I'm less attached now to any particular outcome. But if, if our being here has any purpose at an individual level, then it surely must be something about those questions. Because it, when we begin to have some... I was gonna say some answers that's not quite right. You know, the Rilke quote about, "don't ask for the answers, but live into the questions". So living into those questions is what I think helps to make a life worthwhile and meaningful. And the application of what you come up with could be a myriad different things.
[00:34:29] But at this stage in my life, I 'm not sure I'm questing for anything in particular at the moment. I want to write more. I'd like to be published more, but it's not life and death. Nothing much depends on it except my own creativity and getting it out into the world. There was some lovely thing about "the purpose of life is to discover your gifts and give them away", and that's what I'm trying to do. I know something about what my gifts are. I've learned that, I could talk about them. Without sounding boastful there's something about, I can give a particular quality of attention, I can help people relate to their stories and change them. I can help people other fields too, but there's something about that thing, you know, that I can, I can do those gifts and those gifts of storying and of telling and sharing story and of writing stories and creating stories and those are the gifts I value, really value.
[00:35:27] And I give them away mostly. Some I give away for money.
[00:35:33] Laure: Yeah. We have to eat, don't we?
[00:35:35] Geoff: We have to eat. But, but there's a way in which, you know, so I absolutely refused to put TM after narrative leadership. It makes my blood boil. There's a company called the Storytellers TM, and my internal response is not printable. This is one of the last of the commons. How dare you try and make it yours. Yeah. So there's something about the spirit of the commons, I think, in storytelling that I love and fight to maintain. The other book I wrote, the Telling the Story book gives it away, gives away my work to anyone who wants to use it.
[00:36:17] Laure: Personally, I think that's extremely valuable and that's something that I'm also struggling with to a degree. Obviously part of me is kind of caught in this, the culture of marketing, right? And the culture of uh, you have to sell yourself and you have to niche and you have to do this one specific thing and be the only person who does it. But I actually, the less I charge for things, and the more I give things away, the better I feel. If I kind of let go of the fear of "I'm gonna starve". And that's partly the thing that I'm wondering about, the crisis that I'm having right now is so far, you know, my gifts are helping people get clarity around their life basically, and give them permission to change. And I almost wish that I had another source of income so that I could do that for free. Yeah. The challenge that I have right now is like those two things. The way you were saying, you don't wanna be a pro storyteller cuz you don't wanna rely on that for money.
[00:37:24] Geoff: But paradoxically it is what pays the bills.
[00:37:27] Laure: I know. It's like, but it puts the pressure, like the pressure to deliver, I think. When there's something natural in you that you have and that you are doing, the pressure to deliver in a culture of ego is really hard to kind of, you know...
[00:37:45] Geoff: It can get distorted. It can get distorted, and then we lose touch with what it is that we really have to give and we shape it because we think that's what other people want to see or, yeah. I mean, one makes concessions and compromise, of course we do, you know, I called it narrative leadership because I thought that sounds posh. It just got me in the door, you know? And cause I did it because when I first started going and saying, you know, I'd like to talk to you about the storytelling, first of all, people said no, and then the HR people would say, well, we understand what you mean, but you can't possibly use that word to the senior executives. And of course they, you get in by calling it something else. And within days, you know, the chief exec saying, right, when's the next storytelling? You know, it's the fear of of it. So it was just a kind of way getting in. But there is something I think really profound in one of the things Joe Campbell said, Joseph Campbell said. I differ from him in some areas, but you know, he, he said something about following your bliss, and the quote roughly is, "follow your bliss and doors will open for you where you didn't even know there were doors".
[00:38:44] There is something profound in that it's not magic. It's about putting out of energy and passion into the world draws attention and does open up things in a different way. So all my work really since I was 50 odd, you know, the last 20 years has come to me because I put things out in the world that I'm passionate about and it's come back.
[00:39:10] Laure: Yeah, follow your bliss, but you have to get clarity around what is your bliss.
[00:39:15] Geoff: Yeah. But my sense of that is this was something that Robert Bly used to say that, and he was, did a lot of men's work, and I did some of his work in the nineties. He died recently, God bless him. Controversial figure, of course. And I've had conversations in feminist gatherings where I've had to defend him, but I've had experience with the work he does, and it is not at all misogynistic. It's very inclusive. But he said and I think it's true. One of the things about men, and you will have to say this is true for women too in our modern era, is that we struggle to know what it is we want. And he said this wonderful thing, he said, just allow yourself to be caught by the smallest thing. You see a red scarf in a shop window and you like it. Go in and try it on, find a bit of money and give it to them and take your scarf home and enjoy it. And kind of starts, you know, just allow yourself to learn what it is to desire in a healthy way and to follow that impulse. So, I've never had a grand plan at all.
[00:40:17] Often, what's come to me, I've noticed out the corner of my eye, it hasn't kind of announced itself with a roll of drums or, you know, fanfare. It's been something that I've kind of thought, oh, what's that? And allowing myself to go and see it and explore it. And if it has legs, you know, I'll try something like constellations, you know, caught my eye somewhere, many, many, many years ago. And it began to nourish me. I thought, okay, this is something to do. It's not, I'm gonna be a constellator. This is something to do. So I trust that instinct now that I dunno in advance what is I want to do, but when I'm doing it, I know. There's um, commonplace expression about following your heart. Terrible advice. The heart is a lousy compass. It's a fantastic barometer. It's a fantastic barometer. So it kind of tells you how you are, where you are. You know, you tap on the heart, say, oh, stormy today, or high pressure, or easy Zephyrus winds or something. But it won't tell you where to go .
[00:41:19] And that's the soul's job. The soul is what knows who you are, who, where you need to go. I've over the years, read a lot and drawn quite a lot on James Hillman's writing a wonderful book he wrote called The Soul's Code about character and calling and these ideas that we can choose to live our lives as if some part of us knows what we're here for and learn to listen to it. And I think that's some really good advice. It's kind of storyteller type advice, isn't it?
[00:41:44] Laure: You know, I'm not a storyteller and that's exactly what I believe. I think sometimes
[00:41:49] Geoff: I, I, I defy you. I deny that statement. You are a storyteller. ,
[00:41:55] Laure: Yes, that's true. I'm more of a story listener and reader. My passion in life is actually to listen to, or read or watch any kind of story. Give me any kind of story and I'm just happy. But yeah, I, I absolutely believe that. And I think that sometimes the hardest thing is to hear or connect to that impulse that can be really small. And that is also systemically denied really young, we are taught really young to not listen to what we want, that impulse direction.
[00:42:29] And so to relearn that and to learn also to hear it in the cacophony of everything that's imposed on us that we should want. That's kind of the work that we have to do as an adult.
[00:42:41] Geoff: Well, maybe I was fortunate that , I was gonna say social pressures weren't as strong when I was young, but they were, they were just differently communicated. But there was an expectation that you made decisions about your life. You know, I was married at 23. I was in my first job at 22. And I stayed in that career for 30 years. You chose a job, you worked hard, you got promoted or not, and you had a family and very deeply ingrained assumptions about how to be . And I guess there are still today, They're just different assumptions, but the pressure to know who you are, know what you want, and be a success and be famous, seems to me stronger and stronger and stronger. In a very unhealthy kind of way. Yeah. Unhelpful kind of way. James Hollis is another of my favorite writers.
[00:43:22] He's Jungian analyst. He says "The first half of life is a necessary mistake". I love that. I love it. I love it. You know, it's like we have to do it. We can't not do it. You can't get it right. Yeah. Stories do this, you know, we got all these stories at different stages that, the fairy stories, the heroes journey, the Prince and princess stories. We got the Quest, Kings and queens. Something goes wrong. We've got the elder tales and the death story. We've got these different genres of stories to support us through life. And we can't live the second half of life until we live the first half. We can't get it right until we've got it wrong, and it's impossible. Because you get so focused and tracked on something and it gives you everything except it's hollow, or if you're less successful or something goes wrong, there's more chance of having a look to see what might help.
[00:44:11] Laure: That kind of brings me to my next , and last questions. When do you feel most connected to your own soul? And when do you feel most connected to other people's soul?
[00:44:20] Geoff: That's such a interesting question. I don't think I've got a single answer. I think when I'm writing sometimes and a story comes alive under my fingers and says something that somehow matters to. I can write a story, a short story or a long story. And sometimes when you get to the end, you don't know where it's gonna go quite, but somewhere you've got some hints in your mind and your imagination as you go through it. And then at the end, sort of presents itself, and I've written many stories, but a number of them I've, I've sort of put the last full stop in and just sat there and howled, cause it's touched me some way that I couldn't have set out to do.
[00:45:06] And there's something, it's my voice, but it's a voice that comes very deep down, comes from somewhere inside me that can do that. It's not my rational mind. That does the punctuation and spelling and, you know, works the keys, but the story doesn't come from there. So, something in that, I think for me, writing has been a profoundly important process.
[00:45:24] I work not as a therapist, but as a coach, sometimes. I don't have a coaching practice plan, so I was asked to go and do coaching as part of programs. And the coaching work I do is constellation based, so there's that sense of being in touch with my soul when I'm alone. But then in relationship that's professionally one of the times when that, when I can open myself to another and get a sense of what's going on here? Not knowing, but having a line and opening it up and allowing someone to come through that. And then you're in the presence of something. I won't give the details, but last time I was doing this work in a professional context, I was working with a particular man in a group coaching context and um, he began by being very angry with part of himself, a part that couldn't say no to anything. And I asked him what he wanted to do. He said, I wanna smash this down, or I wanna walk out the room, or, and after a while we got to a point where we understood where this part came from. And it was deeply important to him from his childhood, where he'd cared for his ill mother and couldn't say no. He looked after her, he kept her alive. And we had this connection where the person representing this younger self and him were just holding hands and looking at each other and saying nothing, but, I dunno, five minutes or something. It was so healing for everyone in the room.
[00:46:50] Yeah. And it, I hadn't been clever, I hadn't made it happen. Somehow I'd held the space and he'd had the courage to go there and they'd had the honesty to live with it. And that feels to me like soul work, really important soul work and I suppose a third is physical intimacy. There are times, there are times when that feels like a whole person connection. Yeah. Now, and again,
[00:47:16] Laure: Ideally
[00:47:19] Geoff: I've got a good memory. Yeah. Those are the ways that come to mind when you ask that question.
[00:47:26] Laure: Yeah, I can relate to all of them. And the first one, you know, the thing of like writing a story and... I don't write stories, fiction is really difficult for me. But I write poetry sometimes and sometimes I will write something and I read it and you know, it expresses something that I didn't even know was there. And that's kind of magical. And also, I really understand this connection of that line into other people when you're working with them and you have a sense. It's as you said, it's not really like understanding it with your head, you just have a sense, a felt sense of their experience and who they are. And obviously in Constellation it happens a lot and it happens in a, that's what I love about Constellation is that it happens for everybody. Like it happens as a result of the modality, people start plugging into each other, and really having a felt sense again of the connection between human beings, which is kind of magical.
[00:48:26] Yeah. Mm-hmm . Well, I suspect that we could talk for a very long time.
[00:48:35] Geoff: I've really enjoyed the conversation and it's made me think. I came in really with no preconceptions and no preprepared answers, and that's just how I like to be in it. And you've really held the space beautifully and asked me good questions and given me the opportunity to sort of think, think about stuff and let stuff come out and given me the time to do that. And so I'm grateful. Thank you.