PSP 33 | Understanding Your Story, Engaging Your Past to Transform Your Future - Women & Mental Health Seminar Break-Out

The stories of our past shape who we are, yet we often leave them untold, misunderstood, or ignored. By avoiding these stories, we miss the opportunity to truly understand our present and step into the future with purpose and freedom. In this breakout episode, you’ll learn how to engage your past with curiosity and compassion, unlocking the transformative power hidden within your story. 

Led by Kate Aldrich, a compassionate guide trained through the Allender Center, this workshop will equip you to embrace your story and live with deeper connection and renewed hope.

In this episode:

• Explore the concept of "story work" and its role in personal healing and understanding.
• Importance of examining personal life stories, particularly childhood experiences.
• Distinction between "big T" trauma and "little t" trauma.
• Impact of family dynamics on personal development and emotional responses.
• Balancing honor and honesty when reflecting on past experiences.
• Common tendency to minimize personal narratives and the validity of individual experiences.
• The significance of storytelling as a means of expressing genuine experiences.
• Challenges of processing childhood trauma and its effects on self-perception and relationships.
• The role of self-care and emotional needs in navigating personal history.

To find out more about Reality Church in Lancaster, PA go to:
www.pursuereality.org

Transcript

Automatically Transcribed - Please Forgive Any Errors

Podcast Host 00:00:02  Welcome to the Pursuit Reality podcast. In this special series, we're sharing breakout sessions from the Women in Mental Health seminar held here at Reality Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. While the event was designed for women, these conversations, led by mental health professionals, offer valuable insight for everyone. Let's get started.

Kate Aldrich 00:00:23  I'm here today to share a little bit about story. And what does that actually mean? Right. Like we can throw that around. And I find that more and more I'm hearing it out in the world. The the concept of your story. And I know for a long time I was like, of course I know my story. What does that actually mean? How is that actually helpful? And I'll get into some of that. But that's what we're going to do today is kind of an introduction and give you a little bit of format of what that looks like, how it works, and how it can be really incredibly helpful to move towards healing things in your life that need to be healed, or maybe you didn't even know needs to be healed.

Kate Aldrich 00:01:06  So I want to read something to you. There are a couple of things I'll read throughout this, but okay. Have you ever wondered why you do, say or react to things the way you do? Has it ever been a source of frustration, discouragement, or self-loathing? Have you ever wanted to change a pattern of behavior or reaction to certain situations in your life, but struggle to do so? Perhaps you make a plan. You give it a try and you realize that behavior modification isn't enough. You're not alone. I think many of us go through life interacting with things like that of why do I do this all the time? Why do I react this way all the time? Why can't I change the way I react? Why can't I feel differently about it? Why do I always feel strong emotions about those things? But I can't really tell you what I feel other than it makes me angry. It makes me sad. It makes me, you know. Those more surface level emotions. And that's what story really does.

Kate Aldrich 00:02:08  Engage. Being able to figure those things out on a different level. Okay. So what is story. I remember to use this thing guys. All right. So we're already done with that slide. that's just going to tell us like what we're going through. but yeah the next one what is story and why is it so important? Guys, we're like three sizes okay? This is what's going on. Okay, so, story work involves deeply exploring and examining one's personal life story, particularly focusing on significant events and experiences from your childhood. To understand how past flipping over. How past experiences shape current behavior and emotions, ultimately leading to healing and personal growth. So that's a really huge definition. And that would be one. Like there are several people who've done work in the stair story work genre. Brad and I really do credit a lot of this work to the Allander center. I don't know how many of you have heard of Dan Allander, but he this is his platform. This is how he has learned so much about himself.

Kate Aldrich 00:03:22  He also has PhD and all kinds of things with therapy and all of that. But he has said many times, and my husband will attest to this, to I've who has a license, he has a licensed therapist. Like this is the work that has transformed me. Story work. Yes, I learned really good things in those educational settings. It gives me the license to be able to do therapy. But this is where I really found that change to happen to understanding your story. So I'm going to read that again real quick. story work involves deeply exploring and examining one's personal life story, particularly focusing on significant events and experiences from childhood. To understand how past narrative shapes current behavior and emotions, ultimately leading to healing and personal growth. So here's the thing. We are all made up of stories right from childhood. I'm sure you've heard all kinds of things your birth story, your brothers and sisters birth stories. Mom and dad talk about how they grew up, all of those kinds of things. All of your experiences that you go through are stories.

Kate Aldrich 00:04:37  Essentially. Some get written in our brain as significant, some we can't even remember. Right? They just don't. And there's reasons for that. But they don't get stuck in here as as something. Right. And This really is how to understand those past things, so that we can help to understand why we do what we do today and how to do it differently. So it's that key of like, why do I do this and how do I do it differently? I want to have change. I don't want to react this way. So how do I figure that out? I was like, I need to keep track of the time, but I have it there. So I'm going to explain some of the concepts that will give you a little bit of a picture of how we kind of dive into that. So what does that look like? How do we do story work? I have done story work with I mainly work with women. She's fine. He's fine. He's a he's not a she.

Kate Aldrich 00:05:47  I have worked I work mainly with women, but I have done some story work with gentlemen. But there are things that we do. Sometimes we enter it very organically. Talk to me about what are those things that you feel stuck on in your life? What are those things you would like traction and you feel like you just constantly are there asking the same questions? Also, I have done a more, traditional approach, which is what we did with our training and our own experience, where you write down a story and then we, we talk about it so it can look lots of different ways of how we engage your story, but it is going back through things that you remember and talking about them. It sounds it sounds daunting and it's like, how can I figure it out? But we'll get there. So one of the big things that we talk about in story work is the concept that we all have trauma. This is also something that is being talked about a lot more now. Some people find this hard and resistant.

Kate Aldrich 00:06:49  I, I get that because I think I'm in my mid 40s. Like growing up, to me, trauma was somebody in a horrible car accident. A house fire. Sexual abuse. Right. Like things that the world looks out, looks at and says absolutely. That's traumatic. Right. There's no denial of it. That's big T trauma. Everybody looks at it and says, that's that's hard. Tell me what that was like. Right. We can all acknowledge it. But then there's this thing called little T trauma. And some of us have big T trauma. Some of us have more conglomerates of little T trauma, which are things that stick in our brain, as that was hard. I don't know why. It was just hard. And we move on. Right? Because it wasn't earth shattering. We move on our little bodies, and we're talking about this stuff happening between the ages of four and 18. Those are your most formative years. Before, for much of what you remember, are things people have told you.

Kate Aldrich 00:07:59  You've seen pictures, all those kinds of things. I know for myself, I only have one memory before four, and it was my sister being born. and even some of that, I think was told to me. But I do have a vivid picture of my parents driving up in their red Chevy with her. But other than that, I don't I don't have a lot. So. Right. We just don't have a lot of memories. And then 18 we you definitely aren't out of adolescence and your brain isn't completely formed at 18, but it is a stage of life change. Usually we're moving on to other things. We're finishing high school, we're moving on to jobs. We're moving on to a little bit more autonomy in most cases. So Dan Allander in his he really looks at four through 18. Not that we can't have stories beyond that, but usually the stories beyond that reflect something back here. They touch into something back here. So little t trauma are those things that we just have that like hich in our spirit of like, yeah, that was hard or that was amazing.

Kate Aldrich 00:08:57  I remember that time my dad took me and did this right. Believe it or not, trauma speaks to the ones that are hard. But we also have good things, right? This isn't just an exploration of what are the awful things that happen in your life. Those are important because they tell us a lot of information. But, and those would be what we call a little t trauma. But we also have things that have been written on us that are really good. But believe it or not, the good ones also tell us a lot about the heart. Like we can tie them together. So it is this concept of I do have trauma. What is it? What are those things that as a child, I didn't have someone to come alongside me and process it with? Because here's the reality. When something hard happens as a kiddo, So if someone can come alongside of us and help us process it, and for every kid, that's different. There's no manual to that. But like a parent knowing, let me help this, kiddo.

Kate Aldrich 00:09:58  What do you need? How can we process this? Then it doesn't get written in our brain as trauma, or it gets written in our brain as process trauma, which is very different, right? We just don't look and remember the same things. And as a parent, we also talk about in this process, our parents, it is their job to take care of us in that way. Now, probably I'm in the room with some parents and I know for me, when I first did this, I would get very stuck on oh my word. I mean, I had some other words for myself. Oh my word, I'm doing this to my kids, right? And Brad and my group leader kept saying, you got to stay in the little you before we can deal with the big you, right? We can't help the big. You do it differently until we know how the little you learned. And that was really hard for me. Which my story would tell you all of why that's hard for me, but I just want to speak to that.

Kate Aldrich 00:11:00  I honor it, it's hard thinking about this. Let's try to honor the little you. We don't graduate from the little versions of ourselves. We carry them with us wherever we go. It's more like a snowball. I try to remember it that way. Like, we get the different layers, but the other layers are still inside. They don't go away. Right? And the past is in the past is just not true. I mean, for the Lord. That's true. He is the only one who's able to live in a. I have forgotten this. We can't. So telling ourselves that is actually invalidation of what we've experienced, and probably something we've experienced when we're little being invalidated in that thing. I mean, how many times was I told, or have I told my kids? You'll be fine. That's not a big deal, right? And because it's hard to sit with your kids in that hard thing. But the reality is us sitting with them in that is huge. We may not be able to fix it, but if we can sit with them in it and hold it with them, they can have healing and move on from it.

Kate Aldrich 00:12:08  So just kind of remembering all of that, our parents, it's important for us to lay out the frame of the fact that our parents are a huge key to this. The Lord created the family for parents to take care of their children. And in Eden, when we were created with perfection, how the Lord wanted us to be there. None of this would have been there, right? But we all as people are broken. So every parent, we are going to make mistakes. Every single one of us and our parents make mistakes. And so we need to understand that that actually Is a part of our brokenness. And so our parents really should have been able to meet every need for us. But then we have, on the other hand, they're broken. Right. So what Brad and I call with that, and actually Jay Stringer, who is another Islander person, talks about is honor and honesty. When we get into story work, we have to do this balance of honor and honesty. And I realize I'm not updating that, but I'll get there.

Kate Aldrich 00:13:12  we have to do this balance of honor and honesty. And it's what I invite every person into. Can we balance it? And actually, I ask them to imbalance it for a while. Because I say we are built in our brokenness for honor. We have loyalty to our families. It does not matter who they are, how wonderful they are as a parent, how much they struggle as a parent. We have loyalty to them. And I can see that in my reporting like it's there in my two biological kids, the loyalty they feel towards us. And I can see it in my two adopted kids in the loyalty they not only feel to us to some extent, but it's very different than the biological loyalty they feel towards their biological parents. And so just knowing that like that is there. So can we for a time, as we explore story, can we elevate honesty and let honor sit down here for a little while? I promise you, and I promise everyone I work with we will bring honor back up.

Kate Aldrich 00:14:16  We don't want to leave it here, right, because that can leave us in a place of, bitterness, resentment, all kinds of things. But and especially people who grow up in the church, this is a hard concept, because if you grew up in the church, you were taught if you honor or excuse me, if you're honest, you're not honoring, right? If you tell something honestly about your parents, you're not honoring them. and that's a really hard space to be in, because I think if we look at Jesus, he was the perfect mix of honour and honesty. When we see in the Gospels he would meet with someone, he would have the perfect mix. And he obviously has that perfect attunement of how do I be honest with this person? But how do I meet the person honor for who they are and what they've experienced? So in this process, we invite you to a space of how can we be honest? Let's be honest. What was it like for you to experience that as a kid? We don't have to think about anybody else.

Kate Aldrich 00:15:18  You don't have to worry about how all your words sound. But I will say it is a it's a journey for everyone, right? That's hard to enter into. And I am not a native of Lancaster County, but I also know the people that I work with in Lancaster County. That's a very also tricky for. Right? Because there is this culture here of we honor. We honor. We honor those above us. We honor those elders. That's not a bad thing, but it's not where we find healing. And so, we have to create a safe space where we can talk about that. That doesn't leave anywhere. Right? You can say things and we can talk about it in your story and know that it's not necessarily going anywhere. It's all make sense. You're all shaking your head. You guys are great because I'm sitting here thinking, okay, and here we are. Yep. We're guys. This is just okay, I don't know, honesty. There we go. But then I'm actually going to go back because I got ahead of myself.

Kate Aldrich 00:16:22  The message is written on your heart okay. So as we engage all of this, there is very much a difference of what what you experienced as a kid, those little T traumas or big T some people have big T that we processed for sure. But there is this feeling of, Are we just talking about the facts, or are we talking about how you experienced it? And the the big example that I share about this is when I was growing up, my family has a lot of hard stories to it. My dad was an alcoholic. He served in Vietnam. And, I do truly think that that is the cause of his alcoholism. But I thought as a teenager I was doing really well because I could talk to anybody about the fact that my dad was an alcoholic. As an adult, I was like, yep, I have stuff. My dad is an alcoholic. Like, of course I have stuff, right? Well, when I did my own story work, there was a process of actually, I don't have a ton to process with my dad.

Kate Aldrich 00:17:23  Not that his alcoholism did not impact my family. I don't mean to say that by any means, but actually a lot of the hurts in my life came from my mom, not my dad. Right? And that was a huge example of I know my story. I know the intellectual side of it, but I don't actually know what it wrote on my heart. So this is a journey into what did it right on my heart, and what are those things that are really difficult for me to process now. People get hung up too on like, okay, so our parents did all these horrible things and we need to process them. I'm not sure I want to do that. I understand them, but not all of the things that we experience that end up being, sort of registering in our lives as little T or big T trauma are things anybody could have changed or stopped. One of the first stories I do have, one story I'm going to read to you guys, but one of the first stories I did in my story work journey was processing when I was five, and my brother was seven and my sister was three.

Kate Aldrich 00:18:31  I always forget she was there. But she doesn't like enter the story for me because I think, you know, she's still a toddler and I don't know, she didn't enter the story for me. my brother was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes when he was seven, and I was five, and my brother and I were like 18 months apart. So we were very inseparable for years. And I think pretty much until, like he hit that age where like girls are more cool anymore. And so then I wasn't cool. But, that is the first trauma I process, right? Nobody could have stopped it. Nobody did anything wrong. My parents certainly didn't want this for their son. This is the 80s. So it was a really hard journey. My mom spent a lot of time educating herself on what does it mean to take care of my son? Like he needed two shots a day to start fingerprints. All the time he was testing his urine. Like, I just remember, you know, I have honor for the fact that that was a hard time.

Kate Aldrich 00:19:29  And I can't imagine now, as a parent experiencing that and having your life just kind of shook up by that, But it led us into a time where, for me, my mom became hyper fixated on my brother and worrying about his health, and understandably because with a kiddo who had to learn what his body was feeling and what it should be telling him he needed. Was a hard journey. But as I went through my story workgroup and processed that story, my group reminded me. But she had two other girls, right? Like there should have been a natural time of coming back around to how are you guys doing? And yes, I'm five, so it's not. And the answers are not going to be huge and amazing. But like I was a five year old, I remember part of it being like, I don't know what's going on. He looks fine, right? Like he had like two weeks in the hospital. He comes home and he looks great. So like, what's going on? I don't really even understand it.

Kate Aldrich 00:20:25  And that pushed me into a space of, okay, this is now the family. What do I do in my family? Like, how do I figure this out? Well, that's what our little brains do. Okay. This is my family. How do I survive this? Well. And thrive. But what we choose as little kids often isn't really great because we're little kids. So for me, I chose okay. It's probably really good for me not to have needs. And if I do, I need to take care of myself and I need to move on on my own accord. I need to do my own thing. So fast forward, I won't talk about all the years in between. That amazing guy up there, I was like, oh, this super independent woman. She's so beautiful. Like, I just he always says he loves my curls. I love that you are independent. There's reflections in his story in that of why that would be attractive. But then we get married and and, you know, something needs fixed and I call somebody to come fix it.

Kate Aldrich 00:21:28  And he's like, wait a second. You don't just call somebody to come fix it. We talk about these things. Why? Why do we need to talk about that? Perfectly capable of calling somebody myself. Right. But we got married. We make these decisions together. But I don't need you to make a decision. And he's like, I understand that. You don't need me. Right. We start to see how the strategies that we developed as kids worked in our family. They got us seen. They got us heard. How many times did I hear Kate superintendent? She does everything on her own. I don't have to worry about her grades, all these things. How many times did I hear that? It got me seen and heard. But when we get into these adult relationships, we start to realize it breaks down and it doesn't work like it did before. Now, if I go back to my family of origin and about five years ago, my dad passed away. Those things still get messy in her, right? They are the role that I play.

Kate Aldrich 00:22:27  But exploring my story has allowed me the ability to choose. Am I going to do it the way I've always done it? Because sometimes that is the choice we make. Because it's easier, right? And especially with grief and losing our dad like it wasn't the time for I need a boundary and I need you to understand. Like, you know, all the things. But it gives me the ability to recognize what's happening inside of my body and honor it and choose what I need to choose. And that's what we don't have when those strategies are just playing out, when I'm just calling the repairman because I don't actually know why I have to do it that way. I just know I have to do it. And I was like, well, why do you feel like you have to call me? Well, because I get a lot of fear and anxiety about not moving forward instantly. I don't like to be stuck. Being stuck doesn't get me. Being independent doesn't get me. Or being not independent.

Kate Aldrich 00:23:26  Being dependent on you doesn't get me seen. And I've had to learn to quiet that those pieces of my story. With kindness and understanding of why they're there, and then actually being able to walk out something different if I need to, if I need to. Does that make sense? And I know it's interesting since I love to be silly and laugh. When Brad and I were trying to work through this, actually before we knew each other's story, which has opened up so many other things. I just knew that I needed to change my behavior, right? So I'm like, okay, I can't be independent. I have to ask him about things. And then we're in the church. So then I'm like, okay, I probably should be super submissive and go down all these things and like, it just leads to all kinds of things. But I remember the dryer broke and our kids were all probably elementary school, and I have learned to go to him first and say, what? What do you think? Like, what should the plan be? What should we do? And I said, hey, the dryer is broken and it's not working.

Kate Aldrich 00:24:22  Can you please look at it? And this is when he'd also learned to work with his story, because he always felt incredibly bad that he wasn't Mr. Fixit. Like his dad. And my dad was a mr. Fixit too. And sometimes. Yes, I called the dads, which that didn't work well either. But anyways, Brad walks in, he takes a look at the dryer and he goes, okay. I looked at it. We should probably call it repaired. Are you serious? That. Okay. Okay. So anyways, like right, we start to learn to do it differently. But when we don't understand why we're doing it differently, behavior modification usually only lasts for a time. So the point where we get super frustrated and whatever emotions you might all go to and we're like, then we're back to where we were. We're we're acting out those strategies again, and we're like, why do I always do it this way? Why? I can tell you another recent scenario with my kids.

Kate Aldrich 00:25:19  recent in the last ten years. I this was actually after I done all of my story work group and done all this work right. It's actually a lifetime journey. You'll do the bulk of your work, but then there'll be times that you'll find yourself in your story stuck again, and you just need to work through something. And so one of the women who was in my small group when I did story work, I, she's now actually on our coaching team with Aldridge Ministries. She's a great friend. And I said, listen, can I just talk to you? Can I just talk this situation through? Because I do not understand why I keep doing this right. So even I still get stuck. And she said, yeah, absolutely. She made time for me give you pre context when I did my coaching certification. This is the thing I chose to work through in my coaching certification. And it was basically all your moms will appreciate this. Why do I lecture my children. Why do I stand there and keep going when nothing is happening here, right? Why I need to stop.

Kate Aldrich 00:26:27  I knew it was causing damage. I wasn't, I was never yelling at them, but I was just like, okay, I'm seeing nothing happening here. Perhaps I need to restate myself for the 35th time. Right? And so, like, I would keep doing this and I said, I know I'm causing damage, I've got to figure out why I'm doing it. And so when I did my coaching certification and I'm not talking down about just regular life coaching, but it's very goal oriented. And so like it was like, okay, I have this goal. If I lecture my kids, I don't want to the there's a little bit sometimes of like, why do you think you do that? And I could identify that. Like I didn't see the kids moving. So like I would just kind of keep going and but then it was like, you know, make three goals for yourself, which are very behavior modification. And again, for some people with some things that can really work. But I have found many times it breaks down.

Kate Aldrich 00:27:20  So I did it to have no success and just more frustration that why can I not change this? So finally, after some more time, I sat down with my friend Barb and I just told her. She just listened and she went through my other story where she heard other stories and she said, well, you're trying to save them that way. And I said, what do you mean, tell me more? And she said, that's how you saved yourself. Motion. They're not moving. So you're trying to get them to move, and you don't know what to do when they don't. And you're very fearful and you're very anxious. And even it brings up emotions because I do I get feel fearful for them. And you know, I to almost three in college, one still in high school and some of them in normal teenage life, they get stuck. But then we have some really hard bits to some of their stories. And so it is like life changing, right? Did that immediately make it go away? No.

Kate Aldrich 00:28:27  But when I started to want to lecture one of my kiddos, I had to remind myself, I know why I'm here. It's okay. Right? We want to honor what our bodies feel. That comes from my childhood. And so it's okay that I'm here. I don't need to save them the way I saved myself. And that's the start of it. There's also sometimes after that situation, we need to honor. I need some care. Right. Because in these situations, as children, we need to care that we didn't get too many. So what do I need? Do I need a cup of tea? Do I need to go out for a walk? Do I need to stand in the sunshine? Do I need my wildflowers or my silliness? Like this is a journey towards understanding that you mattered in those situations. And somebody missed you. Not probably because they wanted to. Right. I know there are most times I am not missing my children because I want to. I'm missing my children because I'm preoccupied.

Kate Aldrich 00:29:22  I'm tired. I'm whatever. Now, as a parent, I can't say that there aren't times that I knew I was missing them, right? So there's that too. But just honoring this is what I'm doing. I'm here. It's okay that I want to do this with them right now, but I'm not. And so I've been able to engage my children for the most part. Right. This isn't about perfection, right? It's not that we're never going to do that strategy that was so helpful to us. But most of the time I'm able to act differently. And I'm going to talk to you guys about the piece. That's really important, especially as mamas today when I don't do it well because I'm not going to do it well sometimes. What do I do? Right? I have to answer that question for most people, because it's on our hearts whether we are able to stay in that little Kate or we're in the mom, Kate. We repair. Right? Repair is a huge part of story work because think about it for all of us.

Kate Aldrich 00:30:25  If someone had repaired in those moments with us. Right? I don't know what that would have looked like with my mom, with me being five. It'd be very different from that than some of my teenage stories, obviously. But if she had come and said, I have missed you, like this has been probably really hard and confusing. Again, I don't know what that would actually look like. It changes the way our brains process the experience, right? Or at least it processes it as processed trauma. And then we don't carry all of these bits and pieces with us. So. Story work can be life changing in a way that I feel like leads to healing that so many of us desire right now. People will say to me, oh, good. So once I do my story. I'm all good. That would be amazing. And I wish that I could say that. I will say some pieces of my story that I've processed have completely gone right. Like, I can still identify they're there, but they don't.

Kate Aldrich 00:31:36  they don't kind of chase me in the way the other, the other elements did because we have like bigger elements to our story, and then we have some that aren't as significant. Those have kind of moved away. My biggest elements are still present. I usually say now on a weekly basis they are, but I know how to work with them for the most part. And every once in a while I just melt down about them and Brad says, hey, it's okay, it's okay. This is hard. These things are hard from our childhood. So what we do then is like, and in this process is try to identify what we call themes, because those are themes for you. So, one of my biggest themes that I came up with that I never would have been able to give words to, but was a loop running in my head all of my life. Most of my life was I am too much for people. And you might resonate with that. And it could become one of your biggest themes, but often they're different.

Kate Aldrich 00:32:42  I'm not enough. I'm not worthy. I'm not worth staying for, right? All of these things I explore with women. What are your biggest themes? And I am Too much for people is coupled with me, coupled for me with I Am Not Enough, which is a really hard place to be in. How are you? Too much and not enough at the same time, right? Like it makes it really difficult, but I can see that I'm too much for people weekly, right? And sometimes I am. That's the problem. like these things have a tiny bit of truth. Have I ever been too much for people? Well, I was a teenager, so, like, how is that not possible? And by the way, teenagers are my favorite people in the whole world, so I think they're the most underrated group of people. But it's a time where everything in our body is going crazy. And how are we not doing much at times. But, and I've been a mom for pictures, so there's, there's all that.

Kate Aldrich 00:33:42  Right? And that's the crazy part about it. We actually do what we're most comfortable with. So I am being too much when I'm lecturing because I'm more comfortable and familiar with the lie than I am with the truth. And so we actually do what we most don't want to do, and it just becomes this big thing. So, we go through a journey of like figuring out those themes and yes, guys, I'm so behind on this. Why I let my husband convince me that this was what I should do. I love him. so, like, understanding the themes is really helpful so that we can work with them so that when we when something's coming up, we understand what's happening. And so with the, lecturing, like it was still the theme, I could identify that, but I couldn't identify why it had to have that motion with it. So we have our themes, and then we have our strategies that we use to help us get what we need. But it's not good ways to get it right.

Kate Aldrich 00:34:47  We all end up with coping strategies and things that worked but aren't necessarily super healthy. Now, some of them may be okay. My husband is very open about his story with, unwanted sexual behavior. In fact, a lot of the story work that he does, which for him was pornography. A lot of the story work that he does, is surrounded by that. He leads men's groups through that. that was his strategy, right? That was, as you said, that was his TJ Max handle. That was. And often the things we pick as children are literally like we look at them as adults and say, these are so bad. But they were developed at a young age where we don't know what else to do. And this becomes accessible. And so we start using it. Right. But then as adults, we don't know how to stop it. We do behavior modification and how many USB unwanted sexual behavior programs in the church and honoring that they have their place. But how many of them are based on accountability and behavior modification? Right.

Kate Aldrich 00:35:56  And so Brad and other people have always said, well, but yours isn't so bad. So what I how I coped from my childhood and this was actually somewhat my dad is I had my 1980s yellow yellow Sony Walkman that allowed me to maybe you're probably sitting here saying, I don't even know what that is with my cassette tape. And it both forward and rewind, which I thought was really cool. And I would put that on every day after school, every day, and I would sit in my room by myself. I would eat dinner with the family, and I would go back to my room and I would listen to my music, and I would go into my head and create a world that wasn't anything like what I lived. It was better. Well, actually, if you want the vulnerable, it was either parents who were amazing, not reality. Like totally not reality, or parents who weren't present. They had died. Like think about the strategies their of trying to deal with what I was living and my dad's alcoholism did affect that environment.

Kate Aldrich 00:36:58  At the time dad came home from work, he immediately started drinking. He was a functional alcoholic, but it made our evenings very, Difficult. Consistent in their inconsistencies. You never knew what was coming at you and when it was going to come at you. And so I would sit up there with my walking on and go into my head. But as an adult, I'm still using that strategy. If something's overwhelming, I'm going into my head and creating a marriage, and I'm creating a world where it's much better. Oh yeah, a lot better. No, it breaks down and it's not serving me well. We want to honor that. It's care. Okay. My husband's USB was care for himself. It took me a long time to get there in that journey. Right? Because I've definitely dealt with betrayal trauma and all of that. But he says this. He says if I didn't have that care, I'm not sure I'd be here today. It fit a need that his parents were unable to fit.

Kate Aldrich 00:38:01  And for me, my music and my alternate world are fitting in. Need that no one else was able to meet for me at that time. And I will still tell you now, and my kids can probably attest to this. I can still turn on music and let the world disappear. And I love my music and I have it on often, but it is. I have to make a conscious effort that I am present enjoying the music. I can read a book and listen to music because the music allows me to disassociate. It allows me to like, live in this. It's it's static. It's background noise to be able to enter into something that was hidden for myself at that time. So we all have coping strategies and we all like, explore them in our in our stories. Like what do those look like? It doesn't matter if you use something that the world looks at is really horrible versus something like music, right? I have to be super cautious of how I use music so it doesn't matter what is chosen.

Kate Aldrich 00:39:05  It does have different consequences. I will say that. Right? Like for our marriage. It it did. It had different consequences. But it is also greatly helped me to be able to understand how I was shutting down and whatnot with mine. So just keep that in mind. I'm not saying one is worse than the other, I'm just saying they're not. They're equal. But there's also different pain and consequences associated with them. So so the themes, we'll explore those then it's a journey into something most of us really struggle with. This is something that we do with all of our stories. Can we be kind and gentle about that? We were children. Nobody asked for them. Nobody said, hey, I want to grow up and be addicted to pornography. I want to grow up and live in a world in my head, right? Nobody says that no kid is like, let's do this. This will be great, right? And we need to approach our stories and our little selves, which I meant to grab a picture of me, my little self.

Kate Aldrich 00:40:24  But I forgot it this morning. that those little people with kindness and gentleness. And it has been a journey to accept that little girl for me to not look at her and think, well, what of my strategy is girlfriends? Figure it out, do it better. You can do this. You don't need anybody else in your life, right? Instead of like, gosh, that was really hard to feel alone while your brother was diagnosed, that was really hard. to have a mom who tells stories about you never wanting her from very early on, like it was hard. And they're not all the story. That's not my reality. Now that that phrase gets used a lot right now. That's not my reality. But in story work, it is true. Dan Allander actually says the facts about what happened and how you remember it happening don't matter. Like the facts don't matter if you experienced it like this. It doesn't matter what the facts are because your brain, that's how it processed it. And so I know with my kiddos now when I do repair and they have engaged just in repair at times, some of them, some of them that's a little bit harder for.

Kate Aldrich 00:41:48  But we've always tried to keep that door open. actually to a fault. My oldest said, mom, you don't get to decide what I need to repair with you. And I said, oh, you're not wrong. Okay. I will back off. Right? You get this like, oh, we need to repair. So then you're like, let's repair everything. And it's like, no. But then we've had open conversations about what did hurt, what didn't. My kids will. Sometimes I'll remember something and they're like, why don't you remember that? And I'm like, oh, I feel like I was a horrible mom at that moment. And they're just like, I don't even remember it. Right? And so it's how it gets written. So with the repair and with our kiddos, it really is a space when we're entering someone else's story where we've done harm, not wounds, those kinds of things. We can use all kinds of words, and there are different levels. I sit with them, tell me what it was like.

Kate Aldrich 00:42:44  Tell me what I didn't do. Well, I validate, I hear you, I'm really sorry. What can I do better next time? How can I make this different? And then, if I'm honest, I go to my coach or my husband and I say, that is not at all how it happened. because there are two sides, but to them. And I'm not just saying you do that and you're not really being on honest with them. You honor it. That's how they experienced it. It doesn't matter if the facts are different for repair, it does not. But I want to honor as a mom. That's not how I saw it go down. That wasn't my intention. However, intention is a word that gets thrown around in story work all the time. I know my parents didn't intend to. I know they were doing the best they could. Both true, but also not true, right? Intent doesn't matter when harm happens. It doesn't matter if I never intended to hurt them, I did.

Kate Aldrich 00:43:51  And we have to process it. And if I'm unwilling to process it because I didn't intend to, then I'm just causing more harm. I'm just invalidating. Right? And again, then go back into my little self. What would it be like if someone did that today? Even today, if they could sit with me and say, hey, what was that like? My mom, my dad is obviously passed on. like, what would that be like? It would be incredible. I don't know that my mom would ever be able to engage me in that. I've made some peace with that. I always hope for it. But there is a piece where this is the level she's able to engage in her. My mom, unfortunately, is small, but that's her trauma. That's her story, that's being lived out, and she has a lot of her own things. She had an alcoholic father as well. She lost her dad when she was 15. Her mom and my mom mom, whom I loved, favored her brother over her like it was clear.

Kate Aldrich 00:44:53  Right? And even in that, like I could say, my mom was someone who saw me. But I also have to grapple with. But she's part of the reason my mom has all of this trauma. Not all of it. Her dad is part of it, too, right? We are complex people. It is not just one thing. And that's where the honor and honesty has to come in. We have to be able to be honest, but we have to honor, too. It's important. I love my mom. I love my dad. Like, I it breaks my heart that my dad must have seen in Vietnam. It breaks my heart that my mom lost her dad at 15. Like, I can enter into those things, but that doesn't invalidate what I experienced with them. They've got to hold them both complex, right? And that is. We live in Saturday. You were saying this again this morning? I was just like everything she was saying. It was so good.

Kate Aldrich 00:45:47  I was like, we talk all the time. Story work brings the tension because we live in Saturday. Friday has happened. Sunday has happened. But we don't live in the fullness of Sunday. We live in the reassurance of it that the Lord has done what he's needed to. But we live daily and Saturday and that brings attention to life, right? And it brings attention to our stories. These are the people who raised me. For many people, I love them, but it brings a lot of heart and pain to so gentleness and kindness. How do we bring that in so that we can actually love our little selves? I love this quote from Rene Brown. She has some stuff that's a little wonky, but I love a lot of her stuff is really good. right. When when I have done story groups, which I'll share a little bit more about in the end because I'm going to start another one. we would never talk to someone else the way we talk to ourselves. I shouldn't say never.

Kate Aldrich 00:46:52  Sometimes really hurting people will, but that's that is their pain talking. Not really them in their hearts. And when I led one of my story groups, I could tell we were all getting to a place where everybody was like, oh, I heard everybody else's story. Mine is a film. And I said to the group, raise your hand if you think your story is the most, most insignificant one, read today. We read them over a couple of days. Everyone raised their hand. Everyone thinks their story is insignificant. Probably lots of other words. Dumb, silly. Making a big deal. I don't know how many times when people share stories with me, they'll say, I don't even know why I think this is a story. Well, it's a story because it is. Right. And and so we as human beings wouldn't talk to other people about their story, the way we talk to ourselves. Just no big deal. It just happened that way. If we want to continue to live in that space, we will continue to live in the conflict, and we will continue to live out strategies that we don't know why they're there.

Kate Aldrich 00:48:04  Right. So entering into this gives us that motion that we hope to have. Okay. So I'm going to because I want to give you guys some time for questions. And you all have been phenomenal. Sitting here for an hour is probably quite the feat. I'm going to read you one of my stories to kind of show you what the experience is like. And I actually just you are the first people to hear this story. Other than my husband, who knows? This has been one of one of probably my most traumatic stories for me as a kid. But you'll see where it fits in. Because here's the thing I wrote the one about my brother. But you start. That's why we do. I usually only do 3 to 4 stories with the person, and we start to see the pattern. We start to see the chain that links them all together. and one of the things that we work on in story works holding stories together. Right. Same with my kids. We hold a story in that how that person experiences, how they experienced it.

Kate Aldrich 00:49:08  We don't say, oh, well, God was there. He was like, that's clear. But for a lot of people, it doesn't feel that way. Oh, your parents were trying their best. Like all those things? No, we just hold it with them. Wow. I hear you. That sounds really hard. So as we do this, it is. It is a discipline. Sometimes because of my own story and motion. Then get over it and do it yourself. Sometimes I want to react to a story in a way of. Are you serious? But that's my own story. That's present, and it's my job to engage that. Okay, so this is a story I was actually I say in here. So how we do this when we do it in a group setting or when I do it one on one with someone is they just write it out. It's not about being a great writer. It's not about grammatical errors, spelling errors. It's not school. We are just telling a story.

Kate Aldrich 00:50:04  Okay. So I'm sure there'll be some of those for me because I'm definitely not a student that way. Okay. It was coming like a dreadful test in school that wouldn't be canceled. As the days went by. It seemed to be always there in the back of my mind. And the nagging feeling in my gut of dread. I cannot remember if I was told I was going or if I reluctantly gave my consent. I was in fifth grade, 11 years old, and had never liked the thought of camping, and Girl Scouts in general was not something I enjoyed, but I weakly attended. Like many girls, Girl Scout troops. We were headed to a weekend. A weekend of camp, camp fun in the outdoors. When? When that nagging feeling would catch up with me daily, I would spiral into so many thoughts. I don't want to go. This is going to be awful. I don't want to be cold and I don't want to sleep outside. Were we actually sleeping outside? No, but in my opinion, an A-frame structure with canvas around it is sleeping outside.

Kate Aldrich 00:51:07  And who would be in my tent? I had no friends in my troop. These thoughts came and went daily, but they were always on a loop inside of my head. I wanted so badly to tell my mom that I didn't want to go, yet I didn't feel that I could. The day came and we hopped onto the school buses and headed to our adventure. After what seemed like a long, bumpy ride, we arrived at the Girl Scout camp and were split up into our tent groupings. I could do this. I kept telling myself I don't remember anything about who was in my tent. I only remember all of the girls being so excited to stay up all night. I immediately began to panic inside. That possibility hadn't even entered my mind. I don't even want to be camping. And now they want to stay up all night. I wanted to sleep. No, I needed to sleep yet. My tent mates had made up their mind and all nighter it was. I went into myself and I made up a plan.

Kate Aldrich 00:52:04  I would sleep even if it made me look like the most boring person around. Lights out came and went. I expressed that I really wanted to sleep and was ignored and left alone as the girls enjoyed their all nighter full of flashlights and laughter. I worked my hardest to to find sleep. It came in bits, but never in long stints as the early wake up call came. I knew I had to admit it had happened. What I feared most was real. I had a full fledged killer migraine. You see, the reason that I was that I, as an 11 year old, needed sleep was not to be boring or the most unfun. It was because I had chronic migraines. I had learned since my diagnosis over a year ago that many things triggered them for me, but little to no sleep was a surefire way to get myself a migraine. And here I was. I remember slogging through the day, dealing with the pounding, nausea, the pounding, the nausea, the sensitivity to light, and knowing it would get worse and that I would eventually have to hide things.

Kate Aldrich 00:53:09  I didn't want everyone to know that I was sick, and I didn't want to be difficult, and I didn't want the attention on me. So as the day went on, I would sneak away from the group to lose the contents of my stomach in seclusion, wipe myself up and get back to the group trying to maintain looking okay all the while no one recognizing my absence. At home, I have learned to get myself to the bathroom, be sick, clean up after myself and get back to bed, only to be continually tortured by the same routine several times, all without disturbing anyone. I tried so hard to be brave, but this migraine was kicking my butt. I broke down before dinner and finally went to my leader, who happened to be a friend of my mom's. Holmes. She took me to the camp nurse who gave me Pepto-Bismol to help settle my stomach. I took it, but wanted to kindly let her know that it wasn't going to help. It took all that I had in me, but I asked my leader to please call my mom, tell her that I had a migraine, and asked her to come get me.

Kate Aldrich 00:54:06  She said that she would and sent me back to the group while she called. I remember thinking and hoping that soon I would be with my mom and me in the comfort of my own bed, where I could deal with my headache the way I knew how. Not long after my leader found me, she said, I'm sorry Kate. I called, but was not able to get Ahold of your mom. At this point, you might as well stay as we are leaving before lunch tomorrow. Okay, I said as the tears began to sting the back of my eyelids. I wouldn't let myself cry. I knew that would only make my headache worse. I just wanted to be home to deal with this migraine. But that hope was gone. The rest of the weekend progressed in the same manner as I suspected. The Pepto-Bismol and I were not done with each other. I continue to be sick through that evening, at night, behind the tent, and in the morning I was completely wrung out like a wet washcloth.

Kate Aldrich 00:54:56  I woke up with a headache, hangover and a very sore belly from being sick so many times. My headache was now a dull ache. Everyone else had to do a polar bear plunge in the pool, but my leader must have finally realized how sick I was because she actually let me sit out that morning. Horrible torture. I was never so glad to see my mom and have the comfort of my own bed when I got home. I remember sleeping and sleeping for what seemed like forever. I asked my mom about the leader calling, perhaps knowing that something in my spirit didn't sit right about the whole event. She said she was sorry she had missed the call, but by the time she got it, it would have been too late to travel that far to come get me. These were the days of answering machines, after all. Months later, as I was coming downstairs from my room and round to the corner, I heard my mom on the phone talking to a friend. She was standing near the kitchen sink.

Kate Aldrich 00:55:49  With our extra long cord fully extended across the room. For some reason, my feet slowed and my ears burned as they honed in on what she was saying. When Kate was at Girl Scout camp, they called me to come get her, but I told them to tell her that they couldn't get Ahold of me. The Justice Warrior in me stepped into the light of the kitchen, looked at my mom in the eyes, and croaked. You lied to me. How could you do that? I was so sick with a headache. My mom promptly ended her conversation and began telling, trying to tell me that my leader had said I was just homesick. For once, I stood up for myself. You know that I get migraines and that I don't make them up. Did she tell you I had a headache? Yes, she did, but she also said you were homesick. Mom said I was homesick because I was so sick. I just wanted to be home. My headache was so bad. With that, I left the room and she let me go.

Kate Aldrich 00:56:45  No apology followed. No words of comfort or remorse. I ran up to my room, curled into a ball on my ugly pink bedspread, and wept for the pain in my chest and for the comfort and warmth I deeply wanted, but so often was denied. Many years later, as an adult with my own children and loving husband, our family drove around a local part of our county that we had never explored before. Something caught my attention. It was a sign with the Girl Scout emblem on it, and the name of the camp that I found still to be painful. I almost couldn't believe what I was seeing. The first and last camp I ever attended all in one weekend. And you know what? It had been right here the entire time. No more than 20 minutes from my childhood home. I sat in that moment, full of sunlight and warmth in our car as I sat with my 11 year old self that continued to feel she was, in fact, too much for people around her, and that if she had needs, she should take care of them herself.

Kate Aldrich 00:57:44  My heart ached for her and for the years that were tainted with that lie. So. Do you have, like, two minutes? Okay. Thank you. So that's an example of how we enter into a story, right. The honor that it was really hard. And then it wrote things on our hearts. And if you look at my stories, there's that same theme goes through every single one of them. And most of my stories involve my mom. Not that my dad, as I said, didn't have things. I appreciate so much all of you being here and giving this a listen. as I said, Brad and I do this, for our business. And if anyone is ever interested in exploring their story further, there are other resources other than just us. It's not about us. It's more about how do I move on? How do I find health? and this has been the most significant way that I have in my life, and I love leading other women through it. I am in the next couple of weeks leading another group through if that environment would be something of interest to you.

Kate Aldrich 00:58:52  You can find interest on our website which is just Aldridge ministries.com. I have business cards up here. after this, is it a break? Yes, it's a break. Okay, so, I do not want to keep you from your break. Goodness, you ladies are all going through a lot this morning. Remember to take care of yourselves. Give yourselves what you need. Through this time, it's really important. However, if anyone wants to ask questions or say you're more than welcome to, but also do whatever you need.

Podcast Host 00:59:23  Thank you for joining us on the New Reality podcast. We hope these episodes help you in your journey towards greater hope, healing, and growth. If you're interested in finding out more about Reality Church, you can find us online at Pursue Reality.