15. The Power of Guided Autobiography With Dr. Cheryl Svensson

Episode Description:

Feeling like your story doesn't matter? Worried your children or grandchildren won't appreciate your life experiences? Discover how Guided Autobiography (GAB) transforms personal memories into powerful legacies that strengthen families across generations.

In this episode, Dr. Cheryl Svensson, Director of the Birren Center for Autobiographical Studies, reveals how a structured approach to life story writing can provide emotional support, reduce caregiver burden, and create the deep connections we all crave—even when loved ones seem disinterested at first.

Key Takeaways:

• The GAB framework: Write two manageable pages per theme (family, work, health, spirituality) instead of facing the overwhelm of "Where do I start?"
• The power of being heard: Small group sharing creates validation through deep listening—"You get listened into wholeness"
• Research-backed benefits: Children who know their family history show better adjustment, higher self-esteem, and improved coping skills (Emory University research)
• Real breakthroughs: One participant released decades of burden after a group member helped her see how her father's death affected her mother
• Healthcare applications: GAB supports patients with early-onset Alzheimer's, cardiac rehab, dialysis treatment, and provides crucial community for time-starved caregivers
• Your legacy matters: Even if your adult children don't respond now, future generations will treasure knowing where they came from
• Global community: Nearly 800 trained GAB instructors across 32 countries are helping people discover their stories matter

Remember: You don't need perfect prose or a dramatic life story. As Dr. Svensson says, "I have never heard a bad story." Your story is worth preserving—because you're more than a name on the back of a photo.

If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who needs to hear that their story matters, and subscribe so you never miss practical tools for meaningful caregiving connections.

Thank you for listening!

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Intro and outro music with thanks:  Upbeat and Sweet No Strings by Musictown 

Lisa brings over 25 years of experience working in healthcare settings with older adults. The perspectives shared on this podcast are her own and do not represent the views of any past or current employer. Patient/resident stories are shared only with explicit permission or as anonymized composites for educational purposes.

Transcript

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Introduction to Capturing Essence for Care

Lisa 0:05

Welcome to Capturing Essence for Care, where we discuss the importance of incorporating personal life stories into healthcare and share ideas to help you on your journey. I'm your host, Lisa Joworski. Welcome to Capturing Essence for Care. Today I have Dr Cheryl Svensson with me and you're going to get to know more about her in a few minutes. I'm going to introduce her first, but I reached out to Cheryl years and years ago. Back, Cheryl, I don't know if you remember, but in 2019 was when I did the GAB training the guided autobiography training with you and you were so kind and let me just reach out you made time for me on the phone call, so thank you for that, because that opened up a whole new world of learning and figuring out how to write my life story and help others do the same.

Lisa 0:56

So Dr Cheryl Svensson, PhD, is Director of the Birren Center for Autobiographical Studies and a leading international authority on guided autobiography, also known as GAB, which is a perfect title, I think. She worked in the field of aging since the late 1970s when she first met Dr James Birren at the University of Southern California, while completing her master's in gerontology in USC's inaugural program at the new Percy Andrews Center, where Dr Birren was founding dean. After earning her master's degree, she moved to Sweden and entered the doctoral program in psychology at the University of Lund, focusing her research on aging. In the late 1990s, Dr. Svensson reconnected with Dr Birren and collaborated closely with him until his death in 2016 to further develop and expand the autobiographical studies program and guided autobiography, which he considered the most important work. Together, they established the Birren Center for Autobiographical Studies, with Dr Svensson as director. As a passionate advocate for the GAB process, she has seen firsthand and documented through evaluations its power to transform lives. Under her leadership, the Birren Center has developed an interactive online training program for GAB instructors worldwide. To date, nearly 800 instructors have been trained across 32 countries.

Lisa 2:38

Cheryl, that is incredible. It keeps growing all the time. Holy cow. Thank you for making time to be here.

Cheryl Svensson 2:46

Thank you so much, Lisa. Mostly, it's just nice to be able to see you again. It's been a while to have us.

Lisa 2:51

It has been a while.

Cheryl Svensson 2:53

Yeah, no, no kidding

Lisa 2:55

Can you believe it was in 2019 that I did the training?

Cheryl Svensson 2:59

No, not at all. You look just as young as you did then, Lisa.

Lisa 3:05

oh, that's what we all want to hear, right?

Lisa 3:10

You know how sometimes you I have um like a, a picture I use for bios because, that's, you know what you need, and that was I think I got that as a gift like to do this, you know, professional bio thing when I was 40. And of course, you know the years are going by now and I'm like I don't quite look like that anymore, but I don't have another picture to put in place of it. So here you go and you have to now guess what I look like. So, anyway, here we are.

Lisa 3:38

Um, I wanted to just quickly add, Cheryl, that you were one of the first people I think that I reached out to when I was on my research journey trying to figure out how to bring life story videos to life. And even though GAB isn't video, that was to me, the first stepping stone to figure out how to help people and guide conversations and encourage people that their stories are important, provide conversations and encourage people that their stories are important, and I had these conversation cards in mind that I wanted to help, you know, people to know what questions to ask and how to have deeper conversations. So thank you for being part of that journey and for opening up a whole new world with GAB well, thank you for that.

Cheryl Svensson 4:25

But you know, if you think about it, it's the story. You have to have the story to go with the visuals. You know the the story, the story that's behind the visuals, is what makes it, so guided autobiography was just seemed like a natural fit right, yeah, absolutely, and so back then that that was before COVID.

Lisa 4:44

And I was reflecting this morning, getting ready for us to connect today, thinking how you were already a pro in the world of like virtual meetings like this. That wasn't really a thing.

Cheryl Svensson 4:58

No, I started it in 2009. When there wasn't even a Zoom platform, I started with Cisco WebEx, you know, and kept with them for many, many years. Yeah, no, it was a new. It even a Zoom platform. I started with Cisco WebEx, you know, and kept with them for many, many years. Yeah, no, it was a novel thing, but it was a way to reach people when you couldn't, you know, when you couldn't literally gather. How much time would I have spent trying to get a class together of 12 people you know, from all over the world, which you couldn't have, you know. You would have had to have separate satellite places to offer the training. So it just worked out at the right time.

Cheryl Svensson 5:30

And it always amazed Jim Birren because I would bring him in for the next to the last session so that he could meet everybody and he'd always be amazed. He goes 'my God, you're in Singapore. I've been to Singapore'. He'd talk with them and they'd ask him a question and then he would give his answer to them. So it was a, it was really a world eye opener for Jim Birren and he then he was in his 90s, so...

Lisa 5:55

Wow

Dr. Cheryl Svensson's Journey

Lisa 5:57

So maybe you could just share a little bit more about Jim Birren and also guided autobiography like with you know know it was in your. I mentioned a little bit in the introduction. I'd love to hear more about. What is that for the listeners who have no idea?

Cheryl Svensson 6:11

Yeah, really. W hat is guided autobiography? I always thought it was an odd name anyway, but I forgot to ask Jim Birren about that. Okay, Dr. Birren was. He was a pioneer in the field of aging. He wrote the very first Psychology of Aging textbook in 1963. He was the founding dean of the very first graduate program in aging at USC. I was fortunate enough, didn't know him at the time at all, but I was working as a social work assistant in long-term care. I realized that I couldn't get anything really done there without further degrees, and so all of a sudden I see this announcement that USC had a new program. I thought, well, give me another degree. I'm sure with another degree people will listen to me. So I signed up.

Cheryl Svensson 6:59

And of course you know. So anyway, he was the dean and I never really knew him. But it was in that same period, the 1970s, when he started realizing the value of stories, of life stories, Because up until that point he was a cognitive psychologist, so he was studying memory. He was studying the rats in his research know how they age and how that could be translated to human aging. So it wasn't at all in his mindset to think about life stories. But he made a switch when he had kind of a moment of awakening and created guided autobiography. He offered the very first class in 1976 as a two-week summer Institute course. They met every day for two hours every day and they wrote their stories. So now I need to tell you what guided autobiography is. So guided autobiography is basically it's a life story writing process based on life themes. So the themes are themes that everybody has.

Cheryl Svensson 8:02

I don't care where you are, what color your skin is, what your religion is. You all have had branching points. You've all had a road taken versus a road you didn't take. Something happened to you. Everybody's had a family. Everybody has something to do with money. What's the role of money in your life? Everyone has said some work or career. You know, doesn't matter if you're a work't matter if you have a full-time career or if you're a stay-at-home mom. You still work to do something and that's who you are.

Cheryl Svensson 8:32

And then the themes start getting more sensitive. They go into health and body image and then they go into gender identity. I was a tomboy, so I grew up throwing balls and climbing trees, but you know how did you get your ideas about being a boy or a girl and who are you today? And then they get more sensitive. The themes go into, uh, death and dying, spirituality. And the last theme is always goals and aspirations, because Jim Birren would say no matter how old you are and believe me, he, this season is 80s and 90s by then you have to have a reason to get up in the morning. You know what? What is your purpose? What is your reason? What goal do you have to keep living with each of those themes, you're given a list of questions, and the questions range from deep and sensitive to very superficial.

Cheryl Svensson 9:22

So I had one woman who says sex. Oh my God, I can't. I'm a, I'm a Christian, I can't talk about sex. But when you look at the questions, some of them are what toys do you play with as a child? So me it was a ball, yeah, I mean I could have written about that. Or you can go into deeper questions, because there's like 12 questions for each theme. You know know, how did you? Who was your role model, you know, for whatever you were doing, or anyway. So the questions are always either deeper or more superficial. I'll say lighter and only you choose which question you answer. I mean there's nobody saying Lisa, come on, you know you really want to write about your mom with this one.

Lisa 10:03

Right, why are you talking about your?

Cheryl Svensson 10:04

sister, you know the family, you know really want to write about your mom with this one right. Why, why are you?

Cheryl Svensson 10:07

talking about your sister, you know the family, you know the mother is the big. Anyway, nobody's doing that. So everybody writes on the same theme. They write two pages because everybody

What is Guided Autobiography?

Cheryl Svensson 10:16

can write two pages. I had one gab student who wrote two pages and she mailed that to her adult son, you know, who lived in a different state, after each class. So oh wow, it's like a letter. You write two pages.

Cheryl Svensson 10:29

It's not like most people go and when they say they're gonna write their story they go oh, my god, I'm 80 years old. Where do I start? You know how do I? I mean, there's, there's a lot of stuff I've gone through. How do I begin?

Cheryl Svensson 10:40

But if you're writing on a question and on a theme, it makes it easy and you write two pages because then you get to the essence. You don't get into the long stories about that. You've told forever to other people. You know we all have stories that we revert back to as to who we are and where we came from and etc. So it's, you learn new things about yourself. And then you come back to the class and you meet with never more than six people. You may have 20 people in your class, but that class is divided up into groups of six and that group of six stays the same for the entire five, eight, ten weeks.

Cheryl Svensson 11:19

However long your guided autobiography workshop is, it varies. The typical Jim Buren one was 10 sessions and that's because it was a semester and that's how he did it. It fit in there. Anyway. You write your themes and then you share your stories in that small group and that's where the magic happens, because it's in the sharing of the stories you get people to listen and you realize how seldom people really listen to you closely. You know you kind of get listened into wholeness and with that you get feedback. Not you know, lisa, I think you should use a few more metaphors, a few more you know, action, words or maybe dialogue would spice up your story. You don't get that kind of feedback. You get wow, I can't believe you did that and you were only 12 years old. That's amazing, you know. And all of a sudden, after week after week, and people are getting these reinforcements, they're going wow, I guess I am stronger than I thought I was.

Lisa 12:18

Right.

Cheryl Svensson 12:18

You know. So it kind of. And plus you get to know the other people. So in the beginning everybody's looking at everybody saying, oh, I'm never going to have anything in common with that guy. He's 41 years old and I'm 75 and I can't even imagine his lifestyle. And by the end of the class you all know one another in such an intimate way, a vulnerable way that has grown with you.

Cheryl Svensson 12:44

You didn't start out that way. It's just happened that, yeah, you don't want it to end, you don't want the class to end and you want to keep meeting with those same people. You don't want new people coming in because you don't know so right you know everybody.

Cheryl Svensson 12:59

Just you know it. It's just an incredible way to bridge differences and look at the commonality of all of us Underneath the surface, the roles we play. It's like looking at us, like I listen to, you read my bio and it's like who is that she's talking about? You know you kind of double take. That's really you know. Anyway, it's past all of those roles you get in a much deeper level. So basically, that's what guided autobiography is. It's a writing class that, and you don't tell people when they come in, because they come in to write their story. And I think one of your questions to me before was you know, how do they get into the class? Somebody, usually an adult daughter or somebody, says, mom, you need to write that down. Nobody, you're never gonna, nobody's gonna, remember that. You know it's such a great thing, but to sit down and write by yourself, you know, or now, they have they have books that you can fill out, either write in them or do it online.

Cheryl Svensson 14:02

It's a definitely I would tell anybody. Write your story, however you want to do it. But guided autobiography is so enriching because you not only learn about yourself by writing your story and I think writing also makes you look at the world differently. I think somehow in the brain it changes over and you look at it differently than if you're just telling the story.

Cheryl Svensson 14:28

You make connections that you didn't know before. Plus, you get feedback. For instance, in my stories I continually talked about, it came up a couple of times. My father was killed in an accident when I was 12 and it was the worst thing in the world, I mean, and I thought, poor me, you know, nobody's ever had to go through this. It influenced my life. And when I read my story, in my group was one woman you know, and she had been widowed, and she said gee, that must have really been tough for your mother. Now I had never in my life I was 12. I had never my mom had been dead for like 30 years. I had never once thought about how it would have been for my mom ever.

Lisa 15:13

Right or anybody else.

Cheryl Svensson 15:14

I was still. You know it's me my brother. He can't feel as bad as I do, you know. So I care and really and truly, lisa, it was like and it sounds stupid when I think about it, but it's like burden just kind of lifted off my shoulder, and my dad died in 1959. So I mean, that was hundreds of years ago, but still it was like somebody said one thing. So all I'm saying is that by reading it in a group trusting, you build a bond, you build a connection and you get to know yourself in a way that you didn't, you would never have had otherwise.

Lisa 15:46

Absolutely, absolutely, wow. You've said so many really remarkable things that I want to stop and process since we're talking about processing is really interesting because there's a lot of research, as I'm sure you're well aware, that shows that by taking the time to write, it allows us to process things and see things differently, whether it's to get rid of certain stresses or just interpret information differently once it's out on paper, right the act of writing.

Cheryl Svensson 16:24

Absolutely. And you know the GAB program isn't about how to write, so nobody's going to, you know, tell you how to, how to do it better, how to make it more interesting. It's your story, it's your words, and so once you get that through your head, you can, if you can allow yourself. It's like natalie goldberg said keep the hand moving, just write without thinking about who's going to read it. You know, if you, if you said great too many times in your, in your story or whatever it is.

Cheryl Svensson 16:56

You know nobody's going to look at that or how it's spelled. You know nobody sees that because you're reading your story, you can go back and do all that and yeah know, I think one of the other things you mentioned earlier was about you know who.

Cheryl Svensson 17:11

Why write your story? Well, it's really to understand yourself. But people come in, you know, because they want to get their story down and they want to be remembered. As something One man said to me I want to be remembered as something more than a name scribbled on the back of a photo. And these are the days, these are the age where they had really photos that you held in your hand. You know, it's not like our age, but he won and he didn't have children. He was married. So he had, you know, he had nieces and nephews, but he really wanted somebody to know his story, to know where he'd been and where he'd come from. And, and you know, our kids don't know that. They want to know this until it's too late.

Cheryl Svensson 17:50

So you know, I always tell parents, you know, get that story written now.

Lisa 17:55

Yes, that's come up a few times in the conversations I've had, that you know we might, our children maybe are too close right, like being being raised by us, and I think also in the developmental years up to 25, they're not going to be thinking. I really want to know your story when you're living with them all the time and they're irritated with you, but as generations go on, like, I know that I want to know everything about my grandparents and my roots and you know, where I came from and their personalities, and where did I get this trait If?

Cheryl Svensson 18:26

you know, or is it just something that's?

Lisa 18:29

nature. That that you know is is my own. But learning about those things sometimes isn't right away and sometimes it's generations past and we don't want to let that information and that wisdom go. I don't want it to disappear forever, right.

Cheryl Svensson 18:44

Oh, absolutely, this is information we need to know.

Cheryl Svensson 18:46

You know, and that was really brought. I mean, I'm an academic and a researcher, so a lot of the you know the papers and things that I've written, they go into these academic journals. Nobody sees them. But Bruce Feiler, who is a New York Times bestselling author, great guy, written several books. I'm thinking of one he's called I can't even remember the one I'm thinking of right now the Secrets of Happy Families.

Cheryl Svensson 19:10

That one came about because his father, you know, they had a dinner at the house. He had a sister, and they were all at his father's house and they had, like you know, this big dinner at his father's house. And they were had, like you know, this big dinner. And all of a sudden Bruce looked over at his sister's kids and says what are you doing with your phone at the table? Put it away. And his sister said what are you doing? Telling my kids what to do? And the father's going what's the matter with families today? Everybody's just fighting with one another, you know. And so Bruce goes what is it with families today? And what is it with social media and how it's coming in?

Cheryl Svensson 19:45

So he's an author and a researcher. He started doing some research and he uncovered an article that was written by Robin Fivich and Marshall Duke and it was from Emory University, but it was all about telling stories. How do you tell your stories, or something. Anyway, this research was done, like in oh 10, 15 years ago, but it showed that children who knew something about their parents and grandparents were better adjusted, had higher self-esteem and were better able to cope with the world. This is statistical

The Power of Sharing Your Story

Cheryl Svensson 20:22

differences, so this was a research article that would have been buried. So all of a sudden, bruce Feiler goes and this is a correlation, so they can't prove it that, knowing the stories but and the questions were simple, I think it was called do you know? And that the questionnaire says you know?

Cheryl Svensson 20:37

Do you know where your grandparents came from? I mean most of at least in the United States. They all came from someplace else. Mine were Germany and Scotland, you know. Do you know where your grandparents came from? Do you know how your parents met? Do you know what kind of work your grandfather did? You know? These are stories that are family stories, so it's not like you know, back when I was days we didn't have television. You know we did this and that, like we always tell our kids. My son can't believe that I grew up with TV that wasn't in color. You know black and white.

Cheryl Svensson 21:08

You know, anyway, you know so these. But they've shown that kids who know these stories or know this about their parents are better adjusted. So what better thing for people to have a reason to tell their story? It doesn't matter if your kids don't. I wrote my story through my guided autobiography and not one of my four adult kids said anything about it. They didn't say, gee, mom, I didn't know that, or wow, nothing.

Lisa 21:35

Did you share it with them? Did you read them out? Did you send it to them? I sent it to them.

Cheryl Svensson 21:39

I sent it to them, sent it to all of them. Not one of them said a thing. I even had to print it out.

Lisa 21:44

Really.

Cheryl Svensson 21:44

So anyway, but the great, great grandkids that I'll never meet will know something about me from those stories and how they got just like you were saying. You know I wonder, you know how I got this trait, who that came from. Or you know I wonder how you know whatever it is. You know you're wondering about yourself. You know I wonder how you know whatever it is. You know you're wondering about yourself.

Lisa 22:08

So it's definitely a reason to tell your stories and to write them down? Yeah, absolutely. Oh, so do you. In your experience, then, so far with Gab, and being that 800 people have gone through, and done training for for Gab. Tell me about the people who are interested. So I know for me, you know I can give an example and I'm interested to know how many others are like me. I I come from the healthcare field, you know, working in recreation therapy, working with older adults, always, and that really being my passion and my love.

Lisa 22:44

But seeing this need and I would also say the other part of me is coming from personal experience you know where we have you get in that sandwich generation,

Why Family Stories Matter

Lisa 22:54

I think that's when it really hit home that I need to do something to make some kind of a difference and focus on my own stress level and doing something that well well, you mentioned one of the last themes is about purpose, yeah, and how important that is, so making sure that I'm doing something that feels like it's keeping me going for my mental health as well so for me it was, you know, personal experiences of being a mom and a daughter, having parents that are aging, as well as being in the healthcare industry, in recreation, so so fun and play and you know, excitement is is important to me, and also the life coaching piece.

Lisa 23:36

I did some life coaching training. So who who else is interested Like? What kinds of people are attracted to guided autobiography and life story work?

Cheryl Svensson 23:46

Okay, we have two ways of looking at this. What the Birren Center now does is we focus on training instructors to go out and offer the classes. So if you're asking me who the people are that want to be an instructor like you did and took the training or within the, within their classes, you know who comes to your class. You know who shows up at your the writing class that you're going to teach, based on guided autobiography. So you have two ways of looking at it. I can say that with and I can speak more efficiently and really about the people that take the training rather than those that come to the classes, because I haven't taught nearly as many classes as my gab instructors now have, because I focused on training people how to do it.

Cheryl Svensson 24:35

The people that come into training a lot of them are life coaches, a lot of social workers, a lot of them are past educators and a lot of them are people that are looking at a way to change from their work line of work that they had been doing. They've reached an age 50, 55, 60 thinking, oh, do I want to do this the rest of my life? But I'm still active, I still want to give back. What can I do you know? So there are people and you. I always say that if you're interested in stories and you're just interested in people, you know it's a. Jim Barron always said that he learned he learned more from listening to guided autobiography stories than he did from all of his education. Because you?

Cheryl Svensson 25:18

are right, you are down in the trenches hearing the stories of real people, real time, everybody and from all over the world. Everybody's different, so the people who take the training are ones that want to. They're like you. That's why I always said, that's why that's really the reason I wanted to create a nonprofit. You are the greatest people in the world and you just, it's like. You know, sometimes you really love your kids and you say, god, I wish you could meet this person and meet my kids. They're so much fun. And sometimes you go, oh, my god, you know, you know, clean up your room and then I'll, then I'll have you meet my friends, that type of thing. But anyway, you just want to share. So I want all these gab instructors who only met six or twelve people in the training, to meet the rest of them, who you know, we have, we have one now in Croatia.

Cheryl Svensson 26:03

You know we have many in Australia, many in Canada. You know, like you, there's something in it for everybody. And I want to go back to one of the things that you had written when you sent me about your podcast. You know, capturing essence for care. You know you said that the whole meaning of it was to capture essence for care every gab class. That's what you're doing. You know you said that the whole meaning of it was to capture essence for care Every GAB class. That's what you're doing. You're capturing the essence of that person, and not just that person right now, but their whole story. You know so each, each theme.

Cheryl Svensson 26:36

You know what was that branching point for me? You know it was moving from Minnesota to California and thinking, oh my God, I never couldn't imagine a taco. What is that? You know? So you know you know to the death of my father, to all the, all the different things that I went through, so the family, all of those things that you go through. So you not only have the story right now, but you have the past that's come into the right now and you've learned from that. In other words, jim Berenoy says how can you know where you're going if you don't know where you've been. So you've looked back and you've kind of incorporated that all into who you are now and where you may want to go. That's why it always ends with goals. You know, you may have another reason to get up in the morning.

Lisa 27:20

You know, do a new podcast. Who knows. Yeah, that's right. Oh, so I love that because what you're creating and what the Gab community really is especially now I'm glad you mentioned the nonprofit side as well is, it sounds like for you. I admire you because one of the many reasons is because the Gab community and you feeling so strongly in growing it as a community is the way I feel about you capturing essence, quote, unquote and growing this community around, all of these different ways to share your stories.

Lisa 28:03

Whatever that looks like, the same as what you're saying is so important and the people that believe in that and see the value in that right have, I don't know, they're the most heart driven heart, you know, passionate people, in my opinion, and I think there's such a great need to connect that population in that community with the healthcare system, you know, to help really understand that we all need to understand people better as people rather than

GAB Community and Healthcare Applications

Lisa 28:33

just as patients. Right, right.

Cheryl Svensson 28:36

I think you were going to ask me if something about how it could be used in the healthcare field, because I have a couple examples. One of them just comes from the personal experience of taking guided autobiography. We had one GAB instructor who, while she was in the training, which is an eight-week training, she found out she had pancreatic cancer.

Cheryl Svensson 28:56

And so we were a support team for her. She didn't miss a single class, you know, and yet we could see her failing as we went through the last of the eight weeks, but it was her support group that kept her going. You know her stories that she still continued to write. And then there's another example One student, one GAB instructor, lived up in Washington and she was going to work it into the hospital setting where they had a cardiac rehab section. You know where people go through cardiac surgeries and then they have rehab and she wanted to bring it there. You know, because if you have a certain diagnosis for something, I've always thought it'd be great with people who have dialysis when you have to go in and sit for two, three, four hours, two, three times a week.

Cheryl Svensson 29:43

You know, if you have it set where you have the same people, you know to be able to go in there and have sharing, and because you know those parts of other people and of course there's others that have worked with caregivers you know, because caregivers is a whole nother and they're the ones that have the least amount of time, but they're the ones who probably need it the most because then they can bond and understand one another and get that kind of support. Basically, writing the stories and meeting other people who are going through the similar things you are is a well, not just a bonding experience, but it helps you to understand yourself better and it makes you realize you're not alone, you know there's other people going through the same thing.

Cheryl Svensson 30:27

One of our instructors has been doing it with early onset Alzheimer's, where he had the caregivers come in with the patients, you know, for those who couldn't write or would bring it in, but they were there together. But it was the, it was the cognitive impaired person's story that was told and shared, you know, and they, they went on for eight weeks, bonded, you know, didn't want it to end and I think actually in his class they ended up making an anthology, you know, created a small anthology, which I think that was another one of your questions. What do you do with the stories? You know, you either share them with your family or, like one, one woman said to me you know, my daughter told me to do this she and then by the third class she goes, but you know what she can have it when I'm dead and gone or I'll edit it and give it to her because really it's a self-discovery.

Cheryl Svensson 31:20

You learn more about yourself and then you may not be ready to share that with the family yet, but you know it's uh, it's a difference in personal historians who go out and record the story, the verbal story.

Cheryl Svensson 31:34

I do think, lisa, it has something to do with writing, if you sit down with a blank piece of paper or your blank screen on your computer and you just, you know, write, you know, without censoring yourself, if you can just keep it that way without worrying about who's going to read it or what you're going to say or how somebody's going to take it. You know, it's very much a empowering, self-discovering way, and it's more than journal writing, because I've written journals all my life.

Cheryl Svensson 32:02

Nobody reads that journal, you know cuz then you go out, you take it one step further, you read it to somebody. It's like going on a diet. If you go on a diet, you don't tell anybody you're going on a diet. Well, you can go ahead and I just had an ice cream at lunch, by the way.

Lisa 32:16

You know for true. I mean, I really did, you know?

Cheryl Svensson 32:20

but anyway, you could go eat that ice cream and not feel guilty, because nobody knows you're on a diet, you know kind of you kind of fell off, you go oh well, I'll get back on it tomorrow. But when you write your story and then you read it, it's out there. It's out there for them to respond to and you it's real. It makes it real in a different. We're a different, weird way than just thinking about it yes, yeah, and you're right there.

Lisa 32:44

I remember the times that I've written down and you might, I don't you. You've probably trained so many people. You might not remember when I was in your class, but there is something to be said about the act of writing your own story and doing it in a way where, where then you know it doesn't have to be obviously like you're sharing it with the world but you're sharing it with this group of people in your gab group where like you mentioned you're not focusing on the.

Lisa 33:09

Well, maybe you could restructure that sentence. We're talking about speaking, sharing back the deep listening part on what people are talking about in their story and so then sharing it out loud with people. I remember becoming so emotional.

Lisa 33:27

I don't know, I don't know if you remember and it was, it felt so strange and I was so vulnerable. Yet my situation I think I remember a little bit about how you responded was like mine, was about how I had I bumped a car in front of me, but that was remember that, that that to me was that moment. It felt like my world was falling apart. So that was significant for me because that was kind of like I was in a very vulnerable state. So sharing, sharing that yeah, out loud was hard, but important People.

Cheryl Svensson 34:05

you can and you know people will read this. They say, oh, I read this at home and I had no trouble. And here I am crying, right, you know it's mostly Lisa, because you really realize that everybody's really listening to what you say. I mean, people really don't take the time to listen. And you know, and you're, and you're plus, you're reading for like 10 minutes and you know you can't look up and say, you know, I mean, would you read that again? You know they don't do that. So I mean you just have you're out. You're, you are vulnerable, but you build up to that point.

The Transformative Impact of Writing

Cheryl Svensson 34:40

I doubt that that was the very first, first one you read, but I do it might have been.

Cheryl Svensson 34:43

Yeah, because I remember it was yeah, I remember it changed you to change your life. I don't I will forget the details, but I remember. I'll forget names but I'll remember the stories you know. I guess that's just something that you know. Stories stay with you. The details and all of that don't directions, you know. Forget it, I never remember no, me neither.

Lisa 35:06

Yeah, it's being given that outlet to be able to even whether it's what other people say, but I think saying out loud helps you to understand it and interpret it in a different way. For yourself. So, yeah, I think it's a wonderful starting point and a great community to just have that deep listening where that doesn't happen daily Right.

Cheryl Svensson 35:27

And you know, some people have never shared things with anybody else before that story when they read it. Yeah, you know. I don't know if you had written it before, if you had shared it with your friends or your husband or anybody, but many people have never shared these stories with anyone you know so that's it.

Cheryl Svensson 35:44

It's like you know. One of the things that we found the benefits are increased energy, and it takes energy to keep all not secrets, because you didn't, you weren't thinking about it every day, but you know, keep things down in you. Um, that once you let them out, it's like you know. Things down in you, yeah, that once you let them out, it's like you know, it's like it, it just releases that extra energy that you were pushing it down or holding it down with, and you can have that to go do something else. Yeah, eat ice creams at lunch or something that sounds like a great world.

Lisa 36:17

Maybe I'll do that later. Oh, this has been a wonderful conversation, Cheryl. Thank you for taking the time. Is there anything I haven't asked that you think would be important or helpful to share with the listeners?

Cheryl Svensson 36:30

No, I would just say everybody should write their story however you want to do it really, but doing it in a group, a small group, that with people who are going through the same experience. You're writing on the same thing you know, and everybody's story is different.

Cheryl Svensson 36:45

It, it you know, I have never heard a bad story. I mean, I've heard some that'll bring me to tears and some are always. You know, you've got. We have authors that come in, you know, and this is really, but there's never because every story is real. It's that person's story. So how can it be? A bad story it's uh and it's so important. Just get it written for yourself, for your family, for those who are going to come after you yeah, it's not something you're going to be graded on no or judged on it's just hearing your story and sharing that with the people that you trust.

Lisa 37:19

Yeah Well, this has been so, so incredibly inspirational for me, and I think the world needs to hear what you have to share and what the guided autobiography community is all about. So, thanks, lisa. I will add lots of things in the show notes and, yeah, just thank you for your time.

Cheryl Svensson 37:37

Great, thank you. Thank you so much.

Lisa 37:40

Thanks for your time. Great Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening today. If you enjoyed this episode, take a minute to look at the show notes for resources and links, and be sure to leave me a rating and review. And also you can follow the show so that you get notified of when the next one comes out. And lastly, if you can think of somebody in your life who you think would enjoy this podcast, I hope you share it with them as well, so that they can listen in on the conversations and ponder how to capture their own essence. Take care and I look forward to the next time.