Story Work : Field Notes on Self-Discovery and Reclaiming Your Narrative

A guide to understanding the stories we tell ourselves and the actions needed to reclaim power over our narrative.

Stories are how all of us absorb and understand the world around us. They are how we make sense of our surroundings, our communities, and ourselves. There''s often truth and validity in these stories. But the stories we tell ourselves are not a be-all and end-all. Instead, they''re part of a larger, ongoing, unfinished narrative--one that we must continually refresh, expand, and contemplate to stay soft and open-hearted.

That''s where Story Work comes in. Through essays and prompting questions, GG Renee Hill pens the raw material of her own life: an upbringing raised by a mother with schizophrenia, and a lifetime of authorities trying to minimize that impact.

It was a long, old, heavy story Hill carried with her--the powerless girl whose mom would never change--until Hill began to change the meaning she''d assigned to her experiences. And she doesn''t stop there. Hill invites readers to the transformative practice of creative self-discovery, storytelling, and treating our life experiences as creative material that we have the power to shape. For the person searching, Story Work is the answer that enables us to live with an open-hearted curiosity--one that both guides and grounds us.