Giving ourselves permission to tell ourselves more loving stories

​If you've been following me here for any amount of time, you know I'm a story teller. But here's the thing. So are you.

Even if you aren't writing your story on here every morning. Or in a journal. Or anywhere at all. And even if you don't breathe out your story to another living soul. You are always telling your story. Even if only to yourself.

Often, the story you are telling yourself about yourself isn't kind to yourself.

I always know we've done a great job leading the kind of training I helped lead the last few days when people walk away feeling like they have greater permission to tell themselves a more loving story about who they are and where they've been and what they've done.

I say we've done a great job because creating the spaces for people to tell that different story, well that is not an easy task.

Brene' Brown says, "Judgment kills brave spaces."

When you bring people together from different backgrounds and cultures and ethnicities, that can be a breeding ground for judgment. No "no judging here" sign protects the room from it. The only thing that protects the room from judgment is leading with vulnerability and love.

Vulnerability that is willing to share the messy story of your own life with self-love. And a willingness to show - not just say - I'm going to love you through the messiness of your story too.

This work I do is very broadly called 'trauma informed care.' It's a giant buzzword floating around out there with multiple definitions that often fit neatly into individual agendas.

But my personal definition is this and it's built on a desire to love more and better:

Trauma informed care is embracing the reality that every human has a story, and every human story is filled with challenges and adversities, many of them more intense than others, and those stories have come to influence who people are and the choices they make.

Trauma informed care is leaning into that truth when we engage with one another, hopefully in a way that prevents us from judging each other's humanity before knowing each other's stories.

Trauma informed care is being willing to hear someone's story before we start telling their story.

There is no better way to teach people how to be trauma informed than creating a space where they get to experience it. Creating a space where people cry when they hear another's story, not judge. Creating a space where you feel safe to write your story on the front page, not hide it on the back page of the midnight edition.

There is something beautiful that happens when people start telling themselves a less messy and more loving story about the messy lives they have lived. It's like falling dominoes. Pretty soon everyone is telling themselves and others less messy and more loving stories about their messes.

Until it occurs to everyone - sometimes out loud and sometimes inside and sometimes all at the same time - we all have messes.

And maybe the healthiest thing we can do for one another is to give people permission to start telling themselves more loving stories about those messes by listening to those messes in a more loving way.

Maybe together we can start a movement that recognizes the healthiest way to begin cleaning up messes is to become more curious and less judgmental about the messes. Maybe together we can start a movement where people feel like we are showing up to love them not in spite of their mess or because of their mess - but we are here to love them through their mess.

That is the trauma informed thing to do.

And as Jesus demonstrated time after time after time: it's the loving thing to do.