Stacy Brookman is this week's Super Power U Podcast guest. Stacy affirms the belief that sharing our own story, and especially our trauma experiences, is therapeutic. She talks about boundaries and codependency, lessons learned from her past relationships, including with her narcissistic-sociopath ex-husband, as well as the antidote–the beautiful and cathartic nature of writing it down. The freedom and peace she gained from storytelling and freewriting has led her to helping others discover how to tell their own stories. Stacy's Real Life Resilience Podcast features stories of recovery from life's most difficult traumas and provides tools and resources for life-storytelling.
Takeaways:
- In Stacy’s early adulthood, she felt introverted and took to writing in high school as a way to feel seen and heard, despite her shyness. She had dreams of becoming a doctor but got talked out of it and attended secretary school instead. Stacy had two examples of relationships that took her out of her values and boundaries and knew that she needed to make a change to be an example for her children.
- Early warning signs of recognizing a narcissist in a relationship: they “love bomb” you very quickly and they try to manipulate you into feeling sorry for them. Many times they try to make you feel as though you are the guilty or troubled one. In a lot of circumstances, staying loyal and sticking with something doesn’t serve anyone to the highest good. When you are codependent, you are more likely to move your boundary line to accommodate somebody else.
- Stacy found that the more she wrote down her thoughts, feelings, and memories about what she had been through, getting it all out made her feel calmer and helped pave a way for the steps she needed to take to move forward. She took an interest in learning about and teaching the art of live storytelling and the benefits it brought, including a lighter mood and benefits to the immune system.
- Stacy knew she wanted to teach as many as possible about writing and storytelling and created a monthly webinar — a website and podcast where she could connect with others frequently.
- Stacy’s four steps to begin even when you don’t know how: Embrace, Enable, Enhance, and Elevate your story. Then she digs in with her community on the milestones, desires, and conflicts within their lives, which starts to unravel deeper themes and fabrics that have been held and woven together. They also partake in freewriting exercises to get past the surface everyday thoughts and the golden nuggets of wisdom we all have inside of us.
- Now Stacy raises her hand to life, and to her own needs and desires.
Mentioned in This Episode:
- Stacy Brookman
- Stacy Brookman Webinar
- Stacy Brookman Medium
- @Stacy_Brookman
- Podcast Recommendation of the Week: Storyical: Your Stories Are Your History
Quotes
“I chose someone else’s desire for me instead of my desire for myself. But in my head and my heart I knew there was something more inside of me.”
“Sometimes it takes getting out for someone else, but then you see the light.”
“I wanted people to hear how others overcome trauma in their life and see how great writing could be.”
“My life theme was not raising my hand. For forty years. And I didn’t like that.”
“I bounce back from adversity and help other people.”
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