Changing the Narrative: Empowering Stories for a Brighter Future

Interview Episode with Melody Owen

Melody: [: 00:00:00

Sit on the sofa, cry your eyes out, dig right into it, and let it move through you. And out, because what we often do when we are telling these stories, we, you know, oh, I shouldn't be angry, or I shouldn't be sad, or I shouldn't be this, and then we don't allow for the emotions. Mm-hmm. The very first thing is we get the story out and we allow for the emotions.

Laurin: Hello friends, and welcome back to Curiously Wise. I am Laurin Wittig, your host, and today I have Melody Owen here with me.

Let me tell you a little bit [: 00:01:00

She is passionate about supporting authors as they write their stories to change their internal story, empower themselves, and reconnect with their truth. Melody is the founder of Author Nation and is here today to give us the steps to empower ourselves and others through story, and that is right in my wheelhouse.

So welcome, melody. I'm , so

Melody: happy to have you here. Thank you Laurin. I'm thrilled to be

Laurin: here. , we're gonna have a good conversation. So let's just start, you had, you had a number of topics that, that just are, are great places to go. So we're gonna start right off with that.

let's just talk about why it's important that we understand the stories that we tell ourselves.

ebody cuts you off, you tell [: 00:02:00

He's a bad guy and he's this, and he's that. Or, or the person's arrogant or, you know, oh, he must be in a rush. Or, but you, whatever it is you tell yourself. A story around that. And when you start understanding that you are telling yourself stories, these aren't facts. You don't know that guy. You've never met him.

Maybe he needs to go buy concert tickets for his grandma, cuz she really likes Rihanna. I mean, how do you know what it is? Right? Or maybe his wife is in the backseat giving birth and he's in a panic. You know? So once we understand, it's like, yeah, I'm telling stories about the world and we often, you know, some, sometimes we get into this negative story, right?

us. Yeah. And so we need to [: 00:03:00

These are not facts that are flying through our mines. These are stories that are flying through our mines. And when we understand that, we can start changing them. Just the simple, you know, why did he cut me off? Oh, I don't know. Because there's a bird flying around the inside of his car and he is, he's trying to catch it while he's driving and we can start having fun with it.

Yeah. And, and move away from that, that, you know, the negative stories that we often hold onto.

Laurin: Yeah, they're very judgmental. Yeah. And then it's like we're holding everybody up to this bar and nobody is meeting it, you know? Exactly.

Melody: And we can't, we can't meet your bar. I'm sorry. We're doing that right.

Yeah. You

Laurin: can't, first of all, you don't know what it is, and second of all, your bar may be different. Yep. Yeah. It's one of the lessons that I've been really learning in the last couple of years, probably longer than that now. I kind of lost two years there in my memory of, you know, from shutdown. Is that, Perspective is something that comes from inside us.

ke how we are looking at the [: 00:04:00

You know, those kinds of perspective changes are incredibly life. Changing for the person who's trying to figure out, you know, why that guy's acting that way, or girl, yes. Or yeah, whatever.

Melody: Yeah. It doesn't have to be a guy driving just to become No.

Laurin: Yes, no, and that's one of the beauties that I learned in writing is that you do esp.

and stories are how we learn.[: 00:05:00

I mean, there, there's actually a book. I don't think I have it anymore, but it's called Wired for Story and it's, our brain is wired. To learn from stories and that's why they got passed down and all that stuff. So the stories we tell ourselves really can be uplifting or damaging.

Melody: Story is embedded in us. We need story. I mean, we talk about, you know, you need food and you need air, and you need water, and you need, you know, but we actually need stories to move through our world. Without stories, we'd have no way of understanding. Where we are and what's going on. Yeah. How we interpret everything.

Laurin: Yeah. And they're very, they're very connecting. I, I mean, I, I came from a family and then married into a family that loved to tell family stories. Yeah. And you'd hear the same stories over and over again, you know? Mm-hmm. And they were still funny though, you know, every time. But our children later on would say to us, you know what, when we're up at Grammy and Grandpa's house, y'all are always telling stories.

Tell us some [: 00:06:00

Melody: Yes. And, and families can do this, you know, you can have a birth story, right.

Each of your children can have a birth story and you can tell them the birth story and it shows them that they came into the world to be loved. Mm-hmm. And that's a really strong story you can embed in them if you tell them that over and over as they're growing up. Yeah. Or even as they're adults. Right.

And the other thing I, I did with my kids, Was when something happened in the outside world, we would tell stories about it. And that's where we got that goofy, you know, that guy cut me off. And you know, that's where we got these silly, we got these silly stories from when someone comes home stomping, you know, my friend did this, you know, it's like, well, let's figure out, let's dream up five different stories of why.

nymore. Right. The situation [: 00:07:00

Laurin: Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. , so how do we learn to view the stories we're telling without judging ourselves for that, too, without judging the story or ourselves?

Melody: Yeah. I think there are a couple of key pieces here.

One of them is that when you tell yourself a story and you're, it's, it's an angry story, it's a judgment story, or whether it's a joy story, any story for that matter. Can you tell yourself three other stories about the same situation? Because if you can tell yourself two or three or five stories about the same situation, , it gets harder to judge that it's one thing and one thing only.

Mm-hmm. , it opens up possibilities and when you open up possibilities, it's harder to judge. And so that's one thing you can do is just , play the game, as you say. Right? Mm-hmm. What else could be happening here? Mm-hmm. I think that's really important. Mm-hmm. Now, if you're telling stories about yourself and you're judging those stories very harshly.

etimes what helps is you put [: 00:08:00

Oh no, I would not. Mm-hmm. I would be, I would be counseling, I would be showing kindness. I would validate their feelings and help them move into a place of, you know, of, of non-judgment. Mm-hmm. And so can we do that for ourselves? And it's about. The reason I say put someone you, you know, you love so much they can do no wrong in, in, in the place of the story because it helps you step back.

out saying it's about. Me or [: 00:09:00

I know it sounds, everything I say sounds really silly, but I mean, that's kind of the point, right? That we are. We are removing that seriousness. We're removing that judgment. Right. And we are, we are looking at it , from our wise mind place. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. We, this, this isn't my story. I am, I am the wise mind on the outside looking in, trying to understand without judgment and, and help someone move through it.

And that can really help us take judgment away.

now? Yeah. And, that putting [: 00:10:00

That's, that's beautiful.

Melody: Another example. If you know you, you're at work and you've got this one colleague you love, they're great. They're always doing the right thing. You've got this other colleague, ah, so can't stand that colleague.

Terrible. Well what if you started switching? What if something happens with the colleague you don't like so much and you say, well, what if this colleague that I really liked at that, would I be so harsh on this person? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And vice versa. Mm-hmm. So you can also do switching in that way. Nice.

And that can be

Laurin: helpful. Yeah. Yeah. That's. I have to do that with the news. Yes,

Melody: yes,

Laurin: yes. It wasn't that person, but this other person who I have a lot of respect for. Well, how would I be reacting

Melody: to this situation? Exactly. Yeah.

ry is so powerful, and being [: 00:11:00

I don't know. I don't even know what the right word is, but we are often in the story, don't realize we're in the story, reacting through the story judging everybody else and ourselves through the story. And if you, if you can step back, I love the either swapping people or stepping back, putting somebody else in that, that place that you're being so harsh with.

Oh, I call it the hawks eye view. If I can pull my, I, I literally kind of feel like I pull myself up and out and sort of look from that wise perspective. Yeah. And get a little, get a little distance from it. It, it can change, it can change your health. Yes. It can change your emotional health, your physical health.

ory. It's transformative. It [: 00:12:00

Mm-hmm. In their body where there's pain, that sort of thing. And then, you know, we, we have to get the story out, redefine the story in some way. Yeah. And then let let that go, you know?

Melody: Exactly. And it's, it's

Laurin: remarkable what kinds of changes can happen even at a physical

Melody: level. Absolutely. I, I call that reframing.

Yeah. Because the facts don't change. Mm-hmm. Right. You still got cut off in traffic. Your colleagues still took their sandwich out of the fridge or whatever they did. Mm-hmm. The facts don't change, but your interpretation, the story around it can change. And that is, I find that freeing. Actually,

Laurin: yeah. It really is.

And my mother, well, both my [: 00:13:00

Over the years, I have heard the gripes, particularly from my mom's sisters, about their parents. And each one of them had a different experience and they sometimes they were sitting at the same dinner table.

Melody: Yes. You know?

Laurin: Mm-hmm. And it's something that I've seen their, their studies that everybody's experience in a family is, is personal.

Yes. You know, you're always the star of your own story. And and so it's, that's, that's perspective in, in, you know, in action really. When you look at, yes. A family group or friend group or whatever and there's something happens and everybody has their own interpretation of it. I used to get told, I was telling stories the wrong way and I finally realized it's cuz like, no, that was the way I experienced it.

Yes, you experienced it differently, you remember it a little differently. But this was my experience.

owing up people tell stories [: 00:14:00

Growing up. We are often, and, and I'm not saying because of bad parenting, it could be, could be good parenting, but we're often, as children growing up, we're just told. And so when you're all sitting at the same table and you're all interpreting it differently, sometimes you aren't even putting yourself as the star, as the main character.

Mm-hmm. Sometimes in your family, you've been. Kind of. Set up to be a certain person or to be a certain way, or to be, you know, you are shy. You were shy. Mm-hmm. You were such a shy child. But what if that wasn't true? What if you weren't shy? You were just introverted and you wanted to observe bef you weren't shy at all.

se times I wasn't shy. Yeah. [: 00:15:00

Laurin: Very, yeah. Yeah. Very different. Story is so powerful. It's Obviously I love stories.

Melody: Yes, yes.

Laurin: The next step is, okay, so how do we create a path to more empowering stories for ourselves? We talked a little bit about perspective, but put that into perspective for us.

Melody: Yeah. Let's give you some, let's give some steps. Mm-hmm. I think the very first thing is to get the story out. And I think, you know, if we're talking about past hurts, past harms you know, past toxic relationships or whatever it is, What we need to do is get the story out and allow for emotions. So this is something my, my mother gave me this best advice if I were sad or if I were this or however I felt.

sad. I mean, it sounds odd, [: 00:16:00

Sit on the sofa, cry your eyes out, dig right into it, and let it move through you. And out, because what we often do when we are telling these stories, we, you know, oh, I shouldn't be angry, or I shouldn't be sad, or I shouldn't be this, and then we don't allow for the emotions. Mm-hmm. The very first thing is we get the story out and we allow for the emotions.

They don't have to be the right emotions. They don't have to be. If, if something made you sad and everyone's saying, why you sad? Forget them for a moment. Feel sad. Yeah. Allow that to move through your body. This is really important. Mm-hmm. And then the remove judgment piece. Right. Remove judgment. And what I like to say is, have mercy, right?

erson did that. Here's a few [: 00:17:00

We remove the judgment, we get curious. We go from punishment to mercy. Mm. Right. You know, instead of being angry and this person deserves that we, we allow for mercy. And then once we get there, we can start looking for understanding. And lessons. Mm-hmm. Wisdom, ways to move forward. Now, I, I said that like really, really quickly.

And then once we're, we find ways to, you know, we're looking at the lessons and the wisdom. Now we can create a new story. Mm-hmm. And we can not only reframe the story, we can choose new language. Yes, we can choose new vocabulary to express what's going on as well. So that, that was really fast. I'm happy to dig into those points if you want.

Yeah, no, no, I, I,

ed in the, in the past when, [: 00:18:00

Yeah. And it's a lesson I learned. I, God, I had so many stories I told myself about my family and my parents and my relationship with my parents. And it wasn't until very near the end of my mother's life that I finally gave up being a victim of my own story.

Melody: Yes.

Laurin: And change the perspective. That she did the best she could.

She wasn't the mom I wanted or needed, but she did the best she could. Yes. And, and what I can gift her with is a, a is a, you know, a graceful exit from this life. Yes. And and it really, it was just a couple of months before she died that I got to that point. And this was in my late fifties. Yes. Yeah. But changing that story, just changing my perspective, that I'm not a victim.

be the , strong person I am [: 00:19:00

Melody: Yes. You know?

Laurin: Yeah. So mercy for both of us. Yeah.

Melody: I think that's where the ala the emotions come in. Because we, you know, you, you're feeling victim and you might be playing victim, and yet the world's telling you victim is wrong. But what if, what if you got to, you know, find somewhere safe and lick your wounds and actually like live that victimhood?

, and really dig into it and [: 00:20:00

So that we can move through it, right. So that it can pass on, pass, pass by. Right. And I think a lot of, and I don't think what you're saying is it's very common. We hold onto this and then it's not until we have like three months left and we're like, oh, I better sort out my relationship. Exactly. Because you've not, because we don't have permission to, to feel all these things, and I think that's something we need to change in our society.

It's like, you know, somebody says, oh my mom, this, this. It's like, wow, you know, I can see how you really feel like a victim of your mother. Why don't we explore that? Mm-hmm. Instead of don't, you know? You know? Yeah. It's just allowing for that makes a huge difference I think. Yeah.

Laurin: Yeah, it does.

from the, you know, the guy [: 00:21:00

And if you can do that with your own self and then also do it with, for me, it was primarily my mother. Yeah. What a gift and how healing. Oh my God, yes. For both of us, we, we ended up having a really beautiful, I mean, she had dementia, so she didn't really know consciously what was going on, but she softened, I softened, we were able to really, you know, have a, have a period of time that was very peaceful between, and it was, you know, yeah.

That was wonderful for

Melody: both of us. And I think we can look, and I know that I've done this, we can look back on our life and say, okay, I get why I did that at that point in my life. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'm not saying it was a good idea, you know, it didn't serve me Right. But I, why they, so I had, I, I come, I come from a very challenging Family.

of acting out as a teenager. [: 00:22:00

And I, now I look back and I'm like, yeah, okay, melody, that didn't serve you, but here's the thing. You were protecting yourself. Mm-hmm. Because you came from an unsafe house. Yeah. Where you had to protect yourself everywhere you went. And although other people didn't understand the background to know that that's what you were doing and you came across as a child who was unruly mm-hmm.

and I was still that person [: 00:23:00

Laurin: Yes. Yes. That's why we get to grow and change and learn and Yeah,

Melody: and reframe stories. Exactly. Exactly. But I want to accept who I was without judgment. Yeah.

Laurin: Yeah. I mean, it's, I, I had, I did things in my, you know, teens and twenties that I. I look back and go, that was really pretty stupid. What was I thinking?

Oh, I wasn't thinking, I wasn't totally hormone driven at that point, or free of parents or, you know, whatever it was. You know, you look back and you go, okay, I survived that. I, you know, I wouldn't do it again, but I learned something from it. I learned that. I don't wanna drink that much in one night.

I

Melody: know better now.

of, of your message I think [: 00:24:00

You can choose. Not to live that story anymore. You're not stuck in it, you're not a victim of it. You can choose to say thank you very much. Yeah, serve me in the, in that moment, but I'm gonna choose something different this time.

, I think we really don't get that permission to change our story , from other people. Yeah. I was the quiet good girl. I was the anxious pleaser, you know? Yeah. It's like, well, sometimes I like to be the pain in the ass, you know? Yeah.

That's gonna bring us to, to the next thing that, that we were gonna talk about, and that is how writing your story empowers yourself and others, because I think we both agree that getting words on paper or on screens is, Transformational.

Melody: It is, absolutely. And I think that if you are writing your story, you wanna first do it for the healing.

Right. So a [: 00:25:00

Go ahead, do it all. Get it out, allow it, and then explore it. Allow it. Go through that healing place. Because what we're not publishing are, are victim stories, right? Mm-hmm. It's actually not what we're publishing. What we want, what readers want, they want you, they want the reflection on the story. Mm-hmm.

They want the wisdom learned from the story. Right. They want, they want to see your path and for you to show them the path you took to come away from , the world's against Me Stories. Mm-hmm. They wanna know how you moved away from that. So the first time you write anything, I always tell people, write it for yourself.

rself. Don't show it to your [: 00:26:00

No. It's an ongoing thing, but Yes. But, but you're feeling that you're coming from a stronger place. A place where there's more wisdom. Then you can say, if you wanna publish, then you can say, all right, is there a story in here where I can bring that wisdom to readers? Show them a path that they could take so they could get there faster?

Mm-hmm. So they feel connected. They don't feel alone. They see a path forward and they can use that to, to to move forward. As an example, and this might sound crazy, but when I was a teenager, I started reading memoirs of Holocaust victims and I was, I, I thought, okay, if you can survive the Holocaust, I can survive what I've survived.

[: 00:27:00

Where do they get the, the mercy, like many of the people weren't even angry. Mm-hmm. It's like, where do you, where do you find, and I don't, I, I don't think they all forgave. I. Mm-hmm. So forgiving and having mercy and trying to understand a person's behavior of different things. Okay. Yeah. And so some of them forgave, some of them didn't forgive, but they, but they moved past it and they had some form of, I'm gonna call Mercy mm-hmm.

if you're gonna write it for [: 00:28:00

I was lost. , I was in rough shape at one point, and those really helped me. And so that's what that, that's the difference between writing for yourself to heal writing for your family is family me memories and writing for publishing for readers. Mm-hmm. And helping the world move forward through

Laurin: your story.

Yeah. Yeah, it's, you know, I come from the fiction angle on that and yes, one of the things I loved about fiction is I got to be in, I got to be somebody else. When I was reading them as a kid, I was very anxious for a long time. It was Nancy Drew. Yes. I was solving the mysteries, you know, I had the cute boyfriend and the cousins, you know?

a different, Form of problem [: 00:29:00

It gives you that view of another way.

Melody: Yeah. Yeah. I like what you've said, Laurin, because it isn't just non-fiction memoirs. Mm-hmm. Fiction plays an incredibly important role in building our empathy muscle, our compassion muscle Yes. Our, our problem solving. Right. So you're, you're absolutely right. Fiction plays a huge role in that.

It's not just non-fiction.

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah. And, and I was not much of a non-fiction reader. I am, I'm much more now, but I'm, it's cuz I'm learning so much stuff right now. So, but I still, I still love, I read, I read every night before I go to bed and, and I love fiction at that point. I want, I wanna be somebody else's story at that point, but Yes.

f, that just to get it down. [: 00:30:00

Yeah, yeah. Okay. It's getting it out of yourself, you know, you talked about getting the story out of you, that's literally getting it out and onto paper, and for me, that creates a distance. From the story, a physical distance. And it also allows me to do things like print it out and burn it if I want to.

Yes. So it's very cathartic. I don't do that very often, but there've been a few, a few pages from those journals that were like, you're going up in the smoke. Yep. So it's, it's just the act of getting it out of your body. Is a huge step towards healing that story.

Melody: Yeah, exactly. And you don't have to journal every day.

ournaler if you only journal [: 00:31:00

Laurin: Yeah. One of, one of the places where I can see growth in my own journey to to healing is that I used to have to journal because I didn't know what I thought or what I felt until I saw it on the paper. Yeah. I just, I hadn't, I didn't, I don't know why, but I couldn't, I couldn't figure it out. Yeah. I was a wash in it, but getting it on paper, I could see it and I don't have to use it that way anymore, you know?

Yeah. I have other tools now, but it's such a powerful thing.

Melody: I feel that's a bit of a coming, coming of age experience. Mm-hmm. Right. To need to write things down in order to understand them, in order to understand your values and, and your perspective in the world. Mm-hmm. I think that's a very common coming of age skill and or yeah.

think it's a skill as well. [: 00:32:00

Laurin: could be right. Yeah. Yeah. And that's always when I was using it is when I was going through those, those periods of time where you're rein trying to re figure out yourself out, who am I now?

You know? So. Exactly. Well, this has been a fabulous conversation. Yes. I always love talking writing and I don't get to do that very much anymore. Tell us where you can be found. Absolutely. And tell us a little bit about what you do cause we really haven't talked about what you do.

Melody: Sure, sure.

So I'm the founder of Author Nation. Author Nation is a community-based publishing solution for non-fiction authors. So we we help people develop a roadmap to go from idea to published, and then because it's community-based, come into the community, we have writing sessions and lots of events and, you know, places to write.

community. If you'd like to [: 00:33:00

All right.

Laurin: Good. Good. All right. I have one last question for

Melody: you. Sure. What

Laurin: book fiction, nonfiction, essay, poetry, whatever, made a big impact on you.

Melody: Okay. You know, because we've been talking about mercy. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna suggest the book, just Mercy. Hmm. And it's by Brian Stevenson. So he was a law student and he he was doing a, an internship or article in somewhere, and he was sent to a prison to tell this man who was, you know, Never gonna get out that his lawyer couldn't come see him that day.

to tell this man. And he sat [: 00:34:00

Mm-hmm. And the man was incredibly grateful and he thought, well, wait a minute. So he became, So he, he's an American lawyer. He works in, in like an innocence. He does innocent projects. Mm-hmm. And he wrote a book called Just Mercy A Story of Justice and Redemption. And what he says is the people who deserve mercy are the people who you think deserve it the least.

place. Mm-hmm. And it, he's, [: 00:35:00

Yeah.

Laurin: Okay. Excellent. Thank you so much for that. You're welcome. Great. And thank you for being here with us today. I wanna thank the listeners for being here with us. And I hope that you'll return for another episode of Curiously Wise. Will we drop a new episode every Tuesday and in the meantime, stay curious.

Thank you so much for joining us today on curiously wise If you enjoyed this episode, Please be sure to subscribe. So you don't miss future fabulous conversations. And if you had any ahas, please share them in a review on apple podcasts so we can continue to pay forward the unique wisdom we all have. If you want to know more about me or my intuitive energy healing practice Heartlight wellness.

lightjoy.com. Curiously wise [: 00:36:00

I'm Laurin Wittig. Please join me again next week. For another episode of curiously wise, eyes from my heart to yours, may your life be filled with love, light joy, and of course, curiosity.