LoveReading Says
I came across ‘Rewriting Our Stories’ by Dr Derek Gladwin at the perfect time. This is a well-written and clearly structured book that forms a part of the MindYourSelf book series - a series created with the intention of providing clear, peer reviewed information from frontline professionals that, although not a replacement for personalised medical advice from your doctors, can help us to take better care of ourselves. Very clear and broken up into easy to follow chapters, ‘Rewriting Our Stories’ focuses on how we use storytelling in our everyday lives to form narratives about ourselves and the world around us. These narratives are formed by our experiences and shape the way we feel and think. Taking us gradually through why we tell stories to how to change the negative things we say and think about ourselves, Dr Derek Gladwin provides information and practical advice on how to reframe these negative narratives into positive affirmations as well as changing our perceptions of the world around us. I personally found the ‘Thinking Too Much’, ‘Living Moment by Moment’ sections to be most helpful. I really enjoyed the layout of this book, the summarising bullet points and the reflection questions throughout let you ponder over recent topics, allowing you the time for greater insight of how internalised narratives affect your thinking before moving through the chapters to more practical tips on how to change the stories we tell ourselves. I also liked the concept, as a bookworm I felt at home with the analogy of internalised beliefs are stories we tell ourselves, and how to practice editing and rewriting these narratives. I personally struggle to remember to implement the advice in self help books but I feel that the author has hit on a really clear to understand perspective with ‘Rewriting Our Stories’, and one that I know I will remember and be able to reflect on and utilise in the future.
Charlotte Walker, A LoveReading Ambassador
LoveReading Ambassador
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Rewriting Our Stories: Education, empowerment, and well-being Synopsis
Rewriting Our Stories: Education, empowerment and well-being harnesses the therapeutic power of storytelling to convert feelings of fear and powerlessness into affirmative life narratives. Rather than seeing fear as an outcome, we can view it as a feeling in the moment largely governed by narratives. Many of our fears are stories we tell ourselves, even if they are largely fictional and rooted in sociocultural belief systems. The result is that we often feel helpless in the face of those fears. This transformational book considers a potent antidote: by recognising our recurring negative stories, we can rewrite and transform them to achieve greater empowerment and well-being in our lives. Storytelling is an antidote to fear. Throughout human existence, no matter where our place of origin or when in history, storytelling shapes our societies, influencing personal, sociocultural, educational, and public discourses that impact how we live. Creating and communicating the language of stories – to ourselves and others – enhances our innate voices and can empower us to engage in greater empathy, compassion, and possibility. Intended for educators, leaders, therapists, mental health professionals, change management, or youth organisations, as well as the general public, Derek Gladwin offers practical and positive tools for everyone to re-author their lives.
About This Edition
Press Reviews
'Narrative theory has inspired an exciting and effective array of professional practices over the years - in education, therapy, healthcare, organizational development and beyond. With clarity, wisdom, and care, Derek Gladwin now makes the riches of a narrative perspective available for the practice of everyday life. We should all be grateful.'- Kenneth Gergen, PhD, social psychologist, president of The Taos Institute, and author of An Invitation to Social Construction and Relational Being: Beyond Self and Community;'Dr. Gladwin has done a fabulous job at having us examine and heal our stories. Our stories create our prisons and we are the only ones who can free ourselves. In this easy to read, and interactive book, you will truly re-write your story. You will dive headfirst into a journey that will heal, open you up and change your life forever.' - Divi Chandna, MD, Director of the Center of Mind Body Spirit Medicine and author of You Don't Look Psychic: Your Essential Guide to Tapping into your Natural Powers;'We tell stories, but our stories also tell us, and in ways that we are usually completely unconscious or unaware of. Sometimes, moreover, we may not be served, much less saved, by these stories telling us. We might be held back, blinded, made afraid, even harmed and rendered sick and hateful. So why not change these stories? Why not just tell a different story to and as ourselves? This is the hopeful, practical, and fundamentally positive message of Derek Gladwin, a skilled translator and trustworthy guide through a mountain of technical research in psychology, literature, history, religion, and philosophy-in short, a storyteller of storytellers.' Jeffrey J. Kripal, PhD, J. Newton Rayzor Chair in philosophy and religious thought at Rice University and author of The Flip: Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of Knowledge; Derek Gladwin's Rewriting Our Stories is luminous and declarative about how we can actively shape our stories, and how they shape us. Gladwin writes in spare and lucid prose about how to foster deep and nuanced perceptions that cuts free of fear in order to live meaningfully. A deep love and respect for the transformative power of stories is at the heart of Rewriting Our Stories, an exploration about how our imaginations can provoke renewal.
- Lisa Moore, MFA, professor in creative writing at Memorial University Newfoundland and award-winning author of novels and short story collections such as February and Something for Everyone;'Based on the simple assumption that
words create worlds,
Rewriting Our Stories challenges readers to change their lives by changing their stories. It is full of ideas for how to transform stories of fear, failure, struggle and scarcity into stories and experiences of acceptance and gratitude. It is a book for students of all ages, for anyone wanting to understand how they keep themselves stuck in downward cycles of fear, and for everyone wishing to create a better life.'- Diana Whitney, PhD, co-founder of The Taos Institute, founder and director emeritus of the Corporation for Positive Change, and author of Appreciative Inquiry, Appreciative Leadership, and Thriving Women Thriving World;'Dr. Derek Gladwin has written a life-affirming guide to an internal revolution by revealing the power of stories to shape our imagination, relationships, and possible futures.' - Nisha Sajnani, PhD, director of the Drama Therapy Program at New York University
