navigating our stories
narrative therapy, community care, collective action
Our stories, ourselves.
What are your skills, values, and insider knowledges?
How have you stayed connected to your own strong stories?
Our stories shape how we see ourselves and the world around us, and can connect us to our own actions and choices in responding to the problems in our lives.
Narrative therapy is all about our stories – the ones we tell ourselves, and the ones we’ve been told; the ones we tell about other people, and the ones they tell about us. It’s about understanding where those stories come from, who they serve, and deciding whether we still want to give those stories weight in our lives. And it’s about reauthoring our stories, and strengthening our connections to legacies and histories of responding to hardship with skill and resilience.
A narrative conversation, either in a group setting or individually, can help us tell our stories in ways that honour our skills, values, knowledges and actions. For many marginalized communities, these skills, values, insider knowledges, and actions have been devalued and dismissed.
You already are the protagonist and the narrator of your own story, the expert in your own experience – nobody can give you that power, and nobody can take it away. But sometimes we lose connection to our deep self-storying abilities, and narrative therapy can help us get back in touch with that knowledge.
Coaching
In 2018, I completed the Master of Narrative Therapy and Community Work degree at the Dulwich Centre and the University of Melbourne, and I am excited to offer narrative therapy to people in Calgary and online. We can work together one-on-one, or in a group setting. My facilitation style is collaborative and flexible – we can co-create a plan that will help you navigate, understand, and re-author your story in a way that feels right for you.
Self-Care Resources
Are you looking for immediate and accessible help? You’ll find resources here. This category will be growing over the next year as I complete projects. These free resources are made possible by my patrons on Patreon and I appreciate it so much.
Writing in the Margins Workshops
Writing in the Margins has been on hiatus while I completed my Master of Narrative Therapy and Community Work degree at the Dulwich Centre and the University of Melbourne. Now that I’ve completed this degree, watch this space for a new writing group launching in September, 2019!
Editing
Have you written something amazing? I can edit your fiction, creative non-fiction, academic paper, dissertation, or book. I bring a gentle and insightful editing voice, and a keen eye for detail. I read for grammar and style, of course, but what I’m best at is reading for intersectionality, accessibility, and queer and feminist politics.
Sostar Self Care on Facebook
A friend reminded me that today is Trans Day of Visibility.
We’re super visible these days! Under the microscope of so many people who hate us.
It has been a long, scary bunch of years for trans folks (*especially* racialized trans folks).
If you check in with your trans friends and family, I think you’ll find a lot of us are having a real hard time when we look out at the world.
The Letters of Support for the Trans Community zine went up four years ago. I reread it earlier this week (a friend was sharing it around to their community in the wake of terfs teaming up with fascists for protests across Australia). I’m really proud of this project, and it’s still all true and even more needed now than it was then.
You can download the zine here.
I am slowly crawling back into organizing projects, and the first one I’m working on is about why it matters that we avoid misgendering and be in solidarity with trans folks. If you want to participate, let me know.
Letters of Support for the Trans Community Vol 1 » Tiffany Sostar
tiffanysostar.com
The Letters of Support for the Trans Community project has been running since October, and now we have the first volume of the zine complete! This volume includes letters from across Canada and Austra...A Year of Stories is fully online, and finding creative ways to build a sense of community and connection is important.
For this course, all of our social chats and facilitated writing groups will happen in Gather, which means that course participants can hang out in the space even when I'm not there to facilitate. Unlike Zoom, it's an always-available virtual social space. And the space has lots of cool rooms to explore!
We also have a shared google doc where participants can share their writing and receive feedback from each other. The format for the feedback is based on the narrative therapy practice of 'outsider witnessing', and the goal is to respond to each other in acknowledging and honouring ways.
(Participants who want feedback on things like grammar, punctuation, and other 'editing' responses will get that directly and privately from me, so that our collective work together doesn't recreate the hurt that so many of us have experienced in critical responses to our creative work! I've worked as a professional editor for over a decade.)
The course officially begins with this Saturday's new moon, and we'll be meeting in the Gather for a little launch party and social hour at 2:30 pm mountain time.
You can register here - tiffany-sostar.thinkific.com/courses/a-year-of-stories
February can be a hard month for folks who have had a romantic relationship end.
The Next Chapter is a four-week narrative therapy group designed for folks who are figuring out what comes next after a major relationship upheaval.
Space is limited to 6 participants, and all meetings will be held on Zoom, Saturdays from 10:30-12 pm Mountain Time. This is a queer, trans, disability, and polyamory welcoming group.
The cost is $160 ($40 per 90-minute session).
Email or message me to register or ask any questions.
Image is an orange typewriter on a green background. Crumpled pages are beside the typewriter. The page in the typewriter says The Next Chapter. Text beside says:
A narrative therapy group for after a relationship ends
Saturdays in February
10:30-noon Mountain Time
$160
Register by email - sostarselfcare @ gmail
Know your stories, know yourself.
