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 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
Are you curious about what to expect in the Year of Stories course?
Here's a sneak peek at our January theme, 'Surviving and Affirming Life'.
From the course content:
We start with survival because in so many lives, the choice to survive despite obstacles is easy to dismiss. Many folks feel that celebrating survival is too low a bar, that surviving is not enough, that we want more than just survival.
I want to validate this desire for more than just survival. And we will!
And also, I want to celebrate our acts of survival. Too often, these acts of surviving are dismissed, diminished, seen as invalid because we are 'supposed' to be in 'abundance' or we are 'supposed' to be 'thriving.' I reject these expectations. Surviving is enough. It is a miracle. It is a choice.
If the only thing you did this year was breathe, drink a bit of water, and eat a bit of food... still. You did that. You made that choice to stay in this life. You survived.
That is worth celebrating.
***
A Year of Stories officially begins with the first new moon of 2023, on January 21. Each new moon in 2023 will bring a new theme, with prompts designed to help you tell your own stories, or to tell the stories of someone you love. (If you are celebrating the life of a loved one, we start with affirming their life, the values that they held close during their life, and the choices and actions that kept them connected to these values.)
There is a social chat scheduled along with each new moon, and a facilitated writing group scheduled on a weekend mid-way through each theme. Both are optional, and we have an asynchronous social space in Gather for casual chats and staying in touch.
A Year of Stories costs $25/month, with sliding scale available.
tiffany-sostar.thinkific.com/courses/a-year-of-stories
Know your stories, know yourself.
