Finding a way out and how to stay out

This part of the story is about finding, making and using tools. Once the tools are available and in use, the hero can survive her future.

The princess picked up the silver spoon and began to dig. She dug a stairway all along the edge of the hole. Step by step she dug out ledges and little outcroppings and shelves until she was most of the way up and out of the hole. Then she found herself surrounded by her shredded dresses hanging from the roots of the hearth. When she looked through the mirror at the threads of her shredded dresses, she saw the truth of what they could become.

She began to weave the cloth. It was hung to the walls of the hole all the around in a circle. She wove a garment hooded and flowing. It sparkled with the gold and silver thread. The princess wove protection into the weave and weft of this cape. The cape became a shield against all encroaching deceptions. The princess learned to block unhealthy attacks using the cape. Of course she first had to learn, as we all do, how to block unhealthy attacks from her own mind. This learning made the cape stronger and more protective.

When the princess finally got to the top of hole and back into the kingdom, she was able to use the mirror and see people for what they truly were no matter what kind of spell they had cast. She used her cape to fend off unhealthy attacks. The prince found his wife and the princess found her children, and they were able to be a family again.

Some tools come from friends and mentors and some come from the strengths of the past and some need to be created in the present moment in order to fill a persons protective needs.

The Mentor

Now we go back to the hero and her experience.

The princess bounced off the edges of the hole. From root to rock she rolled and fell. Finally she landed at the bottom of the hole. It was deep and dark and it felt like time itself had stopped in the slow stagnant place. The princess was so surprised, se didn’t even know for certain where she was. Se wandered around the small circle that was the bottom of the hole. Eventually she cried. Se cried for a long time.

Now came a time of struggle. The prince lost his wife and the children lost their mother. The prince held onto the children though it all.

This story introduces a new character. This fellow is common in traditional stories. He is the wise old man or the mentor. This character can of course be a woman. I just decided on a man. The mentor provides wisdom and gives gifts.

Their came a time at the bottom of that hole when the princess could see a warm red glow begin to form in the center of the hole. As her eyes adjusted and the fire grew larger, she saw that a dwarf was tending the fire.

The dwarf spoke to her, “Pick up all those pieces of mirror and bring them to me.” The dwarf said. So she picked up every scrap of that mirror. Each scrap was easy to see because they were reflecting the fire. The dwarf took the shards of glass and put them all into the fire. He wove a spell and with the magic of the deep earth, the dwarf pulled from the fire a mirror like no other she had even seen. This mirror was silver on the edges and had a silver handle but the glass itself was as clear as the truth. When the princess looked through the glass at the dwarf, she did not see an ugly little man, she saw who he really was in his heart. He was glowed with kindness and wisdom. Her heart was filled with gratitude. When she looked through the mirror at the walls of the hole, she saw the truth of what they could become.

The princess will find more gifts available to her and we will work on that part of the story next.

This story actually has two villains. They work as a pair but sometimes stories have a gang of villains and they are all the same character, or they can be a subset of the main villain. they are sometimes known as henchmen. As I said, this story has a pair of villains and this is how they disguise themselves to deceive the whole kingdom.

One day, a pair of jealous ogres came into the kingdom with a plan to make the princess miserable. The Ogres cast a spell on themselves. The spell changed the Ogres appearance so they looked like high officials from another land. They cast a spell on their voices so that everything the people heard them say would be accepted unconditionally. They came to the kingdom and told lies. They knew the most important part of the princess’s life was the children. They wove tales of the terrible disservice being done to the children. They must be rescued from the princess who was endangering them by imposing a false reality on them. They told the princess she was irresponsible and out of touch with her pretty clothes and silver spoons. The ogres sang a compelling tune and soon enough they were even able to push the princess into a deep dark hole.

Then we find out the true nature of their jealousy as they rub in their meanness.

She was still falling when they said laughing, “Take your silver spoon with you!” A shiny silver spoon fell into the hole after her.

Then she heard the shatter of glass as sparkling chips of mirror glittered and landed around her head. She could see glimpses of her anguish in the broken mirrors fallen reflections.

“Look in this mirror. This hole is a reflection of your self-loathing. Everything is your fault.” They were weaving a spell in her mind. The Ogres went into her closet and took out all the beautiful dresses that the princess was given when she was a child. The Ogres threw the dresses down into the hole. The gold and silver dressed were ripped apart by the roots and rocks that stuck out along the sides of the hole. The dresses became like webbing and strips of thread draping down the sides of the hole.

The Ogres, well satisfied, went away saying the princess had given her power away and jumped into the hole all by herself. The spell they cast on their voices worked so well that everyone in the kingdom believed that the princess was responsible for all that had happened.

When you write your story, you can realize that the bad stuff that happens is the key to pulling oneself out of the problem. The princess will gather her tools about her in the next installment.

The princess and the deep dark hole

This story uses a fairy tale theme more like Grimms fairy tales than the last one. Here is another way to describe the hero.

Once upon a time there was a little princess. She was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. She had everything she could ever want and many things that she didn’t think of wanting were given to her. Her home was full of warm comforting belongings and her closets were full of beautiful gold and silver dresses. She was always respected and spoken to with kindness. She could feel the love of the people around her every day. Every word she ever heard was a kind truth. She didn’t know this was unusual. She thought everyone lived this way.

The day came when she had to leave home. It was time to go away and learn more about the world. So she was sent off to marry the prince of another kingdom. His father the king lived far away and he did not have as large a kingdom as the girl was used to living in, but she adjusted to the country and had three children.

This kind of idealic life is often the norm for a hero who has no problems until and antagonist enters the fray. It matches one of our oldest stories about the garden of Eden. All is well until the snake comes along and begins to play mind games.

Next I will tell about the villain in this story.

Using tools to overcome struggle

Now, in order to move the story forward, the hero must access her strengths. Tools must be developed to overcome the struggle of the situation. This is how Bear built her tools, she built them from her friendships. In the case of Bear, her strengths were her friends and the trust she had in them. She let them be the tools of her healing but also used tools to become rid of the negativity. These are tools like burying unhelpful thoughts. She learned to be observant and catch negativity and destroy it before it became a problem.

Bear lost trust for any of her friends because, after all, Coyote was very clear in explaining what everyone thought of her and her cubs. But Owl loved Bear beyond reason. He was dedicated to her and was infinitely patient. Bear had so much respect for Owl that she decided, of Owl could find nothing to hate in her then perhaps she was being unfair to herself and needed some perspective.

Bear asked Butterfly for help. Woodpecker also wanted to help. Bear found that may of the animals wanted to help her.

Butterfly danced up and down and used her wings to fan Bear into a deep sleep. Woodpecker dug down with her beak into Bears womb and carefully pulled out each shard and Rabbit ran away with each shard and buried them deep in the earth where they could be cleansed. Woodpecker dug the shards out of Bears mind, carefully twisting each one out. Rabbit ran with them and threw them into the river where they were washed away by the flowing waters. Torment and anguish would never get stuck in Bears brain again.

Owl searched and finally found Bears heart under the bush. He gently removed each shard from her heart and placed the heart back inside her chest. It was Porcupine who stitched up the wounds so that they would heal.

When Bear woke up, the pain was gone but the memory of pain was still grievous. She had lived without a heart. The guilt she felt from her heartless words and actions are a misery to live with even after the heart has been healed. Cubs take a long time to mend from living in this pain. The pain is deep but the cubs are resilient. They might travel trails that the wounded tend to follow. Bear works every day asking the forest to guide them on safe paths.

The animals worked with Bear to teach her how to catch shards and fling them away instead of taking them all in to herself. She learned not to take things personally. She grabbed any shards sent her way and buried them under the ground or tossed them into the water. She would sometimes throw them into the fire and watch their negativity burn away. She learned a new truth. Sometimes shards don’t hit you right away, they sulk in the corner and hitch a ride with other shards flung later.

She learned that animals that fling shards have not been able to walk in another’s shoes because walking in another’s shoes is the beginning of understanding.

She learned to see the quality of people and to know that condemners condemn and criticizers criticize. That is just what they do. She learned to grab shards with both hands, look at them and name them and let them go.

This is how Bear lives now.

Next we may work on another story with a more fairy tail like theme instead of a native American theme.

The struggle in the story

Bear did not deal well. Her nurturing self felt decimated and the frightened little girl that lives inside most of us took over. It can be very difficult to look at the struggles that come out in our story. They are not very pretty but the point of facing them in the story is to see them from the outside and not be mired in the pain that is living on the inside. Then you can hear your own story.

One of the key points of restoring your story is naming your struggle so that you can see it for what it is.

At first it was so sudden that she felt nothing. She was mesmerized. She was in shock. Bear looked within searching for each shard. Each shard screamed that she had disappointed everyone. She found one shard that said her children fight and remembered a time a couple of weeks back when they did have a fight. It was over a pinecone that was lying in the meadow. Who was there that day? Could some of those animals be the ones Coyote said talk about how bad my cubs are? She looked at the cubs. One had a stick and another came and snatched the stick away.

“It’s true!” she said, “my cubs fight all the time and no one likes me because they are so terrible.” So the shard wriggled its way deeper and deeper under her skin and began to fester. She felt terrible and screamed at the cubs to get into the cave but they were playing didn’t want to go inside until they finished their game.

“It’s true!” She cried, “ They wont do anything that I tell them to do and all the other animals think I’m reprehensible. I will not have it! I’ll make them do what I say right now!” So she went and screamed at them. The words from the shards came right out of her mouth and were filled with hate toward her cubs. But she was more filled with hate for herself since the shards had mesmerized her into believing that she created little monsters. She was separated form the truth. The truth was that they were just healthy normal cubs.

The truth was that Coyote was generally unhappy with himself. Bear could lot see the truth because the shards cut so deeply into her.

“No one likes my cubs and they are going to end up in a cage.” She thought, “They would be better off without me. It is my great shame that I birthed them. If I could just leave now, they will be better off.”

Of course Bear couldn’t actually leave her cubs because if she left them, they would starve. So, Bear stayed and her heart left instead. Her heart was filled with sharp pointed flint and it crawled out of her chest and then went into hiding under a bush. Bear was quite sick without her heart. She never had a kind word for her cubs and she began to hate foraging for food for them. Speaking to them was a chore. They were the symbol of her failure. Of course this behavior only made things worse and worse. The cubs became filled with self-doubt and anger. The other animals began to stay away. No one could stand to be close to any of them.

Bear noticed more shards in her every day. Coyote had flung them into more places than her heart. She looked into her womb and saw more shards of her failure festering. She felt disconnected from her ancestors. Instead of settling into the wisdom of the crone, her womb shut down and died deep inside her. In Bears mind and thoughts, the shards twisted and turned her into a frightened embarrassed child who was afraid of everyone because they all knew what a bad mother she was.

When, Bear saw Coyote walking in the woods, she would begin shaking. Her breath became wild and erratic. She couldn’t speak or run. She was paralyzed with fear.

Telling your story provides you with a chance to be heard. Everyone needs to feel heard. This is why people yell. They don't feel heard. Writing your story and using traditional tales as a template provides a platform for being heard like so many tales in the past have been heard.

Next we will look at how Bear finds her way out of this situation and becomes restored.

The Villain acts on the Hero

This part of the story is very difficult for the teller to describe, but it is where healing begins!

If you are telling your story, this is about telling when the damage is done. This is where your heart felt the injustice. Give yourself some time to feel and move through the event. Notice that you can learn to distance yourself from it and move forward with your life. This is when you get to rethink the event, but it is important to make the story tell the tale in fantastic way that allows you to have some distance from the pain of this experience. Give yourself the gift of metaphor. With a metaphor, you can know what you are talking about without reliving the experience.

Bear was sitting on a rock scratching and resting and watching her cubs play in the sun. The cubs were romping in the field near by.

Coyote slinked by and began to chide Bear. “ Your children are awful!” he said. “ Look at them! They have serious behavior problems. They are big and loud and disruptive. You don’t control them and they are going to get into the wrong places and get stuck in a zoo. This is all because you don’t do right by them. You see them through rosy glasses. It is time for you to take them off. Take them off for the sake of your cubs!” Coyote was just getting started and the flint started flying everywhere. His paws were full of flint and Coyote was in a roll. “Your children are so wild that they can’t learn anything about how to get along in the world. You haven’t made them learn the important stuff and they fight with each other. In fact, I talked to all the other animals and they all told me that they believe you have completely unacceptable child rearing practices.”

Flint flew everywhere!

“The other animals are not as honest and truthful as I am but they are all thinking the same thing. I am filled with courage and they are not courageous enough to tell you the truth. You need to understand that I am your only true friend. As your only true friend, this is an awesome responsibility. I am the only one who will speak the truth to you.” Flint flew everywhere.

Bear was a big target and since she needed to stay close to her cubs, she couldn’t run away and anyway, she didn’t want to hurt Coyotes feelings. The whole situation was confusing because words and shards were so unconnected and bewildering. The shards hit her painfully. This weird ordeal happened fast.

Next we will look at how Bear dealt with the trauma.