How To Engage Another Person’s Story

A Virtual Conference Presented by Cathy Loerzel and Adam Young

You’ve experienced some freedom from engaging your own story. And now you want to help others engage their stories.

Most people feel like they don’t know how to engage another person’s story well. They feel inadequate, inept, clumsy, overwhelmed, and/or they don’t know what to say and what not to say.

Join me and Cathy Loerzel, co-author of Redeeming Heartache and co-founder of The Allender Center, to learn the art and some of the science behind story work.

It’s one thing to engage your own story; it’s quite another to skillfully and helpfully engage another person’s story.

Cathy and I understand through experience what it’s like to feel clueless about engaging another person’s story.

The good news is that engaging another person’s story is a skill that can be learned. To that end, we have put together a virtual conference that will teach you the principles and tactics of effective story engagement—in other words, how to do it.

Cathy-2020-16-scaled-e1605727321581-700x700

8000387F-AF1A-45D3-A7F7-899739769205_1_201_a

Saturday, February 19, 2022
8 to 3:30 PST | 9 to 4:30 MST
10 to 5:30 CST | 11 to 6:30 EST

If you can’t make it on February 19, a video recording of the conference will be available for two months.

What you’ll learn:

Story Theory 101
How to apply the core principles of story engagement — e.g., attunement, kindness, using the instrument of your body, monitoring the storyteller’s affect, repairing ruptures, and more.
How to apply the core tactics of story engagement — e.g., exploring the trauma before the trauma; identifying triangulation; naming abandonment, betrayal, powerlessness, ambivalence; amplifying shame; engaging complicity; identifying curses, agreements, and vows; and more.
During the conference, Adam will read one of his stories and Cathy will engage his story live, followed by a debrief time during which we talk about why Cathy did what she did. Next, Adam and Cathy will swap roles and repeat the process. These two “live sessions” are designed to help you understand how the teaching content plays out in real life story engagements.

Cost: $129

This conference is designed for people who want to learn how to engage another person’s story. The other person might be a family member, friend, co-worker, or client. Engaging someone’s story is part art and part science. It can be learned! It is not a magical ability that some people have and some people don’t.

There are certain principles that apply—principles that can be learned—that’s the science part. And then there are techniques that need to be caught by watching others do it—that’s the art part. In this conference, we will teach the principles and techniques of effective story engagement.