Entheos Academy - How to Create a Beautiful Practice: The Power of Story

In this class, we’ll explore the power of story and turn our attention to our language, and the way that we explain our lives and the world. This is where we can truly make a difference.

Your Professor
Frank Forencich is an internationally-recognized leader in health education and performance training. Frank has over 30 years teaching experience in martial art, performance and health education.

How to Create a Beautiful Practice: The Power of Story
As we drop deeper into our beautiful practice, we find ourselves returning over and over to the narratives that we use to describe and shape our experience. In this class, we’ll explore the power of story and turn our attention to our language and the way that we explain our lives and the world. Story is so embedded in our experience that it’s often invisible, but this is where we can truly make a difference.

Stories follow the same training principles that we use in every other system of the body and the human experience. In other words, stories are “muscular.” Each telling is a rep. With repeated tellings, each stories becomes more powerful in our experience, leading the way for our observations, expectations, attitudes and behavior. Once we understand the true depth and power of narrative in our lives, we become a lot more mindful of the stories that we tell and listen to.
The Top 10 Big Ideas

1
Stories Are Ancient
Story began in the body, with non-verbal gestures and dance. The impulse to tell stories is probably more than a million years old, probably arising around the time of the first stone tools and the mastery of fire.
2
Stories Are More Than Entertainment
We love stories, not simply because they capture our attention and delight us, but because the bring meaning to the human experience.
3
Stories Shape Bodies
Stories have a distinct effect on the flow of informational substances in our bodies. In turn, these substances direct metabolism, guide behavior and modulate healing. Placebos and nocebos are the most obvious examples.
4
Stories Are Reps
Every telling of a story activates a particular circuitry in the brain. Each additional rep etches deeper grooves in our neural landscape, leading the way for future observations, expectations and behaviors.
5
Stories Guide Attention
Stories tell us what to look at. They direct our minds to certain features of the world and in the process, shape everything we do with our minds and bodies.
6
Stories Are Contagious
Stories are catching. Memes are just as contagious as viruses. We spread them continuously, often unconsciously.
7
Focus on Human Universals
The best stories are about the primal human experience of being alive in a mysterious, temporary world. No matter our culture or origins, we all grapple with timeless themes of survival, attachment, love, death and the search for meaning.
8
Escape the Drama Triangle
Typical story lines frequently turn on the positions of victim, persecutor and rescuer. These narratives often go nowhere. The best and most inspirational stories show us how the protagonist transcends his victim orientation into creativity.
9
Tell a New Story
Stories can be habits. In this respect, we can get stuck with the same repertoire. “Looming Planetary Catastrophe” is popular, but not very useful. The new growth narratives are much more inspiring!
10
Speak Mindfully
Stories have consequences!

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