Welcome back to the place we find ourselves podcast. I'm Adam Young and today I want to talk about

exploring your cultural or collective story. Let me start here. The fundamental premise of all story

work is that your past story continues to affect your present day-to-day life.

And it's important to understand that this is just as true for your collective story

as it is for your individual story.

Your present day-to-day life is deeply affected by the past story of the collective to which you belong.

Okay, so that's the premise.

Now, what do I mean by your collective or your cultural story?

Well, most people belong to more than one collective.

For example, if you are Korean-American, you have at least three

collective stories at play inside of you. The story of what it means to be Korean, the story of what

it means to be American, and the story of what it means to be Korean-. All three of these cultural stories deeply affect the way your brain takes in the world if you are a Korean American.

Engaging your story, exploring your story means learning something about how each of these collective stories has shaped you.

So, I am a white American.

I can engage my family of origin story deeply, and I have, and I continue to, but, but if I don't

explore what it means to be a white American, there is a ceiling on how much freedom and growth I will experience as a human being.

When I say, which I often do, that the past isn't dead, I am not merely referring to your individual past.

I am referring to that, but I'm referring to more than that.

I'm also referring to the cultural narratives that you were born into.

Now, the sociological term for this is social location.

You were born into a very particular social location. Social location. You were born into a very particular social location. Social location is fundamentally,

in my opinion, about belongingness. Belongingness. As you grow up in the world, you begin to learn

...