Segment 9 in our series Soul Chronicles for the Chronically Ill

by Shaler McClure Wright

Health Story Collaborative · Tossed In The Hopper Of Cultural Pain

Introduction

You’re listening to episode nine of Soul Chronicles, offering a soulful perspective on how to navigate the unique challenges of living with ongoing health conditions. Special thanks to Health Story Collaborative for hosting this monthly audio column. My name is Shaler McClure Wright and I’m a writer/creative living with Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome.

Story - Tossed in the Hopper of Cultural Pain

When I think of a soulful approach to life I think of seeking beauty. Calling attention to beautiful moments as they unfold, or reflecting on those that may have passed without notice. But right now I’m immersed in its opposite; something shadowy and so ominous it can’t be ignored. So here is my warning—if you’re looking for butterflies, glitter and light, you won’t find them here today. Because before I can make my way back to the restorative path of all-things-good in the world, I need to acknowledge the looming presence of current events that threatens to eclipse the natural light of beauty and soul.

We’re in the grips of a pervasive cultural pain to which no one is immune. It’s uncomfortable, unsettling and it’s spreading. When we try to discuss it publicly, we strain for civility, and find ourselves having to avoid words that might be considered inflammatory, and sometimes that leaves us without words at all.  So we’re stuck in a cycle of speak/regret/retreat, and each round of failed conversation creates more pain.

I’ve chosen a name for this condition. Sanitation Syndrome.

I call it Sanitation Syndrome because ironically, the more we try to sanitize it, the more we enable it to grow. By sanitize I mean making light of divisive comments or avoiding conversation about it altogether. And if left unchecked, Sanitation Syndrome will gather strength, brewing in the background, until all of a sudden we find ourselves steeped in a national infection.

How do we learn to recognize it? Sanitation Syndrome occurs when words are weaponized to divide us, and once divided, we can no longer speak the same language. The best word to describe Sanitation Syndrome is toxic, and our well-intentioned attempts to contain it actually end up making things worse, by compressing it into something smaller, more dense and more toxic. Sanitation Syndrome is spreading through every corner of our country by seeping into our bodies with just enough heat to smolder, like a fire that burns from the inside out.

In order to reflect on this national illness (though I’d still prefer to reflect on beauty), I’ll choose an image to represent the aspects of Sanitation Syndrome that are hardest to visualize. Not surprisingly, I’m choosing a piece of sanitation equipment—a garbage truck—to represent the vehicle for both its containment and growth.

Imagine one big national garbage truck making rounds on a sweltering summer day with the purpose of containing all things exposed to Sanitation Syndrome—including people. It’s like we’re all being unceremoniously tossed in its hopper, with its giant compactor pressing us ever closer together, until finally we’re squished into one big brick of unrecognizable waste. And once we’ve been reduced to garbage, we begin to simmer with a smell most aptly associated with toxic stew. We think our lives will be less messy if we compact the trash.  But as it turns out, compacted trash takes up less space, but it’s no less nasty. It’s simply more concentrated.

I admit, I’ve tried to insulate myself from the reaching arms of our national garbage truck, but in doing so my world has grown smaller and smaller. And that’s not good. Truth is, Sanitation Syndrome is fueled by the pain of despair, and no amount of padding is thick enough to insulate us from its friction or burn.

It’s not that I don’t care about the issues we face—I care deeply—but like many of you, I need to balance awareness with health. And right now, to be honest,  I’m failing. When I clench with instinctive resistance, my desire for self protection feels like a vice tightening around my body. So insulation isn’t an option. We need to face this sickness head-on, or we might find ourselves wrapped in a vice and crushed in a hopper all at once.

When our lives have been compacted into one big brick of toxic waste it leaves us gobsmacked—shocked—and unable to think clearly.  It’s hard to take action. Like Bill Murray’s conundrum in “Groundhog Day,” waking up again and again to the same problems, we find ourselves stuck in the throes of recurring gobsmack attacks.

So how might we gain perspective about this predicament? By educating ourselves as much as we can. Think of it this way, learning about Sanitation Syndrome is not so different from hearing a diagnosis we don’t want to hear, or conducting research on a medical condition we’d rather not have—so perhaps we’re better prepared to do this work than we realize.

There’s something potent about the collective endurance of cultural pain, and the possibility leaves me wondering, “If enough of us can endure it, can we also clear it? Can we banish Sanitation Syndrome from our lives?”

I’ve spoken before about the transformative potential of personal experience and I’d like to share an example. Just yesterday I had an experience of uncontrollable trembling, for no apparent reason other than hearing the news stream in the background while I was cooking. Like the fire of Sanitation Syndrome—burning from the inside out—my trembling began as an invisible inner tremor. But eventually it got so bad I couldn’t hold a knife steady enough to chop vegetables.

Soulfully speaking, trembling can indicate a profound experience, transformation on a cellular level. Our body signals us with a combination of tears, rage, trembling, or dizziness. We might feel disoriented, but it’s actually a process of reorientation, and in the case of Sanitation Syndrome, a rejection. I believe a collective shake-out may be the best way to begin the process of collective healing.

In his book “Healing Trauma”, Dr Peter Levine suggests, “People do, in fact, possess the same built-in ability to shake off threats that animals do. I have found that, if given appropriate guidance, human beings can and do shake off the effects of overwhelming events and return to their lives.”

So if the first step is a shake-out, then the second step would be a reconstitution. How do we begin to transform our toxic stew into something more palatable?

Transformation is a complex and exhausting process, some of which is within our control, but much of it is a mystery, perhaps even requiring a leap of faith. And like our slimy, compacted waste, it can be messy. As an example, let’s look at the metamorphosis of a butterfly.

In the Scientific American article “How Do Caterpillars Turn Into Butterflies?”we learn that “first, the caterpillar digests itself, releasing enzymes to dissolve all of its tissues. If you were to cut open a chrysalis, you’d find a soupy meltdown of the caterpillar's body.”

Caterpillar soup contains highly specialized imaginal discs that undergo rapid cell division, differentiation and growth. Eventually these disks become imaginal cells that make up the physiology of a butterfly. The mystery of a butterfly’s transformation is rooted in these imaginal cells. (And of course I see a connection between the words imagination and imaginal.)

Evolution biologist Dr. Elisabet Sahtouris refers to the connection between the current state of our country and the birth of a butterfly in her book “EarthDance”:

“If we see ourselves as imaginal discs working to build the butterfly of a better world, we will understand that we are launching a new ‘genome’ of values and practices, to replace that of the current unsustainable system. We will also see how important it is to link with each other in the effort, to recognize how many different kinds of imaginal cells it will take to build a butterfly with all its capabilities and colors.”

So what do you think? Can we weather our Sanitation Syndrome garbage truck ride with the transformative grace of a butterfly? I warned you there would be no butterflies in this chronicle, and there aren’t. Yet. But we can visualize the possibility. And so I leave you with this vision of emerging beauty— Imagine how precious it would be to gather for a conversation that’s free of disinformation, flowing with words as beautiful as the first unfolding of a butterfly's wings.

Go here for more episodes of our Soul Chronicles series.

Shaler McClure Wright is fascinated with the mysteries of creative process, the healing power of creativity, and the creative synthesis of method acting, intuitive learning and depth psychology. A graduate of Wesleyan University and The Actors Studio, Shaler has worked as an actor, writer and educator for more than 40 years, and lives in southeastern Connecticut with her husband and son.

Website: www.shalermcclurewright.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soulchronicles22/, @soulchronicles22

BioSite: https://bio.site/soulchronicles

Questions by Val Walker

Answers by Sarah Merrill

Sarah is a personal historian and owner of Merrill Memoirs (www.memoirsbymerrill.com). Since 2010, she has been assisting individuals, families and small businesses in recounting, recording, and preserving their stories. Sarah works with a talented genealogist to complete family research, and she contracts with a professional book designer to present her clients’ stories and photographs in beautiful books. She also teaches memoir writing workshops and serves as an editor for people writing their own memoirs of family histories.

Sarah earned her undergraduate degree with high honors in literature and creative writing at Middlebury College, Vermont, and completed graduate work in oral history and nonfiction writing at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Maine.  She spent ten years in journalism before launching her personal history business.

Introduction

Have you ever engaged in a leisurely conversation with someone who not only listened to your story, but was fascinated in every bit of it? Indeed, your listener beckoned you to unearth memories that perhaps you had not thought about in years?

Sarah Merrill is this kind of listener. With genuine curiosity, she invites you to dive into all the details of a life story and discover the long-forgotten treasures that may have been buried for decades. With Sarah, your story’s details are for excavating, examining, saving, and savoring. And later, after selecting your stories, she artfully crafts a narrative of your life to create a memoir or a family history book, or more loosely, a collection of personal stories on a beloved topic. This intricate and complex work is generally what a personal historian such as Sarah does. Experienced personal historians combine the expertise of active listening, archiving of artifacts, genealogy, narrative writing, ghost-writing, book production, self-publishing, and more.

In the following interview with Sarah, I hope to introduce readers to the vital work field of personal history.

Val: A personal historian needs to be talented at writing as well as adept at engaging people and listening--and yet, needs to be impeccably accurate and organized. This is a very particular mix of gifts to have. How did you get started at this?

My interest in collecting stories and memories actually started when I was just a kid. I seem to have been born nostalgic! I always kept diaries and scrapbooks and saved every letter I ever received. I also was very enamored of my grandparents. I really wish I’d been enlightened enough to record their stories while they were still here. This is one of my regrets and part of what powered my inspiration to become a personal historian. In addition to being a collector and memory keeper, I was a storyteller. I read a great deal and I wrote stories all the time. I studied fiction writing in college and those skills are absolutely employed when I’m writing memoir and family history. In addition to accuracy, an important goal is for the narrative to be an engaging read!

Val: Could you tell me more about what is involved when you listen to peoples’ stories in your work? How do you get them to relax and delve into their recollections with such vivid detail?

As personal historians, we are very client focused in our work. Listening is about building trust. Trust is key.  This means I don’t want to force the narrative or push someone to get to the point. Instead, I gently allow them to discover and explore as they travel back in time. I often spend upwards of eight hours with my clients, spread over a few days, so they have ample time to cover a lot of ground. In telling their stories freely, without trying to meet any external criteria, my clients have the control, they choose what to share.  In some cases, the experience of sharing a story can be enlightening as well as enriching. And sometimes, they’ll tell a story just to get it off their chest, but then decide not to include it in the final product.

Val: This reminds me of an important technique in psychology and counseling, developed by Alfred Adler. Adlerian approaches are invested in early childhood recollections and how we find meaning and wisdom in these old narratives.

I believe at different times in our lives, we can revisit our stories and discover new takeaways by seeing details or patterns we’d never noticed. We can look at a relationship over time and see patterns or healing. We can even look at a trauma in new ways and sometimes find healing. It’s important to point out that I am not anything like a therapist. I’m more like a guide on a journey of life review. And life review has many, many benefits. Though some topics may be too difficult, and I always let people know it is completely fine to leave them out.

Val: It sounds deeply meaningful to help people value their stories as history.

“One of my clients getting a first look at her family history book. In this case, this was the third book I produced with her.”—Sarah Merrill

My work is rewarding on multiple fronts. We can help clients understand the impact of peoples’ struggles and challenges in their families over the decades. In reviewing our life stories, we can sometimes more clearly see the influences that people have had on us, on our families, our communities over time. We can see the impact we’ve had on others around us. We can see our own challenges from a new perspective. Our children and grandchildren can be enriched by what our family members have faced and battled through generations.

Val: Is the field of personal history becoming more popular?

The field of personal history is still not well known—not yet, really. But fortunately, interest in the field of genealogy has greatly increased in recent years. And in the first year or so of the pandemic, people had more time to reflect. Folks pulled out photo albums or downloaded a genealogy app. The interest in genealogy has sparked people to learn more about their ancestors and families and has helped lead them to the field of personal history and writing memoirs. But there is a significant difference between genealogy and personal history. Certainly, personal history complements and includes genealogy. I work closely with a genealogist in my business.

Val: When did you actually discover there was such a thing as personal history and give yourself a professional name, “personal historian?”

At some point, I was aware that I wanted to work with individuals and families to record their stories, but I did not know there was a field called “personal history” or that others were already doing this. I’d volunteered in a nursing home helping elders write their memoirs and it struck me then how rewarding it was. Especially visiting these fairly isolated and lonely elders and actively listening to them, taking an interest in their lives.

Around 12 years ago, when I was working as a journalist and a medical writer, I learned through a newspaper article of a man who was working as a personal historian – and it all just clicked into place. He was gracious enough to meet with me and discuss his business model. And from there, my dream gradually became a reality. I slowly built my business as a professional personal historian with my company Merrill Memoirs. I’ve been doing it full time for about 10 years and have written dozens of memoirs and family histories.

Val: What types of people come to you for your services?

I’m either hired by the individual themselves – typically aged 60 to 100 – or by their adult children or their grandchildren, who want the stories recorded. People are realizing they need to get their loved one’s stories recorded before they are gone. Sometimes, the older generations may be reluctant to be the center of attention like this. I sometimes hear, “Why would anyone want my stories? I’m not interesting!” But truly, once they begin the story sharing process, they realize how wonderful it can be. I often have people express disappointment when our interviews are completed.

Further Reading

• To learn more about Sarah Merrill and her services: www.memoirsbymerrill.com

• To learn more about personal historians in the Northeastern US: Personal Historians Northeast Network www.phnn.org

Val Walker is a contributing blogger for Psychology Today and the author of 400 Friends and No One to Call, released in 2020 with Central Recovery Press. Her first book, The Art of Comforting (Penguin/Random House, 2010), won the Nautilus Book award and was recommended by the Boston Public Health Commission as a guide for families impacted by the Boston Marathon Bombing. Val received her MS in rehabilitation counseling from Virginia Commonwealth University and is a rehabilitation consultant, speaker, and educator. Keep up with Val at www.ValWalkerAuthor.com