What is Re-Storying?
NewStories’ purpose is to assist you in building transformative capacity for a regenerative future - within yourselves, as well as in your communities and organizations. Re-Storying is the heart of this approach.
Re-Storying • Re-Patterning • Re-Structuring
Re-Storying invites you to articulate your passion for new possibilities based on what you know about the current situation.
Re-Patterning recognizes your deep values and reorganizes using processes that reflect your core principles.
Re-Structuring hands you tools to navigate the waves of change as they arise on the journey to making your new story a reality.
Like the air we breathe, stories are all around us, shaping our beliefs and our actions. We perceive our world through stories, and we use stories to change that world.
The Results Look Like...
A clarification of your current
reality and your values
The gathering of resources
and support you need
The creation of structures to support you in fulfilling this story long term
- Re-Story Yourself
Finding balance, joy and wholeness begins with recognizing the story we are each living in—and deciding whether or not that story is working for us. If it’s not, we need to change it.
The stories through which we live come from experience: some are taught to us by our parents, some from the culture around us, the schools we attend, the books we read, even the movies we see. Everything shapes our perception of how things are or should be. By understanding that we experience our lives through stories, we can decide to either amplify or modify our existing stories, or step out of them altogether into new stories that we find to be more life-affirming. Often serving the communities and organizations we are a part of requires a deep awareness of our stories and a willingness to transform the narratives that no longer serve us. This is Re-Storying ourselves.
NewStories offers guidance, support and resources for Re-Storying Yourself through Great Transition Stories; this website is an oasis for people seeking to increase the coherence of their lives personally, collectively and globally.
- Re-Story Your Organization
We know that organizational transformation happens by developing and deepening authentic relationships both within organizations and the communities they serve.
Re-Storying your organization often emerges out of intentions to begin Re-Storying yourself and your communities. The process of Re-Storying in organizations also involves clarifying values & principles, and developing routines, rituals, protocols and practices to make them real. Re-Storying work is always nested in larger systems, like organizations, and action steps for transformative change are beneficial at every level.
- Re-Story Your Community
NewStories has worked with communities around the world, at times when they are at breaking point, at others when they are pursuing a new opportunity.
NewStories has pioneered participatory processes that support people in communities to earn each other’s trust and discover what they truly care about in order to formulate new plans for action. This is called Re-Patterning and Re-Structuring. Participatory processes are woven together with methods for wayfinding, planning and assessing results in NewStories’ approach called Principles-Guided CoCreation (PGCC). PGCC effectively guides communities through Re-Storying in uncertain and chaotic times because it grounds action in deeply held values.
NewStories work is context-specific and co-created with each community. It begins with NewStories Core Principles to guide us and begin with deep listening. Sometimes NewStories is called into community by community members, other nonprofit organizations, government or universities. Other times leaders in community themselves ask for support. Sometimes NewStories does the direct work of organizing, facilitating conversations, and designing campaigns. At other times NewStories hosts workshops, group sessions, and co-creates unique community-led initiatives. NewStories role changes based on your needs.
