Welcome to Create Hope by me, Robyn Castellani.
I believe we've got an epidemic of toxic storytelling. We’re spending so much of every day consuming stories designed to make us afraid, to fear each other; creating division and distress and despair.
If we want to build a better world, for ourselves and our families and for everyone, then the first thing we have to do is start telling better stories.
That’s not just hopeful me talking. That’s decades of research, thousands of studies, and hundreds if not thousands of years of history.
For instance, did you know that you have the ability to lengthen your life by seven point four years, right this minute, if you change the story you’re telling about what it’s going to be like to get old?
Yep. People who say “I think getting old is going to rock” live 7.4 years longer than people who say “I think getting old is going to suck.” That’s according to a multi-decade study by Yale University.
2023: The River You See
In January of 2013, my mom, my compass, my lighthouse, my best friend, my narrator, lost her mind. She spent all of 2013 dying, in ways more horrible than I could have ever imagined.
In the nine years since her death, I have grappled with how to create a life that makes sense. Because Mom’s death was just the beginning of a world that seemed to be on course to unravel.
Telling a better story seemed necessary to survival. And in the last decades, most of life has changed.
What is a better story, anyway?
It’s not just a question of being optimistic. In fact, when he spent seven years as a POW, James Stockdale found that “optimists were the first to die.”
A good story is, above all else, a true story.
A good story leans into the hard parts.
A good story doesn’t fear the plot twists, but recognizes that setbacks are an inevitable part of every life and in fact, it’s the hard that makes us great.
When you change the narrative, everything changes.
So that’s what I do in this newsletter.
I tell better stories. Stories designed to reset our emotions from fearful to purpose-driven, from divided to united, from overwhelmed to empowered.
I believe that if we reset our narrative, we reset the world. I write about how to do that.
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