When Eddie Wilders graduated from high school, all he knew was that he wanted to go to college. He didn’t know which college, or what programs he would be interested in, but he knew he wanted to be the first in his family to get a degree and do something different.
Episode 102: Finding Soul-Shifting Moments
Episode 101: Impulsive But Not Stupid
EPISODE 100: Community is the Key to Your Emotional Health and Personal Development
For this 100th episode, I couldn’t think of a more appropriate theme than Community. It’s my community that make me who I am today. It’s my community - that I built with intention - that bring me satisfaction, challenge, and joy. It’s my community that helped me be the person I aspire to be, and to raise our children to be independent, kind, compassionate adults.
Episode 99: Motivation Can Be as Simple As Asking Questions
Episode 98: Make a Choice to Experience Resilience & Growth Through Struggle
In our conversation, Oleg shared some important moments in his story, particularly of his first few months in his adopted family in the United States. What I love about the stories he shared was how he presented the other characters, the supporting roles in his stories. From the classmate on the soccer field who managed to understand Oleg’s body language to pass the ball to him, to his adoptive parents who placed small sticky notes on everything in the house, wall, window, door, table, fork, couch, to help him learn English, Oleg can look back at his transition with gratitude for those characters. He looks for those parts of his experience to share the beauty of overcoming odds.
Episode 97: Your Identity is Created by the Stories You Share
Family Narratives Can Impact Your Identity - For Better or For Worse
Dr. Kate McLean
Dr. Kate McLean was raised by a man who loved to share stories. Her father is a master storyteller, entertaining family and friends for hours with his sense of humor and insights. It’s not surprising that Kate found herself compelled by the narratives she heard in her first research position, focused on attachment theory in human development and psychology. She was so touched by the trust of people sharing their most intimate memories and experiences, that she knew her area of focus would revolve around the impact of telling those stories on the people sharing them and on the people hearing them.
Some of her colleagues focus their research on early childhood narrative, Kate’s area of interest revolves more around the transformative years between young adulthood and adulthood, roughly 17 - 22 years old.
She finds that the stories parents and caregivers share about their children in front of them, can have positive and negative effects in terms of their relationship, and how the young adult moves through those transformative years.
If the stories a parent or caregiver share about the young adult’s childhood don’t fit how that young adult sees themselves and how they are transforming into adulthood, conflict develops between them, and the transformation can become stilted.
On the other hand, if the narrative continues to resonate with the young adult, it may help them move forward with confidence in their identity as they move into adulthood.
Our conversation took some twists and turns, one thing that struck me was our mutual respect and admiration for those who share their stories with us. When someone chooses to trust you with their most intimate memories, we must respect that story and the person sharing it.
Learn more about Dr. McLean’s work, and check out her book, The Co-Authored Self.
Kate C. McLean, Professor of Psychology at Western Washington University, was trained in Developmental and Personality Psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz (Ph.D., 2004). Her research focuses on adolescent and emerging adult identity development. She is on the governing council for the Society for the Study of Emerging Adulthood, and is an Associate Editor for the Journal Personality and Social Psychology: PPID. She teaches courses in Developmental and Personality Psychology, as well as research methods. She currently serves as the Director for the Center for Cross-Cultural Research at WWU.