I’ve continued to compile a list of FAQs from readers of “Surviving Sue”, my memoir about my mom’s complicated life and one of the recurring queries is about building resilience. Despite my background as a counselor/therapist, I’m cautious about highlighting any one specific technique or habit that helped guide my healing journey because the process of making peace and finding emotional high ground is a deeply individual, nuanced process. As a result, I’ve been skipping this topic as I’ve shared weekly snippets of insider info about the book. But today? I figured it was a good time to share one tried-and-true go-to that’s helped me for years. Six-word stories. A tool I shared with a client recently.
As I processed the pain I experienced living with Sue – both her antagonistic behavior toward me and her reckless decision-making when it came to my disabled sister, Lisa, I needed to find digestible, mantra-like morsels to achieve moments of clarity. Because I’m a verbal person, words swim in my head anyhow and I learned – in part through meditation and in part through my own trauma treatment – that capturing the recurrent swirl of feelings by naming them allowed me to cast them out and move on.
And the Hemingway quote snipped in above? I’ll explain. If you haven’t heard of Larry Smith’s work, “Six-Word Memoirs”, it’s worth a peek. Adapted for therapeutic purposes, self-help and in education, it’s best described this way:
Legend has it that Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in only six words. His response? “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” In November, 2006, Larry Smith, founder of what was then called Smith Magazine, gave the six-word novel a personal twist by asking his community to describe their lives in exactly six words. He called these brief life stories Six-Word Memoirs.”
I have a journal chock-full of six-word stories related to processing my pain with my mom, Sue, and in a conversation with a client recently, I shared one of them when I was asked about building empathy and finding forgiveness. Immediately this six-word story came to mind, one I wrote three years or so after Sue passed away:
She wore her regret like armor.
My client is finding her way through a season of relationship challenges, both at work and on the home front and she is on a mission to move past a string of disappointments. When she pointedly asked, “How do you do it, Vicki – how DID you do it – find your way to forgiveness?”, I was cautious in my response, but decided to share that six-word story.
Sue carried so much of her own pain, literally, like armor and while it protected her in superficial ways, it also isolated her and made it difficult for her to achieve meaningful connections, especially with me. In addition to her armor, Sue weaponized words and deeds, alienating me, pushing me away. Not because she hated me. I don’t believe that, even now. It was always fear. And fear? I can forgive that.
Nodding and grateful for the real-life example of the applicability of the “six-word” concept, my client said she’d give it a try. “In order to capture those pesky thoughts that drive me mad…write them down and move on.” I think she’s got the right idea. At least I hope so.
Six words. Here are a few for you today:
Nothing matters more than peace and love.
Vicki ❤
Victoria Ponders 
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