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the reality is we all live
in a box that we create for ourselves made up of the stories of who we think
we are
what are places in the world what we're all about our stories of how we see the
world anna and who we are actually rarely change
for example
one bright crisp fall day on a friday new hampshire mrs
almost thirty years ago will grow by the name of shannon showed up to be doing
the children's village when my wife louise in iran the program this is the
in the community for bennett abused children i've mentioned often salem
children's village dot org
she's killed ten year old
pigtails freckles
seemed harmless and lovable as an emergency placement
and the social worker who who dropped her off didn't know any about her
history
and said she'd get that information for us the following monday
that night louise nine word lit in the house next door
to where shannon was staying heard screams coming from his house so we ran
over to the show his house
and justin and nancy one of our house parents explain does every demons later
everyone is fine
bohot here's what happened
nancy had told shannon saved divergent is on curated going to get tucked in
and shannon did and nancy set down on the bed next to her and just reached
over to touch her back just to give her a little pet on the back anna's as she
touched shane's back shannon exploded off the better screening scratching
clawing
nancy nancy's training katie and she immediately basically wrap yourself
around shannon to prevent this over from damaging herself
doing more damage to nancy angelic larger down you're safe from her share
of the city of that
in the process of this
shannon that assured the top part of shannon's
but
make a sleeping clothes
dot hiked up and but nancy saw was a ten-year-old back
it was covered with fresh and all cigarette burns
what we discovered that night was that shannon was the little girl who lived
with the story
that said this is the story that she told herself
on the little girl who's so bad you'll know when you can control my behavior
smoking cigarettes army
this was a story that over and over and over her life
her parents had validated
and our work over the next several years that she was in the program
was to change her stories
which is what most difficult things you can do to change the story a person
tells
about who they are in what how they fit into the world
we had to say to her you know that box you think you live in a you think that
is all true that here the bad one the difficult one the one is so bad you can
only control d controlled with violence
we had to say to her
that's not you
we had to change her stories over the years
to include things like and the bright line on the level one
and i can change the world of undecided