About Your Coach

Story Work was developed by Dan Allender and his many brilliant colleagues at the Allender Center. It is rooted in the traditions of many cultures around working with a wise guide, as well as more modern understandings of the value of spiritual direction, journaling, mindfulness, and re-narrating one’s life experience.

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I am sure you noticed the pictures you have encountered already on this web site. You may have noticed they are hard to identify, or there is something peculiar going on. They are familiar scenes that I have cropped or turned so that your perspective is unfamiliar. The stream with a reflection is upside down. The sunrise clouds are sideways and have no context.

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This is how we all encounter ourselves and the world at times. Suddenly nothing makes sense. We are especially disoriented when it comes to our early lives. Children sense, think, and learn so differently from adults, and yet their ways of being are brilliant and finely tuned to their families. All of us retain that tuning in adulthood—and sometimes it has become extremely difficult to manage. 

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You were a heroic survivor as a child, but you sometimes had to create stories about yourself and others that are not reality. Story Work will help you develop perspective and understanding that you can use to move toward your future.