06/16/2026
We didn’t get here overnight.
1) It is important to become conscious of the stories that are shaping each of us before those stories unconsciously shape everyone else. (Projection.)
2) There are moral injuries from generational transmission of inherited stories, both embedded within but also causative.
3) In order to examine inherited stories means we must be willing to be challenged towards a common desire for greater wisdom, greater dignity, and greater love of neighbor because the stories we leave unexamined become assumptions that govern our lives if we don’t… so that no one ever is free.
4) Heartbroken grief occurs with a collapse of civic norms, dignity, truthfulness, and basic respect.
5) It absolutely IS a signature central part of the playbook of DJT (and Roy Cohn) and the contemporary Republican coalition to obscure facts, even to make fun of facts, to threaten and to humiliate in order to monetize.
6) Stories ARE being weaponized at scale in order to highjack mindsets for those choosing to worship false idols of gluttonous power, distorting truth without conscious decisions where the good of the whole is prioritized, instead of sacrificed.
7) People do inherit stories that convey a right or reason to -distrust government, -distrust corporations, -distrust immigrants, and so on.
Eight) People do not simply disagree politically where democracies normally are able to contain the differences; rather, at this grievous point in time, people disagree in ways where those disagreements have entire systems of meaning and production of meaning in place to manipulate and even to purposively construct those disagreements SO THAT democracy collapses.
9) Stories that shape identity can become untethered from reality when fear, humiliation, resentment, or perceived threat become more powerful than curiosity, accountability, or truth-telling.
10) Beliefs do not emerge in a vacuum.
The intellectual foundation for the StoriesBuildBridges™platform and small groups is built upon these bones:
Beliefs do not emerge in a vacuum.
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Stories shape identity.
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Identity influences what we fear, trust, reject, defend, and protect.
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Entire systems of meaning can be inherited.
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Unexamined stories become assumptions.
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Assumptions govern behavior.
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Behavior shapes families, organizations, communities, and nations.
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When stories become untethered from truth, dignity, and accountability, moral injury occurs.
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People become less free.
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Healing requires conscious examination of inherited stories.
In order to redeem ourselves, we must work together to find and to build COMMON GROUND.
