Charlotte Rains Dixon Reviews “Step Out of Your Story”

Once again, the wonderful folks at New World Libraryhave offered me a book to review. And once again, I’m making slow progress through it because I keep stopping to ponder and do the exercises. I found the receipt of this book particularly serendipitous because shortly before it arrived, I announced that I was pondering offering a class on a similar topic. (And I’m, um, not anywhere near being done with that little effort.)

So, I bet you’re dying to know what the book is about, aren’t you? It is called Step Out of Your Story: Writing Exercises to Reframe and Transform Your Life by Kim Schneiderman. (While it cursorily discusses the various aspects of writing a story, this book is aimed at you rewriting your own life story, not the Great American Novel.)

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Other Offerings

Step Out of Your Breast Cancer Story

A Journey of Healing, Meaning, and Renewal

Every life is an unfolding story — a sacred, ever-evolving narrative that only we can interpret. For breast cancer survivors, one of the greatest challenges is making sense of the profound physical, emotional, and spiritual changes that accompany diagnosis, treatment, and recovery. How we understand and tell our story shapes how we feel about it — and can even influence how it continues to unfold.

Offered in partnership with the Northern Dutchess Hospital Survivorship Program, this 4-week group provides a supportive space for breast cancer survivors to reflect, share, and rediscover their personal story as one of courage, growth, and transformation.

Together, we’ll explore how the difficult chapters of our lives can reveal hidden strengths, wisdom, and renewed purpose. Through guided reflection, group connection, and gentle journaling prompts (optional), participants will begin to integrate the challenges and insights of survivorship — and envision the next chapter of their lives with clarity and compassion.

Program Highlights

Participants will:

Reframe painful or self-limiting stories into narratives that honor resilience, grief, and growth.
Discover inner resources and voices of courage, wisdom, and self-compassion.
Integrate the emotional and spiritual lessons of survivorship in community with others who “get it.”
Reclaim authorship of their story and identity beyond “breast cancer survivor.”
Envision a thriving future self and a life grounded in meaning.

Presented in collaboration with the Northern Dutchess Hospital Survivorship Program as part of the hospital’s Light the Village Pink initiative for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

(Dates and registration details coming soon — sign up below to receive updates.)

Reframe Your Narrative About Challenging Relationships

A 10-week Online Course with DailyOM

Tired of people pushing your buttons? For as little as $19, you can liberate yourself from self-defeating patterns around people who trigger you. Register here to receive 10 weekly insights, writing exercises, and guided meditations you can access whenever you want.

Lesson 1: Soul Narrative vs. Self-Defeating Story
Lesson 2:  Exploring the Power of Choice and Voice
Lesson 3:  Your Adversary as Your Personal Trainer
Lesson 4:  Embracing Your Strengths and Superpowers
Lesson 5:  Getting to Know Your Inner Antagonist(s)
Lesson 6:  Dialoguing with the Parts that Get Triggered
Lesson 7: The Yoga of Character Development
Lesson 8: Supporting Characters, Tools and Resources
Lesson 9: Giving Ourselves the Blessing We Seek
Lesson 10: The Golden Happy Ending

A FULL HOUSE AT THE NYC BOOK SIGNING!

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Psychotherapist and freelance journalist Kim Schneiderman utilizes research-based methods to help people who are stuck – in a dead-end job, relationship, of life stage – imagine themselves as the star of their own stories with the power to reclaim their personal narratives. Drawing on the elements of a story that many of us learned in high school (premise, scene, plot, conflict, climax, resolution), readers will assign titles to different chapters of their lives, observe recurring themes, identify supporting characters, and explore how conflict creates opportunities for personal growth that can lead to a meaningful resolution. They will also be asked to examine how the decisions we make, both big and small, affect our storyline – the relationships we choose, how we spend our day, and how we nourish ourselves, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Unlike most self-help writing workbooks, most of the exercises in Step Out of Your Story are framed in the third-person voice, freeing readers to see beyond their usual point of view. Psychological research suggests that people are more likely to view their lives favorably when they see themselves as characters in a story. In a 2005 Columbia University study reported in the Journal of Psychological Science, test subjects who spoke about difficult chapters in their lives in the third person narrative displayed more confidence and optimism than those who recalled bad memories in the first person. By retracing their steps from the perch of the third-person narrative, people were more likely to regard their problems as something outside themselves – challenges they had conquered or adversaries they had defeated - instead of character flaws. Additionally, the perception that they had overcome obstacles left them feeling more confident to face the future.

Charlotte Rains Dixon Reviews “Step Out of Your Story”

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STEP OUT OF YOUR STORY

Writing Exercises to Reframe and Transform Your Life

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