In one of its earliest forms, the word courage meant “To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.” It takes courage to tell our story honestly, to listen to another’s story with an open heart, and to examine the stories we live by. A good story takes at least two people – one to speak and one to listen. It is a sacred act to tell our story and to listen to the story of another.
Telling (AKA giving) –
One way we can begin to think about telling our story is to write it down – to clarify it for ourselves. When we are ready to share, we can start with a trusted friend. Only people who have earned our trust get to hear what we want to share. Keep the focus on ourselves with “I” messages “I feel … I think… I see …“ We aren’t proving anything, pontificating, persuading, or convincing anyone of the one and only truth, we are sharing the truth of our own experience. The AA and Al – Anon 12-step programs are based on the power of stories, and time has proven that this process works!
Listening (AKA receiving) – To listen intently without distractions, without interrupting to defend our position, to give an example of our own similar story, or to give advice is powerful. Listening is loving when we can stay curious, open ourselves to a new point of view, and let go of the notion that we need to do anything to change or correct the person we are listening to. It takes some introspection to be able to notice that our over-reaction to what someone says is not caused by them, but by something in us. Curiosity helps us to wonder – “Where did that reaction come from?”
Personal Stories – We each have our own things to attend to and we have some sorting to do when it comes to the stories that are in our head. T.H.I.N.K – Is this story True, Helpful, Inspiring, Necessary, and Kind? Paying attention to the stories we tell to and about ourselves is important, because once we notice a negative story, we can change it. Notice the difference between these two statements: ‘I made a mistake – again – I am so stupid. I am always making mistakes.’ And ‘Whoops, I missed that take – nobody is perfect, everyone makes mistakes. I am going to learn from this.’ We have a choice about what goes on between our ears. We can tend the garden of our mind and give our inner story-teller a little discipline about what we want and what we find acceptable.
Collective Stories – This is not an easy time to be a human. Every era has it’s challenges, and part of the challenge of our time is to reimagine the personal and collective stories that limit our possibilities. For example, it is said we live in the Anthropocene Era – an age of human domination. I think it would be much more inspiring to be living in the Ecozoic Era as imagined by Thomas Berry. It is a geologic era of mutualism, in which humans use both technology and spirituality to live in harmony with nature. Or the Symbiocene Era as imagined by Glenn Albrecht, which suggests living together for mutual benefit, and affirms the interconnectedness of life and all living things.
Hollywood feeds us the dystopian stories of someone else’s creation. The news keeps repeating the story that is the most sensational – designed to make us fearful enough to keep watching. Focusing only on the negative is disheartening and distorts our perception. One definition of spelling is to create an enchantment by speaking something out loud. The stories we tell to ourselves and others have the power to conjure reality. Everything real was imagined first, and we are free to imagine for ourselves. What is the best thing we can think up for our brave new world? As Ari Wallach asks, “What if we got it right?”
One thing 2020 gave us is a new story about how intimately we are connected to each other and to the world around us. Everything we do matters to everyone and every thing that shares the earth with us. This new story is more complete, and in telling it, we start a new tradition of honesty.
Our stories are not written in stone, they can change as we gain a better understanding. When we change our stories, we help to bring about collective change. It’s time to allow ourselves to be brave enough to tell our stories, listen to the stories of others, and examine the stories we live by personally and collectively. We can’t go back, but we can go forward in a new way with a new story.
For further reading I highly recommend:
We Need to Talk by Celeste Headlee (see also her TedTalk by the same name)
The Healing Power of Stories by Daniel Taylor, Ph.D.
Breathing Underwater by Richard Rohr
Brene Brown’s books beginning with The Gifts of Imperfection
The Spirituality of Imperfection Storytelling and the Search for Meaning by Ernest Kurtz & Katherine Ketcham
Longpath by Ari Wallach and his video series A Short History of the Future
Image by Mircea Iancu from Pixabay