Storytelling Matters

I had the top bunkbed and a little blue reading light attached to the wall (Ikea for the win, even back in 1987!) and where I remember my very first time staying up into the wee hours of the night riveted by a book.

It was Behind The Attic Wall by Sylvia Cassedy.

Haunting and fabulously bizarre and more than a little creepy*, I can clearly recall feeling Maggie's loneliness and isolation and craving for love, despite my own secure and happy childhood.

It's the first time I remember crying while reading (though there's a family story about my sobbing my eyes out while listening to a record of the book The Fox and The Hound a few years earlier, so...).

Maggie's story felt real to my nine-year-old self. The book allowed me to share the experience of this character who'd had a completely different childhood from my own, gave me language for emotions and feelings and experiences that were new to me.

I recently came across Jonathan Gottschall's Tedx talk where he references functional MRI studies that show that when we're reading or hearing a story, our brain activity is that of a participant, not an observer.

We experience story as though it's actually happening to us.

That's freaking amazing. (and also: YAY for science!)

You know I love this.

I've long believed that books and storytelling are undervalued tools for deep empathy and compassion and some lovely scientists went ahead and proved it for me!

Stories allow us to pull on the skins of others, to see the world through their eyes for just a moment.

And that process, when combined with genuine curiosity, can change the way we see the world, bring an awareness that we'd previously lacked, begin to open us to our blind spots.

It's not all of the work of moving the world toward greater justice and equality, obviously, but it is part of the work.

But it's not just others that stories help us understand-- they help us better comprehend ourselves as well.

They give us language around experiences and emotions that can allow us to identify and express our own in more precise and nuanced ways.

Stories met with curiosity are powerful vehicles for deepening our understanding of what it means to be human and how to live rich, meaningful lives.

This exploration of language is at the heart of how I approach my work.

Delving into how we access our curiosity through language and what that looks like on a very practical and applicable level is central to my Say The Word method.

I love using it in workshops and retreats (like the one coming up next month!) and one-on-one in my coaching-- it's powerful and transformative and it simply works.

I've been looking for ways to explore this further, especially with stories, and it occurred to me a few months ago that this would make a really fun podcast, so...The Say The Word Podcast is in the works and almost ready for you.

I cannot wait to share it with you.

The first few episodes are recorded and in production and I am having a friggin' BALL making them.

Each episode features a passage or a poem or a piece of writing or a story and we dive into how it gives voice to something powerfully human.

Look for the first one to drop in the next week or two.

In the meantime, I have a favor to ask you-- please, PLEASE, tell me about a book or poem or passage or even a movie that affected you deeply.

I want to hear about the stories that cracked you open or moved you or changed your perspective or gave you words for something you were feeling or experiencing.

I want the stories you've been touched by to show up on the podcast and I need your help finding them.

While I love them, I would like to steer clear of personal or spiritual development books-- there are so many fabulous teachers out there and their books can offer incredible insight to our humanity, but since their aim is to teach, I'll leave them to do that work.

Tell me about a poem that cut right to the truth in your heart. Or that line in the novel you read last year that cracked something open in you. Tell me about the essay you read that made you feel less alone in your pain or your dreams or your love. I want to know about the story you heard that gave you the courage to try. Or the one that helped you remember you were perfect already.

I want to hear about every single one of them. Don't be shy, I beg you.

Whether your choice in reading runs to YA fantasy or action-packed who-done-its or back issues of The New Yorker or biographies of nineteenth century explorers, I'm pretty sure you've stumbled across something that has made you pause, made you think, made you wonder in some way. Tell me about it.

Me? I think I might need to re-read Behind The Attic Wall and see if it's as riveting as it was in 1987.