What makes us better story tellers?

Ever since I was a little girl, I loved listening to stories. As I grew older, I fell in love with telling stories, both written and spoken. There is something sacred especially in telling about a moment in time in your life when something happened – something clicked and you knew… something you hadn’t known a moment before. It is in that knowing something new, that a-ha or epiphany moment that compels us to share whatever it was because we know, we just know, this may be a contribution to someone else.

It isn’t always easy to find a place to share our stories: with grown children there isn’t shared mealtime anymore and my friends are often busy with their own thing so when we are together we are sitting in a dark movie theater or seeing a play or talking about minutia rather than what matters.

As I wrote these words, I realized there is an a-ha within this situation itself. On those occasions when my stories are heard by others who value what I am saying, I feel my most alive. I feel valued, I feel worthy, I feel grateful to have people taking me and my message seriously.

I am a member of toastmasters so I have a regular, formal outlet for sharing curated stories which are then evaluated and assessed by my peers. This is helpful and heart opening and it isn’t necessarily the same as sitting around a circle for hours, speaking and listening with laughter and sometimes tears punctuating the vulnerable connections made because we are listening and speaking with our hearts.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we spent more time listening and speaking for no reason except for the joy of it?

Prompt for Writing, Creating, Conversation or Contemplation:

“When people listen to my stories, I feel…”

“When I listen to other people’s stories, I feel….”

5 Minute Writing Prompt: I remember the time last Fall when…. write about anything at all for five minutes without stopping, using shopping, Thanksgiving, Halloween or an unexpected surprise as your topic.

Julie JordanScott is the Creative Life Midwife. A writer, speaker, life coach and multi-creative who “walks her talk” she provides the world fuel for creativity, intentional connection and purposeful passion in order to eradicate loneliness and the symptoms of anxiety and depression.