This semester, I’m teaching a course called “Storytelling for Positive Aging.” Studies show that a positive attitude, a growth mindset, towards the process of aging leads to longer and happier lives. In this course, I explore the questions: How can we tell ourselves better stories of aging? How can we respond to cultural attitudes of …Read More
Author: Dr. Joel Ying, MD
Physician-Educator-Storyteller. Integrating the power of story into medicine, healing sessions, workshops, speaking and performance.
Love, no matter what ~ Andrew Solomon
When I was working in the hospital in the pediatric ward as a resident doctor-in-training, one of the patients that was admitted frequently was a Down’s Syndrome child with a cleft palate. The cleft palate is an incomplete closure of the roof of the mouth that separates it from the nasal area above. Functionally, this …Read More
Story: Truth and Story ~ Joel Ying
“Stop making up stories!” I overhear an exasperated mom talking to her 4-year-old. In this context, the word “story” has become synonymous with lying, making up fiction, not telling the truth. However, in the context of the art of storytelling, making up fiction does not mean that a story does not contain a deeper truth, …Read More
Mastering Life’s Transitions ~ Bruce Feiler
Life is the story that we tell ourselves. What happens when we get stuck in a story? How do we get unstuck? Bruce Feiler has 5 tips for mastering life’s transitions: Take control of the story that you tell about yourself. I once believed that I had no stories to tell, but then I realized …Read More
For a New Beginning ~ John O’Donohue
“I want to be able to do that” I still remember the moment that I first heard someone perform a story. I was expecting an ordinary speech where I could learn something about public speaking. Instead, I was immediately captivated, pulled into the vivid images that story created in my mind. The storyteller transformed herself …Read More
Honoring Sacrifice
Sacrifice, verb Last week, I toured a local health center run by a non-profit. They offer healthcare to underserved populations on a sliding scale basis. There are many ways to give, including the monetary donations of the many names that cover the walls to make the mission of greater healthcare access possible. While many at …Read More
Story: Spring of Youth
Storytellers in my tradition look for stories that hold some sort of “magic.” We tell stories that we love–sometimes for reasons that we know and sometimes we just keep telling them until we figure out why. This story has held me since I first heard it. Folk stories travel across the world and adapt to …Read More
Budgie ~ gifts don’t last
One holiday gift-giving season, I got a budgie. I was perhaps eleven years old. I had asked for one of those tiny little birds when I saw them at the pet store. Blue and white, he (or she, I’m not sure) was so cute. I had wanted my own pet bird ever since I had …Read More
A Blessing ~ James Right
Suddenly I realizeThat if I stepped out of my body I would breakInto blossom. ~ James Wright, “A Blessing” from Above the River: The Complete Poems and Selected Prose. A Blessing ~ by James Wright Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota, Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass. And the eyes of those two Indian …Read More
Story: Love or Money ~ Joel Ying
There are some stories that you do not really know until you’ve heard it directly from the people that have lived it. Growing up, I knew my parents story of immigration from bits and pieces of overheard conversation, stories gathered second hand told by other relatives, and gaps filled in from similar stories that I …Read More