Tell Your Story, Transform Your Life
Storytelling changed my life, and it can change yours.
Storytelling is the art of connection. In a touch-deficit world, stories touch us deeply. Stories touch our emotions, change our minds, and inspire our spirits. We do not forget stories because stories make us feel.
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” ― Maya Angelou
In 2010, I sat in a small audience. People were practicing speeches to deliver information, but one person took the stage and simply told a twenty minute story called The Diving Fool. I still remember the FEELING of being captivated. This was my first exposure to storytelling as a performance art in the oral tradition, person to person, face to face. I thought to myself, I want to be able to do that.
What is storytelling?
About a year later, I began the journey to answer the question: what is storytelling? I got up on stage to tell my first folk tale, Brother Anansi and the Tar Baby. Voices and characters came out of me that I didn’t know were inside of me. The story was alive. It felt as if I had gotten out of the way and this story came through me. When I sat back down, I said to myself, what just happened? I felt so alive and so present. My next thought, whatever this is I want more of it. I was hooked.
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ― Howard Thurman
Passion and Purpose
I made a conscious choice to enter the world of storytelling ― not knowing where it would take me and even as I struggled to figure out: what is storytelling anyway? I had discovered something new inside of me that I didn’t know how to use yet. I began to go to workshops and storytelling festivals. I spent the resources of time, energy, and money. I began to put the work into memorizing my stories and practicing them over and over for performance.
I would tell stories to anyone that would listen. Visiting a friend in Boston, I asked if I could tell him a story that I was practicing. After thanking him for listening, I announced, “That’s my useless skill.” He said, “Joel, that’s not useless.” He had felt that same captivating quality that I experienced listening to stories. However, at that time, my practical and logical mind said, there’s no career path, no money … useless. Why are you spending so much time and money on this? The part of me inspired by storytelling would reply: It’s just a hobby. I just do this because I love it.
Following the Path
Have you ever followed a path knowing that it would go somewhere? It just felt right. The only problem: I had no idea where I was going. This was a completely separate path from my career as a doctor. A several years ago, I decided to allow my passion for storytelling to infuse everything that I do. Storytelling became my purpose. Even my patients will sometimes hear a story that I have an “urge” to tell because it seems to fit the visit. Today, I am the storytelling doctor; I have a large repertoire of stories that I perform; I facilitate workshops infused with storytelling; and I teach an undergraduate class each semester called “Storytelling as Healing.”
Inside Stories Become Outside Stories
Storytelling has allowed me to take my INSIDE stories and make them OUTSIDE stories. The act of sharing my insides is the ART of storytelling. The working of the story for performance is the CRAFT of storytelling.
The personal story has become one of my favorite genres. I love the mining of my personal memories to find hidden gold that will become a story. I take these story ideas from INSIDE stories and turn them OUT into raw pieces at first. Exposing the emotions, I begin to process and heal them. With the perspective of the present moment, I can look at the past with new eyes. I uncover the limiting beliefs of my past and begin to shift them. The process of storytelling is a process of reflection and healing. As I work these stories, I find some TRUTH that I want to share with the world. It is the TRUTH that wants to be told. I craft stories and find audiences, because I want to share my healing with the world … because I want to heal the world.
Tell Your Story, Transform Your Life
This is a truth that I have lived: My life has been transformed by story.
I know that the process of storytelling (tell your story) is a healing process (transform your life).
Half-way into this past semester, the college campus closed. My “Storytelling as Healing” class unexpectedly migrated to an online format. By necessity, I discovered how to translate this art of connection and healing to the online world of video conferencing. Now that the semester is over and summer travel and events are limited, I am exploring new ways to bring storytelling to others.
New Online Course! The Personal Story
In the next month, I will be launching a 6-week online course that meets once a week. We will explore the healing power of the personal story. I will be recruiting a small pilot group of twenty for the first course.
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Tell Your Story, Transform Your Life
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