“I start off as a nerd in elementary school (I know that’s hard to believe), and then I become the person I am today.” I say with a smirk on my face that my friend could hear over the phone. “What do you think of this as an idea for a story?”
She laughed, “Ok, where’s the transformation in the story? What’s the opposite of a nerd anyway? Did you become a jock?”
Now it was my turn to laugh. Memories from middle school rushed in as the world began to divide into the cool kids and the nerds, the jocks and the nerds, the popular kids and the nerds. Something inside tugged on a sadness in my chest. I was a nerd.
“So how did you become ‘not a nerd’ in the end?” my friend asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. There was a long pause as my mind went blank, then a few thoughts floated by. “Well, there was this teacher.”
Researching the Story
In that conversation, the story idea that came to me as “the nerd story” became “The Teacher.” This is the origin of the very first personal story that I crafted for performance. It is still the favorite of my personal stories to tell. (You can watch “The Teacher” at the end of this blog post.)
I decided to rest “the nerd story,” and I started to explore my memories of my teacher, Mrs. Chennault. I wrote and practiced a speech about the impact she had on my life. She had passed away a few years before, so I explored my memories to bring her back to life. I spoke with her family members. I spoke with friends and my own family. I imagined the pivotal moments in my life that we shared together. I reflected on these moments from a new vantage point. Time had given me the wisdom of many other life lessons. I told people about her to see how they responded to the story. I ended up with a twenty minute narrative of my favorite memories about her. I organized the anecdotes into the roles that she played in the different stages of my life.
When I felt that my teacher was “alive” in me again, I sat down with these two separate story ideas. I began to put “the nerd” and “the teacher” together. The first draft was long, meandering, and boring. My storytelling friend helped me hone it down into a unified theme with expert coaching. I worked and re-worked the story.
One day, a quote showed up on social media. It reminded me of a poem that I had written long ago about my teacher after she passed. As soon as I saw this quote, I knew how this story needed to start and what it was really about.
“Perhaps we should love ourselves so fiercely; that when others see us, they’ll know exactly how it should be done.” ~ Rudy Francisco
Storytelling as a healing art
“The Teacher” is one of my favorite stories to tell. It touches me deeply every time that I tell it. I get to share the gift of someone special in my life. Each time that I tell the story, I grow to believe the message of loving myself even more deeply.
Life is a process of growth and healing. I am in that process. The art and craft of storytelling has been an integral part of that process.
I’m still working on myself. Like everyone else, there are parts of me that I find easier to love than others. This is a story of how one of those unlovable “nerd” parts gets “accepted, respected, and admired.”
Storytelling is a healing process: finding this story, exploring it, feeling the emotions, making sense of it, excavating and building it up into something that I want to share with the world. I heal myself and share that healing with others.
Online Course — 6 weeks, starting May 20th, 2020
Tell Your Story, Transform Your Life:
The Art and Craft of the Personal Story
I love to share healing by telling my stories, but I also love to share healing by teaching storytelling — the oral tradition of telling stories person to person. At Florida Gulf Coast University, I teach an undergraduate course called “Storytelling as Healing.” In a new online course open to the public, I focus on the power of the personal story to heal the teller, the listener, and the world.
Join the 6-week class online to explore the healing power storytelling as an oral performance art, communication skill, and healing art.
Limited to 20 participants as a small group interactive learning experience of telling and sharing stories. We will meet online in a Zoom Meeting Room. The last meeting will be a showcase and coaching of participant stories from the class.
Tell Your Story, Transform Your Life:
The Art and Craft of the Personal Story
Wednesdays at 7pm – 8:30pm starting May 20th, 2020, to June 24th, 2020.
If you can’t make the online class,
get on the list to receive other storytelling content and future course information. Click below and also get a free PDF.