excuses...excuses

The healing power of storytelling emerges when four conditions are met:

• when we listen to what our body is trying to tell us
• when we feel an insistent urge to put our story into words
• when we find a safe place to share it
• when our story is received and understood by someone we trust

I hear this from people again and again:

"I've always wanted to write..."

This is usually followed by a litany of excuses for not getting started:

• ...but I wouldn't know where to begin. 

I simply tell them, "You begin in the upper left hand corner of the first blank page."

• ...but I don't have the time.

The truth is nobody has the time to write. We sometimes have to lie, cheat, and steal to carve out the time for it.

• ...but I don't have anything important to say.

Oh, really? Let's say you have a child with special needs, meaning you had to learn how to feed her through a tube, and tend to her skin, and run through a whole set of exercises with her every day. Don't you want the rest of us to know how you manage it all? Or maybe you have to go in for chemo every week, but you're still trying to hold down a job so you can afford it. Don't you want to add your voice to the outcry against health care inequality? Oh! You have something important to say, all right! Something the rest of us need to hear.

If opening lines come to you when you're driving to work, or a memory sneaks up on you while you're mowing the lawn, or snatches of dialogue come to you in the middle of the night, your story may be begging you to please, start writing. If your voice has been silenced for too long, now may be the time to begin writing as a healing practice.

"When you stand and share your story

in an empowering way, your story will heal you

and your story will heal somebody else."

~Iyanla Vanzant~

jan