the difference between the story you can't tell, and the story you won't tell

There's quite a difference between withholding a story because you won't tell it, and harboring a story because you can't tell it.

There are just a few circumstances that make it imposssible to tell your story. If you're sedated in the ICU with a tube down your throat, you can't tell your story, or if you've suffered one of those strokes that knocks out your speech center, or if your voice has beeen silenced because of throat cancer or head & neck trauma, you can't tell your story. That's understandable. 

"It's your reaction to adversity,

not adversity itself

that determines how your life's story 

will develop."

~Dieter F. Uchtdorf~

But then, there are all the excuses we dream up for refusing to tell our stories.

We convince ourselves we're not good at storytelling, or we don't know where to begin, so we never get started. Maybe it's a voice from the past that discourages us...a teacher who took her red pen to every assignment we turned in, or a kid down the block who ridiculed us for the poetry we wrote, or a submission that didn't make the cut. 

"This is how you do it:

you sit down at the keyboard and

you put one word after another

until it's done."

~Neil Gaiman~

Perhaps we just finished reading something like it, and feel as though we have nothing more to say on the subject. We doubt our worth, or our ability, or our talent, so we never tell our story. 

Maybe you're ashamed of what happened to you, or how you handled it. Perhaps you're afraid you'll offend someone if you tell the truth. Maybe the story still brings you to tears, or scares you, or mystifies you, so you won't tell us what happened, or how it changed you, or what you learned from it.

Storytelling is an act of courage. A transcendent portal to healing. It is a gift that connects us across time and space with the rest of humanity. Why would we withhold it?

I have been nudging several friends to tell their stories for years, but fear and shame have silenced them. Even though the tubes are out of their throats, and their wounds have healed, they are still hesitant to start, and afraid to fail. They can do it, but they won't. It's a shame because:

"The healing that can grow

out of the simple act of telling our stories 

is often quite remarkable."

~Susan Wittig Albert~

jan