Over the years, I’ve listened to a lot of stories…from my patients, among my friends, and in my own family. So, I spend a lot of time urging people I know to get their stories down…to enter them into a journal, or to confide in someone they trust. I beg them to write them down, to get them onto a canvas, or translate them into song or dance. (There’s more than one way to tell a story.) I do this because I know that storytelling can be a healing practice. In the words of poet Sean Thomas Dougherty, this is important because, as he puts it:
The story you share will help you make sense of your own experience…and, trust me, someone else, somewhere, needs to hear what you have to say. When people are struggling, they need to know that someone else has been through the same ordeal. They need to know where you turned for support, for strength, for comfort. They need to know how you survived. How you emerged victorious. Hearing your story may be just what they need to begin healing themselves.
It doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to understand how hearing or reading just the right story at just the right time can help with healing.
For example, you might gain a new perspective on an issue that has been troubling you. Perhaps you’ve been struggling with guilt after a friend committed suicide. You pick up a book like “The Ticking Is the Bomb” by Nick Flynn whose mother took her own life. His story looks at suicide differently. He considers the inevitability of it given the course of his mother’s life. After reading it, you might see things a little differently, too. It wasn’t your fault your friend found life unbearable. Perhaps you didn’t miss the clues because there were none. A layer of guilt falls away.
Healing.
Or maybe your friend has been diagnosed with cancer, and it doesn’t look good for her. You have no idea what to say or to do for her. You have no clue how to help. Then you pick up a novel like “Talk Before Sleep” by Elizabeth Berg, and you learn all the ways you can comfort and encourage her, and even bring a touch of humor to the situation.
Healing.
The process of telling your story may teach you something, too. Writing my childhood narrative taught me something I should have known. It taught me how mindful you must be when you care for people who are sick…especially children. You might not discover until it is too late that something you said or did, or that something you failed to say or do, had a devastating impact on your patient. The bitter aftermath of your life saving efforts might stalk him through life: fear, dread, despair.
Telling my story taught me the most important lesson of all: when you care for people who are sick, you need to anticipate their unspoken fears, to explain what is happening to them, and what they can expect. They need to know how to heal. They need to believe that healing is possible.
The question is: do you believe it?
Let’s find
out.
Here's a prompt to get you started:
Write for about ten minutes about a time you remember "WAITING..."
If that doesn’t resonate with you, write about something else. Whatever comes to mind. If just the thought of writing off the top of your head strikes fear and dread into your heart…maybe you can tell us why. The point is to write the first thing that comes up for you. Set a timer. When you're finished, read over what you have written. Better yet, read it out loud. To someone you trust.
Then, congratulate yourself. Why?
First of all, you wrote which, in and of itself, is an act of raw courage.
Second, you were willing to share your first unedited effort which is a mark of sheer humility and deep generosity.
Remember this:
The story you share might be just what someone else needs to
hear to begin healing.
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