three questions you should ask yourself

 

I have a handful of friends whose stories I know inside out. I may have heard them over cup of coffee or a glass of good red wine, on a hike in the woods, or during a stroll on the beach. Getting them to write their stories down is a different task. I nag them to do it because there are people everywhere who need to hear from them. Someone who has recently been diagnosed with cancer needs to hear from someone who has been through it. It helps to know that they share the same feelings, that the diagnosis was devastating, the treatment grueling, and the recovery painstaking. They need to hear from someone who has been through it that there is hope. That a cure is possible. That victory is glorious no matter what it takes.

Among my friends is a woman who held her brother in her arms as his life slipped away after someone broadsided the car she was driving at an intersection. She was just sixteen years old. He was twelve.

Another woman lost three of her six children. A train took one down when he was eleven years old. That tragedy drove her second son to suicide. As if that weren’t enough, another one succumbed to an oppositional form of childhood leukemia.

Another friend of mine hasn’t seen her daughter, her only child, in over ten years…not since the day her ex absconded with the child to a war-torn country in the Middle East following a bitter divorce.

I could go on.

The point is, it took a long time for these stories to emerge. They were shared with me little by little, at odd moments, over a period of years. There are still some details my friends can’t bear to reveal, some for which there are no words. No way to describe the horrifying moment. To process its meaning. To live on in spite of it.

Which is why I continue to plead with them. Please…write it down for us. Tell us everything.

Why?

Because when we know someone’s story, we have a better shot at understanding who they are and what they’ve been through. We’re able to provide them with meaningful and appropriate support, encouragement, and care. We know when they need space. We get a glimpse into the dark side of their lives, and it doesn’t scare us.

Likewise, when someone tells their story, it helps allay their fear, dispel the anger they feel, and overcome the shame that has silenced them. The process of sharing your story with someone you trust leads you out of isolation.

"Tell us the story of the mountain you climbed.

Your words could become a page

in someone else's survival guide."

~Morgan Harper Nichols~

This why I encourage my friends to tell the rest of us what happened to them. To tell us how they got through it and how they go on today. How they get up in the morning and go to work. How they ever manage a smile. What gives them strength, or hope, or solace. What they still need from us.

The stories they could tell would be full of wisdom and insight. Even humor. They have something to teach all of us. To encourage us. To help us heal. If only they would begin.

I encourage them even though I know how hard it can be to get words on the page. To stay focused on the work at hand while sitting alone, in silence for long periods of time. To return to it again and again even though you sometimes feel like giving up. Perhaps the story is too painful to revisit. Too achingly sad to put into words. So confusing it doesn’t make sense.

If this resonates with you, please begin writing. Do it for the rest of us. Open a new document, or run out and get yourself a journal that strikes you as welcoming and forgiving. Go ahead. Put your name on it.

Still not convinced you should share your story? If you are keeping an untold narrative under lock and key, or a chapter tucked away somewhere in your heart, or a tender memory smoldering out of sight, ask yourself these three questions:

     1. What do I know?

Perhaps you lost a child. Maybe it happened because of a miscarriage no one saw coming. Perhaps someone convinced you to have an abortion when you were too young to understand what was happening…and now you can’t forgive yourself. Or maybe you spent an inestimable number of sleepless nights at your child’s bedside while he fought for his life, to no avail. You know everything there is to know about suffering. Everything the rest of us wish we knew.

"Write hard and clear

about what hurts."

~Ernest Hemingway~

     2. Who else needs to know it?

If you survived, someone else needs to know how you managed to pull it off. Someone, somewhere needs to know that healing is possible. It might be the father who suffers a disabling injury, or the parent of a child with special needs, or the woman who is hearing the word “cancer” for the first time. When you express your anguish, it gives them permission to admit theirs. The story of your journey may be a wellspring of hope for others. Your strength may be the only thing that keeps them standing under the weight of the burden they are carrying

     3. How will I tell them?

One painful word at a time. One affirmation after another. Honestly, openly, and courageously.

If you still can’t get started, try writing something else first. Maybe a poem or a letter.  Perhaps you should run out for some new paints and a fresh white canvas. Or raise your voice in song. Or put on some music and dance. There is more than one way to tell a story.

How will you tell yours?

When will you begin?

"When you stand and share your story...

your story will heal you and

your story will heal somebody else."

~Iyanla Vanzant~

jan