What Story is Sitting On You? by Melissa Soza Fees

I almost missed it.  The power of personal stories to transform a person’s worldview as presented by Donald Davis in his TedTalk, “How the Story Transforms the Teller.”  It’s in his closing remarks and I think the first time I listened to it my mind was still visiting one of the images he had created for me - the family farm, the parking lot behind the bank, his father holding him on the train.  The second time, it landed with a weight. Donald Davis said he learned more about what he does “by helping people discover the stories that are sitting on them, and crawl out from under them …. because “the story has the remarkable power to completely change our whole relationship to what happened.”  Full stop.  My mind was filled with the implications of that powerful idea and I quickly shared it with my husband and five children.

I study storytelling on a dual-track.  The first is learning about the oral tradition and craft of Storytelling and the second is the use of personal stories as a transformational therapeutic tool.  My first experience with storytelling used in a therapeutic context was from Seena Jacob, Bookwallah Founder.  The therapeutic work of Bookwallah uses the triangle of book, child, and storyteller to build a social-emotional connection.  She focuses on fairytales because of their use of hope and happy endings and Bookwallah works to transform lives through the bonds of child and storyteller through these stories of hope.  

Then in my studies on Folktales came the Hero’s Journey module and I began to see the potential for teenagers to imagine themselves in their own Hero’s Journey.  The original idea of including a fact-based narrative with the psychological assessments I was completing was quickly joined with the idea of the student co-creating a story or Hero’s Journey of their own. Recently, several high school seniors shared that they were at their best with no stress.  That indeed would be a fairytale for today but what if instead, they understood the components of the Hero’s Journey and could incorporate their “stress” into such a framework.  Students could try different strategies and see them as the setbacks any Hero has on their journey and not abject defeat or the end of the story.

Donald Davis’ words have also begged another question.  What stories are sitting on the children who come for help and can the assessment process give them another story of themselves or better yet, help them crawl out from under a story and transform their relationship to it?  The work continues.  For now, I am imitating Claude Piaget and practicing on my own children as I continue to learn and grow as a Storyteller.  

The picture of Seen Jacob at the top of the post can be found on her Youtube page.

Comments

[Mindytarquini]

Lovely post, Melissa. Thank you.

[Kate C]

I love this post, and definitely am going to look up Seena and Bookwallah now. Lucky your kids and lucky anyone who ends up in a therapeutic context with you!