Tell Me Something Good: A Proud Storytelling Novice by Louis Soto

I am a novice at storytelling. I say this not in lack of confidence, instead I say it proudly. I don’t have much experience in telling stories in public, or in an academic setting. That did not stop me from telling my first story. In fact, it is very natural to feel apprehensive about doing any academic, or personal work that may require you to speak. Let me tell you why you should consider exploring telling stories.

Stories have great abilities to transport you to far off places. They aid in understanding a different point of view. They can even teach you about another person. Most importantly they can teach you about who you are, and where you are going. One just needs to listen to their heart.

Albert Einstein in 1931 said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” (source) https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/01/01/einstein-imagination/

Storytelling, whether personal, fact-based, or traditional, calls on you to use your abilities to envision scenarios, plot, narratives, mood, and many descriptive elements that light up the brain. In fact, imagination creates more neurons and allows the brain to heal and develop. Why not use it? Not only to enrich your wellbeing, but to enhance the lives of your audience, friends, and family.

Jaimar Taurez from Neurotray, a website about neuropsychology states, “Imagination is the ability to create, at a cognitive level, images (or scenes) that are not present in the perceptual field of the person who articulates them and can be spiced by the inclusion of elements evoked in any sensory modality. In such a way, it is possible to reproduce situations from the past that not only involve visual content, but also the sensations that accompanied them (positive and negative). It also allows you to explore intangible ideas or concepts, and even combine them to generate innovative products that never existed or were not directly experienced.”

Liz Warren made me do it! What I mean by this is she is always challenging us to express our goals in an academic setting. In my short paragraph about my goals, I state "I have always been an animated type of person and have always created scenarios in my brain that are far-fetched in a real setting but have freedom in a story. Images of castles, spacecrafts, aliens, and fairies in an enchanted forest. These things are dear to me even if they are not quite plausible sometimes. In a story, they become, and they are alive more than ever no matter how far-fetched it is someone is always willing to listen.”

This is when I realized that stories were more than just words on a paper, more than beginning, middle, and end. I realized that stories were helping me understand myself and the world around me. I understand why I keep coming back because my brain is not only learning but healing.

If you’re worried about what storytelling can do for you, don’t be. There will be a moment of tension, there even might be a slight moment of discomfort, but I promise you that once you speak, allow yourself to tell a story. You will become free again. Be a proud novice and use your imagination.

References: Tuarez, Jaimar 2021. Nuerotray “What part of the brain controls imagination?” Accessed on January 18. 2023. http://neurotray.com//what-part-of-the-brain-controls-imagination/